1. Case Study
PASSIONATE ABOUT ENGINEERING
Creep Crane for Large Aircraft Manufacturer
Iconsys, Iconsys House, Hortonwood 33, Telford, TF1 7EX, UK
T +44 (0)1952 607300 F +44 (0)1952 607333 info@iconsys.co.uk www.iconsys.co.uk
PROJECT OVERVIEW
The crane system consists of two gantry cranes in a master slave configuration each with two cross travel Hoist Crabs. All movements
are controlled via one radio hand held operator panel which operates relays interfacing with a PLC on the master crane. Originally the
master crane interfaced with the cross travel crabs via Mauell IO units to extend the signals across a bus-bar and collector system. The
bus bar communication system was reported to be troublesome and the main cause of downtime. The master crane interfaced with the
slave crane via a radio communication link and then onto the slave cross travel crabs via another set of Mauell IO units communicating
via a different bus-bar and collector system.
CS0012
Original control setup
Old system
(signal flow from Slave Hoist crab IO to
Master crane PLC):
Slave Hoist crab IO
Slave Hoist crab Maurer unit
Slave crane Maurer unit
Slave crane radio transmitter
Master crane radio receiver
Master crane PLC
Continued on next page...

2. Case Study
PASSIONATE ABOUT ENGINEERING
Iconsys, Iconsys House, Hortonwood 33, Telford, TF1 7EX, UK
T +44 (0)1952 607300 F +44 (0)1952 607333 info@iconsys.co.uk www.iconsys.co.uk
CS0012
New Control Setup
PROJECT FEEDBACK
The Customer was very happy with the end result as a more
reliable system was designed, installed and commissioned and
handed back to production well within shutdown period.
PROJECT SOLUTION
Iconsys proposed to remove al the Maurer units thus making the
Bus Bar communications redundant by using Siemens remote
IO at each location connected to the PLC via a wireless device.
As each location had a wireless connection this enabled us to
also remove the radio communications between the two cranes.
The original system worked on a basis of ‘relaying’ signals from
one location to another using both the Maurer units and the radio
communications therefore the hardwired IO was significantly
reduced once the wireless system was in place.
New system
(signal flow from Slave Hoist crab IO to Master crane PLC):
Slave Hoist crab IO
Master crane PLC
Ascanbeseenfromtheaboveexampleofsignalflow,thenewsystem
reduced the amount of hardware for all remote IO connections
and with the removal of the problematic devices the project was a
great success.