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Cleartech - Automated Dairy Effluent System


Cleartech has been one of our R&D projects with Ravensdown and Lincoln University for the past couple of years. It started off as an idea and has come to be a fully automated effluent control system for dairy farms throughout New Zealand.


Currently in the process of rolling these systems out all over New Zealand, we fly around and commission them when needed. Click here for there website


cleartech



Ravensdown - Sulphuric Acid Plant Conversion


This is an original sulphuric acid plant from 1969. With the entire place in existing conduit wire. We built a new MCC and upgraded the PLC and control to 24v DC


Currently in the process of rolling these systems all over New Zealand, we fly around and commission them when needed. Click here for there website


cleartech



Ravensdown, New Plymouth - Precision Blending Tower with dispatching shuttle conveyor


After the success of the Ravensdown Hornby plant, it was decided to build a new plant in the New Plymouth site. Using the same company for the engineering - PW engineering from Dunedin, and again us as the automation electricians to get this new plant up and running. Design build is our favorite style as we can start from scratch and get the componentry perfect for the job.


This plant which is built in a brand new facility (the largest building in Taranaki), has another MCC room built off site in a shipping container and installed as a whole unit. The blending plant has two elevators and a Heavy Intensity Mixer as well as two Bulk Toters, a Rotary Screen, Bagging Plant, 4 Conveyors, a Bulk Conditioner, Shuttle Conveyor and the other usual things you would find with fertilizer.


blendingtower2

blendingtower1


Ravensdown, New Plymouth - Truck Intake System


Along with the Blending Plant, they needed to get the fertilizers from the trucks into the building, they opted for a custom built system by PW Engeneering and had it shipped up and installed.


This was a really fun system to install, a feed conveyor into a duel 55 kw motor elevator landing onto a 150m long conveyor belt with tripper, supplying the fertilsers to 5 bay conveyors with trippers as well. The entire system is fully automated, controled via a touchscreen.


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Mercury - 1957 Ford Fairlane Electric Conversion


Possibly our hardest undertaking yet, from start to finish we had 6 weeks to complete this. With the right people on board anything is possible. The car itself is incredible, top of the line in it's day, a classic.


To get the power we needed to move this heavy beauty, we went for a Siemens electric bus motor and 218 lithium battery cells.


mercury


Ravensdown, Hornby - Precision Blending Tower


The new tower offers rapid and accurate blending of fertilizers to precise custom formulations according to each farmer's needs. The mix is fed directly to a waiting delivery truck, minimizing handling and dust. With a capacity of 250t/hour and a turnaround time of only six minutes per truck, it is three times faster than the older systems. The precision blending tower, the first in Australasia, is a $6 million upgrade to the co-op's Hornby plant that took three years to plan and construct. The heart of the system is a 32m high mixing tower supplied by the American company Sackett and Son.


For this project we installed Stainless steel wire baskets and acid-proof wiring throughout the entire tower. The main power is fed via duel 500mm2 aluminum cables supplying the MCC which is installed in a 20ft container. 15 ABB soft starts of various sizes and 1 ABB VFD to run the main motors of the plant. The control system is an Allen-Bradley Compact Logix PLC.


blendingtower1

blendingtower2


Cadburys - Condensate Recovery System


Condensate contains a significant amount of sensible heat that can account for about 10% to 30% of the initial heat energy contained in the steam. Reusing hot condensate can lead to considerable savings in terms of energy and water resources, as well as improve working conditions and reduce the plant's carbon footprint. This new system we installed saves about 250kw every hour. The system is fully accessable via a new touch screen panel view.


cadbury


Ravensdown, Hornby - New EX Sulphur Store


The new sulphur store was rated as a Zone 22 explosive area and required EX hazardous area motors and proximity sensors. CFL opted for intrinsic barriers and matching cables for the sensors. Stainless steel wire baskets and even a stainless steel switchboard were installed in consideration of the highly corrosive chemicals present at the factory.


sulphurstore


"Kermit" the green Honda Insight - Electric Car Conversion


This Honda Insight has been converted to electric for 2 years and has provided 20,000Km of maintenance free driving. Its weight is 960 kg and has 141 CALB cam 72 batteries installed.


The 33Kwh battery pack (0.5Kwh 12v system) makes this Honda Insight the only car in New Zealand, apart from a Tesla, to travel 260Km on one single charge on the open road on a frosty night with the heater going.


The car has a reverse cycle heat pump which draws 150w from the main battery pack to heat the car. The car can be fast-charged with 125A, using Charge Net's fast charging net work, which is being installed all over New Zealand.


sulphurstore


Ravensdown, Dunedin - Rotary Chute EX Upgrade


This is a Zone 22 classified location where ignitable concentrations of combustible dust could be present. We moved the majority of electrical apparatus out of the zoned area. Everything left we upgraded to EX rated devices for the zone.


rotary chute


Cadburys, Dunedin - Starch Mill EX Upgrade


Starch has an autoignition point of 410 °C, thus making it dangerously reactive. The starch room itself was rated as a Zone 22 explosive area needing a safety upgrade, so CFL replaced all motors, isolators, and baskets to standards. New gland plates for cable entry went into the room while all controls and solenoid valves moved out of it.


cadbury starch mill


Red Honda Insight - Electric Car Conversion


The 860 Kg red Honda Insight is the most efficient car in NZ. We installed 94 cam 72 CALB cells when we converted the car from hybrid to full electric. The 21.5 Kwh pack provides the car with a driving range of 160 Km in the momentousness Dunedin terrain.


The Honda now uses 115 Wh/Km on the open road and 90 Wh/Km when driving in town.


red honda insight


Cadburys, Dunedin - Chocolate Tank Level Sensing


Automation is on the rise and the quality of instrumentation devices are continuously improving, and so both are increasingly finding themselves sharing responsibilities and even occupancy. Since tank sizes and chocolate consistencies vary, we employed ultrasonic level sensors, as well as laser sensors, to register the level of the tanks on a trending graph in an office.


choclate tank level


Blueskin Nurseries, Waitati - 11Kw Solar Plant


This 11 KW solar installation uses a SMA Solar-inverter that sends an email every morning to Blueskin Nurseries with the stats of power generated the day before. The next step for the Cafe and Garden Center is to connect an on-grid battery storage system to the existing solar system.


blueksin solar