A major glass manufacturer called ACES with a conundrum: One of their large glass cutting tables was acting erratically. This piece of equipment is used to trim 10′ x 10′ sheets of glass down into smaller pieces for use in the automotive and construction…
For several years ACES has serviced a 80s-era cotton gin with functional mechanical parts, but a legacy control system dating back to the 1990s. One day a Control Systems Inspector (CSI) was called to the scene when a relay output card failed on the bale…
ACES partnered with Bogh Industries, experts in burners, ovens, heat-treat and mechanical engineering, on major design revisions to an oven in Chandler, AZ. This machine is part of a production facility which…
ACES routinely maintains a legacy oven at an aircraft plant that is used to cure composite parts for long periods at relatively low temperatures. Recently the customer had been having issues with identifying serial numbers for aircraft parts, which were…
A purchaser and transporter of crude oil products contacted ACES with a challenge relating to one of their LACT stations. A LACT unit (Lease Account Custody Transfer) is the critical control system in an oil pumping station, which measures and regulates…
Oil fields of Canada hold an estimated 169 billion barrels, second only to Saudi Arabia in potential oil production. The challenge lies in extracting the particularly sticky, semi-solid bitumen from the sand. Enhanced Oil Recovery…
THE MYSTERY One of ACES’ customers manufactures drums and containers for industrial uses. They called us due to an issue with their helium tester, a machine which injects the gas into newly manufactured barrels, seals them and raises them into a vacuum chamber to be…
THE MYSTERY A correctional facility was having problems with one of their industrial, horizontal-running dryers. The Case of the dead dryer drum. The dryer drum refused to budge. The customer had pressed the reset button with no effect, so they called in the experts…
A manufacturer of industrial packaging systems such as barrels and drums owned a bead expander that kept faulting. The ACES’ CSI (Control Systems Operator) initially worked with the customer over the phone to identify a bad motion card as the likely…
THE MYSTERY An ACES customer manufactures tortilla chips, using a 30-year-old multi-hopper weigher to measure chips for bagging. The machine was faulting and the customer had worked with factory tech support to troubleshoot it themselves, but after replacing $12,000…
