INDUSTRIAL AUTOMATION 314 EXPERIMENTS MANUAL

PROGRAM: BACHELOR OF TECHNOLOGY: POWER & ELECTRONIC

ENGINEERING (07BPEN & 07BEL)
FULL SUBJECT NAME: INDUSTRIAL AUTOMATION 314
SUBJECT CODE: IUT611S
SEMESTER: 1ST SEMESTER
LECTURER: ELIFAS NGONGA
LAB TECHNICIAN: ROBBY TJIWEMU
Code of conduct in the electrical workshop
All students in the workshop are expected to adhere to the following guidelines, this is
compulsory.
1. Safety First. Be observant at all times. Do not touch/switch “ON” any equipment or circuits
that you have not received permission to do so. Always ask the Lab Technician if you need
help/clarification. Do not act like you know and respect all voltage levels.
2. All the lab sessions are compulsory, if the student fails to attend she/he will get zero for that
particular lab exercise.
3. If a particular lab exercise is have a pre-lab exercise, the student has to complete the pre-lab
before the day of the execution of the lab experiment. No student will be allowed to carry
out the lab experiment before completing the pre-lab.
4. Students must be punctual; because the lab doors will be locked 10minutes after the lab
session has commenced.
5. All the students have to produce their own student cards to gain access to the lab.
6. No bags are allowed on the workbench, next to the entrance in front of the lab. We do not
take responsibility for the loss of students’ bags or its contents thereof. The department has
lockers obtainable from the Dean’s secretary for a minimal fee per semester.
7. The lab is a cell phone free zone. Switch off your cell phones and leave it in the bag or keep
it in your pockets.
8. Each student will have a workbench allocated to him or her, meaning that everyone will be
responsible for the equipment on his or her bench.
9. Under no circumstances will the student use any other bench other than the one allocated
to them, unless instructed by the supervisor to do so.
10. The equipment may not be moved from one bench to the other or outside the lab premises.
If the student needs something extra on the bench he/she can request it from the
supervisor.
11. Any damage to the lab equipment while in the student’s use should be reported
immediately to the supervisor. If found negligent, the cost of such damage will be deducted
from your student account.
12. During experiments, do not switch ON the Power Supply until the supervisor has granted
you permission to do so.
13. Each student must do the design and build the circuit prior to the evaluation session, and no
one must leave the lab unless their circuits have been tested & the results satisfy the
supervisor.

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 14. Strictly, No eating, drinking, smoking, sleeping, games, jokes, running around, climbing on
the benches and playing in the lab.
15. Students have to pay attention to the announcements made by the supervisor during labs
sessions.
16. Students not in the same group are not allowed to render assistance to other groups; hence,
moving around in the lab whilst experiment is in progress is prohibited.
17. All the equipment must be switched off unless otherwise instructed not to do so by your
supervisor.
18. All the students are responsible for picking up papers & any form of dirt on the lab floor
around their benches as well as for cleaning their benches after using the lab.
19. NB. Should the student misbehave in the lab he or she will be disciplined accordingly.
20. Discipline may be deduction of marks, zero marks awarded, expulsion from that particular
lab exercise etc., based on the judgment of the severity of the act by the supervisor.
21. Refusal to comply with disciplinary duties will result in expulsion from the labs for the whole
semester.
22. Always give your lab experiments full concentration and try to understand the Laboratory
exercise’s objectives. Do not aim to pass but aim to learn and understand the practical
concepts being tested in the experiment.
NB: THERE ARE NO SECOND OPPORTUNITIES FOR EXPERIMENTS
All students are expected to abide by the NUST Power Laboratory Code of Practice as stipulated
above. Although students will work in teams to carry out the experiments, each student is required
to submit his/her own lab report. Lab reports MUST be done individually. It is a code of practice
violation to submit another person’s work as your own OR to allow your work to be submitted as
another person’s work. It is also a code of practice violation to copy and paste from internet sources
and reference books. Students whose Lab reports are found contravening this part of the code of
practice will attract zero marks.

EXPERIMENT NUMBER EXPERIMENT PAGE NO

1. INDUSTRIAL AUTOMATION 314 (IUT611S) – Introductory 1
Lab
2. RELAY LOGIC AND PLC PROGRAMMING 4
3. THREE PHASE MOTOR CONTROL (FORWARD/REVERSE 7
CONTROL)

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 INDUSTRIAL AUTOMATION 314 (IUT611S) – Introductory Lab

Student Name: ______________________ Student Number: ______________________

Bench No: ______________ Power/ Elec Date: _______________

CONTACTORS AND TIMERS

OBJECTIVES:

 To learn how timers and contactors work.

 To learn the importance of timers and contactors

EQUIPMENT:

 Motor Control Trainer panel

 Lab Leads

MARKS OBTAINED:

Lab Exercise 10

Post lab 8
16
Report
TOTAL 34

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LAB EXERCISE

INSTRUCTIONS/QUESTION:

You are an Engineering Technician, a member of a design team working on concrete mixing
for a construction project. There is mixing tank and two pumps, Pump A for a mixture of sand
+stones and Pump B for water. Your company wants an automated process i.e. when the
mixing tank is full of sand & stones, Pump A should stop and water should start flowing in, but
at the same time your company does not want you to use sensors, for cost reasons. But since
you know the flow rate of Pump A and the capacity of the mixing tank, this should not be a
problem, because knowing the two, you can easily know the time it takes the mixing tank to
get full.

Since it is your task,

 Draw a power diagram for the scenario described. (5)
 Draw a control circuit diagram for the automated process with contactors, timer and
lamps (to represent motors/pumps). (10)
 Connect up the circuit diagram you have drawn.
POST-LAB
1. Did your control circuit worked according to specification? If no explain how the circuit can
be improved to ensure that it works as required. (5)
2. Reflect on this lab experiment, were there any challenges faced during the experiment? How
did you overcome the challenges? Summarise the main lessons learned in this experiment.
(3)

General Lab Report Instructions

General rules about lab reporting (applicable to all the subsequent lab reports of this semester):
 Please use MS word to type your report.
 Please write the following info on the front page of your report (use the cover page
of the specific lab manual):
 Course code & name
 Experiment number & name
 Your name and student #
 Your report should include at least the following sections:
 Introduction
 Objectives

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  Answers to Pre-Lab Questions
 Experiment results
 Analysis of results
 Answers Post-Lab Questions
 Conclusion

Compulsory: Make the cover page of this manual (lab 1) the cover page of your report.

NB: All Lab reports are due on the same date one week after the lab experiment was
conducted before 12h30.

COPYING OF OTHER STUDENTS, REFERENCE BOOKS OR INTERNET SOURCES WILL ATTRACT ZERO
MARKS.

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 INDUSTRIAL AUTOMATION 314 (IUT611S) – LAB 2

Student Name: ______________________ Student Number: ______________________

Bench No: ______________ Power/ Elec Date: _______________

RELAY LOGIC AND PLC PROGRAMMING

OBJECTIVES:

 To learn how control circuits can be converted into a PLC program,

 To learn the importance of PLC in Automation Engineering,
 To translate texts into control circuit diagram, and understand the practical
application of relay logic, and ladder diagrams.

EQUIPMENT:

 Motor Control Trainer panel

 Lab Leads

MARKS OBTAINED:

15
Pre-Lab
10
Lab Exercise
Post lab 13
Report 16
TOTAL 44

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INSTRUCTIONS/QUESTION:

PRE-LAB [15]

1. Design a relay logic control circuit that can be used to control two motors as follows:
start MOTR1 immediately and MOTOR2 only after MOTOR1 has started and the
green light is ON. The start button is of push button type and the system should
incorporate a STOP button. Both motors must have OVERLOAD sensors, and
indication lights must be used to indicate the status of each motor (i.e. motor started
or stopped). (5)
2. Draw the ladder diagram for the above control logic and write down the
corresponding Instruction List (IL). (10)

LAB EXERCISE [10]

1. Connect up the control circuit that you designed during the pre-lab exercise.
2. Call the supervisor to get switch on authority.
3. Switch on the supply and test whether your control circuit is working according to
specification.

POST-LAB [10]
1. Did your control circuit worked according to specification? If no explain how the
circuit can be improved to ensure that it works as required. (5)
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2. Name four (4) basic types PLC programming languages? (2)

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 3. Of the four basic types of PLC programming languages you mentioned in q2, which one did
you used during the Lab exercise? Briefly explain the principle application of anyone type of
PLC programming language that was not used in the Lab? (3)
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4. Reflect on this lab experiment, were there any challenges faced during the experiment? How
did you overcome the challenges? Summarise the main lessons learned in this experiment.
(3)

Lab Report Instructions – Follow the same general format for lab reports.

Compulsory: Make the cover page of this manual the cover page of your report.

NB: All Lab reports are due on the same date one week after the lab experiment was
conducted before 12h30.

COPYING OF OTHER STUDENTS, REFERENCE BOOKS OR INTERNET SOURCES WILL ATTRACT ZERO
MARKS.

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 INDUSTRIAL AUTOMATION 314 (IUT611S) – LABORATORY EXPERIMENT 3

Student Name: ______________________ Student Number: ______________________

Bench No: ______________ Power/ Elec Date: _______________

THREE PHASE MOTOR CONTROL (FORWARD/REVERSE CONTROL)

OBJECTIVES:
 To learn how to design and operate a three-phase induction motor in either a forward or
reverse direction of rotation using star-delta starting scheme.
 To translate texts into a f u n c ti o n a l control circuit diagram and understand the
practical application of relay logic and PLC in Automation Engineering.

EQUIPMENT:
1. PLC
2. Three phase induction motor
3. Multimeter
4. Lab Leads

MARKS OBTAINED:

Pre-Lab 23

Lab Session 20

Post lab 10

Report 16

TOTAL 69

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 EXPERIMENT INSTRUCTIONS

PRE-LAB [23]
1. Design a forward /reverse three phase motor starter, using contactors. The
motor must be connected in delta at start. It must first pass through zero before it
changes direction. The motor must be able to be shut down at any time. Draw
both the power and control circuits. Include two indicati on lights to show the
status of the motor “DELTA/STAR”. (10)

2. Design a PLC Ladder logic programme that can be used for the scenario in
question one.
Variable declaration (3)
IL program (5)
3. Draw the ladder diagram and write down the corresponding Instruction List (IL).
Ladder diagram (5)

LAB EXERCISE [20]

1. Wire the given control panel in accordance with your design. Call the supervisor to
inspect your connection and to give you switch ‘ON’ authority. Your design should
work according to the sequence stated, if not, make necessary corrections to your
design, explaining what you did wrong.

POST-LAB [10]
1. Reflect on this lab experiment, did your circuit work as specified at first attempt? If not, what
did you have to correct/modify so that it work according to specification? Were there any
challenges faced during the experiment? How did you overcome the challenges? Summarise
the main aspects learned in this experiment.

2. Relate the e x p e r i m e n t t o a r e a l or industrial environment and give at least two

practical examples on the application of this type of motor control.

Lab Report Instructions – Follow the same general format for lab reports.
Compulsory: Make the cover page of this manual the cover page of your report.

NB: All Lab reports are due on the same date one week after the lab experiment was
conducted before 12h30.

COPYING OF OTHER STUDENTS, REFERENCE BOOKS OR INTERNET SOURCES WILL ATTRACT ZERO
MARKS