Controlling Pneumatic Blast Gates

[Anthony Spotorno]

I was wondering if anyone knows of a premade system to control the pneumatic blast gates. I have seen some youtube video's on people making their own controller using arduino, however, was looking at a premade automation tool of some sort to hook up the gates and turn them on when I turn on the machines. Some of those people wrote programming to control the arduino processor and I'm not sure I want to handle that.

I've got sources for the gates, and understand that I'd need to run air hoses / wires to each machine... All that is pretty simple. I have Martin equipment / ALKO and all of them are prewired for automatic gates.

I would need a system that can manage 13 gates

P.S. Do not need to mention IVac... I have IVac today on all my gates today, but it is just not reliable... I spend way too much time restarting / rebooting the system for my tastes and most of my gates are up towards the ceiling out of reach so it is a major pain in the butt!! My plan is to sell that entire system when I replace them with pneumatic and or other electrical industrial gates.

[Alex Zeller]

I'm not sure I would do a "system" to control them. A simple electro pneumatic valve wired to the output side of the switch on each tool would be all you need.

[Anthony Spotorno]

Well, most of the Martin equipment is electronically controlled, and 3ph 480v. I do not mind switches to turn on / turn off. If there are no pre built systems out there I'm going to get one and see what I can jury-rig up...

[Malcolm McLeod]

Well, most of the Martin equipment is electronically controlled, and 3ph 480v. I do not mind switches to turn on / turn off. If there are no pre built systems out there I'm going to get one and see what I can jury-rig up...

Lots of alternatives for DIY -

• If the equipment has a spare contact, or the starter supports adding an Aux contact, then run a wire pair from there back to a solenoid valve; valve sends air to the gate.
• If the equipment has a 'hot' wire, say to the motor or a 'running' status light, tie in there and send that signal to the solenoid valve (of suitable coil voltage).**
• If equipment has dedicated breakers, then a current-sensing switch can be clipped on the equipment's feed wire (in the CB panel). This switch, and wires from it, signals the solenoid valve, as above.

You can get manifold mounted valves, place the manifold near your compressor, then signal wire and pressure tubing is routed to the equipment (and/or CB panel) - maybe zip-tied to the DC ducting? Spring-return air cylinders mean you only need 1 tube per gate - and solenoid valves are simple 3-way, 2-pos units.

These options don't require any logic unit (CPU) - Arduino or PLC - but you lose some subtlety in control :: the gate will be 'signaled' to close immediately on equipment shutdown. If you do nothing, some material may be left in the duct (How serious is this? ...It just gets cleared on next cycle.). If it IS serious, you can install a flow control valve on the vent port of the valve and control how fast the air bleeds off - - and so, how quickly the gate closes.

You can also get this 'gate hold' function with off-delay timing relays, but with 13 tool ports - each needing its own timer, I suspect you'll quickly hit the cost of some kind of CPU.

**Mr. Zeller's solution.

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PS - I have toyed with the idea of using electric actuators, not pneumatic. It means no valves, no compressor, no tubing. Biggest hold-up, other than my inertia, is my lack of faith in the (insert Xenophobic slur of your choice) suppliers of the actuators. ...I just see spending 1 week building a system, and the actuator will last 2. My luck.

[Anthony Spotorno]

Quick update. I contacted BlastGatCo (I've bought quite a bit of pipe / fittings from them and recommend them highly) and low and behold they have pneumatic gates both manual and automatic (electrically triggered), additionally they have manual lever's that can be positioned near each machine to activate the gates. The automatic gates can be set to manual mode for the short term, then converted to automatic operation when I'm ready...

I've also ordered some trigger's. These go on the gates and send a signal to another device that the gate is open or closed. I'm hoping that I can wire this up to my AlKo 200 and have it automatically turn on / off when the gate is open.

That obviously means that I might have some dust in the chute so to speak if they close too fast, but I got some exhaust regulators that will slow down the close by a few seconds. Gonna see how that works...

I'll let everyone know how the process proceeds, there are not many pneumatic gate threads here. I guess most people either use the IVac system or use the manual method.