Retrofit and Upgrading Equipment

IPS Custom Automation was awarded a contract to retrofit a 30+ year old Detonator Loader to produce a different item. This loader had been producing the M55 detonator, but had not been used for many years. Very few assembly and detail drawings were available. IPS was contracted to convert the machine to run the M82 detonator which was a little larger than the M55 and had a different explosive powder. IPS began by sending an engineering crew to the site to dismantle the old tooling and take dimensions of the base machine so a new set of detail drawings could be created.

While this engineering phase was proceeding, it was determined by the Army that instead of retrofitting the machine to run the M82 detonator, they first needed to run a Booster Lead Cup. The Booster Lead Cup is several times larger than the M55 or the M82 detonators. After reviewing the impact of the changes throughout the Loader, IPS committed to retrofit the machine to run the Booster Lead Cup at no change in the contract price or delivery.

The scope of this project included:

Reverse engineering the existing M55 tooling and workstations to establish a drawing package to use as a basis for design of the new tooling so that both old and new sets of tooling are interchangeable.
Design and build new Powder Guides, Dies, etc. for the 24 stations on the Loader.
Controls Engineering – Make control programming changes to existing program to accommodate all station changes. Required on-site programming and debug.
On-site Installation, Debug & System Testing of the completed system