Pneumatic Valve Banks

[dbrblg]

Does anyone use pneumatic valve banks in their projects?

When we do our pneumatic drawings, we typically like to show the pneumatic solenoid port connections as part of a valve bank which shows which are mounted together and which are stand alone solenoids.  It also provides an opportunity to attach the components (valve base, end caps etc) to something so the will get ordered.

How do you typically show this?  I don't believe there are any global standards so I am interested whether this is the correct way and how others achieve this.

Thanks

[jseefdrumr]

We use valve banks (we usually call them valve stacks), but we don't do pneumatic drawings just yet. We're still a new and growing company, we typically don't implement something until we need it. But I have done a little research, because we all assume that whenever we get to that point it will be done in ACADE. My research showed me that not only is there an appalling lack of standards for anything dealing with pneumatic drawings, but there is also no consensus on whether it's best to manage catalog info and subassemblies for pneumatic components from the electrical side, or the pneumatic side.

As of now, we're leaning towards keeping everything for the valves in the electrical drawings. The solenoid symbol would keep all the info pertaining to it, and the rest would go to the valve stack symbol.

I attached an image showing how we account for this in the schematics. When needed, I keep all the catalog info in the symbol, with subassemblies, but it's not in any actual ACADE database. I just keep it there for reference because I know (hope) that someday we'll have a person to take care of this.

Jim

[robert_creel]

Our valve manifolds come in as an assembly, so there is only 1 number.

Presently, we just put solenoid symbols on the PLC output wires; there is a separate page with a manifold that has the individual valves labeled, and the hose color labeled. Eventually this drawing will be expanded to show cylinders, FRLs, and other components.

[TRLitsey]

Hi there,

One place I worked did it this way, kinda sort of.  The valve gangs were controlled by a DeviceNET type network.  We would have one sheet showing it as a valve gang(s) with power supply, address dip switch setting, solenoid PLC tag and description for solenoid function.  Another sheet in the schematic showed the DeviceNET complete network with each valve gang identified by position in the network and the node number and address.  The pneumatic schematic was done by the mechanical group and that was where they called out all of the hardware.

Good luck