It controls the booms and spouts that carry grain from the company's 4.5 million-bushel storage facility into the holds of the huge ships that line the docks of the Mississippi River. Before using radio control, workers operating the loading functions had to maneuver a heavy cable and pendant control box that weighed 25 pounds. Besides being cumbersome, the pendant was difficult to position for optimum visibility. Cable was constantly down because of damage from dockside vehicles or rips when the cable was secured to a ship that broke loose from its mooring. In addition to endangering the operator, the entire junction box would sometimes get pulled out of the boom tower.
Operators can now position themselves at any point to see the placement of the loading spouts.
Seven control systems are used, all of which can be operated at the same time without interfering with each other. Beating Mother Nature Brief interruptions in electrical service are costly when they affect industrial processes that require continuous power. Fla. This flexibility is demonstrated by two DVR installations commissioned last December. One was made in Australia at Bonlac Foods Ltd.'s Stanhope dairy. Florida Power Corp. also installed a DVR unit at its Econ substation in Orlando.