Repotenciación de una secadora mecánica de cacao mediante la implementación de instrumentación y control electrónico

Abstract

This project is developed in the Ecuadorian agricultural environment, seeking to take steps towards the industrialization of this sector, which has many years of technological backwardness due to the lack of government policies that benefit small farmers. The process addressed during the development of this project was the drying of cocoa, by integrating automation and control to a manual dryer. This was possible by incorporating a motor for mixing the seeds whose speed is modulated with a frequency inverter, an automatic flame ignition system along with a device to force the transmission of heat by convection, monitored and controlled by sensors, a PLC and an HMI. In addition, it should be noted that in order to reduce implementation costs, equipment with free applications for programming was used, since this shortens the investment recovery time. In addition, mechanical analysis of the system was carried out to guarantee its safe operation.