Afford Marine provides robust performance with the AMC 300 PLC1

Indian automation solution provider Afford Marine Control Pvt Ltd recently upgraded the alarm monitoring system on an oil tanker, choosing the DEIF AMC 300 and AGI 410 to give the customer peace of mind with robust and reliable performance.

When your ship is weathering gale force winds and choppy seas, you need onboard equipment you can really trust. You need reliable performance no matter how much the hull is vibrating, and if you are a global shipping company, you need that performance in a wide range of climate conditions. Your business, and most importantly the safety of your crews, depend on it.

Afford Marine recommends DEIF

Indian automation solution provider Afford Marine Controls Pvt Ltd is well aware of this and consistently designs its solutions to deliver robust and reliable performance – all over the world. When the company was recently asked to upgrade the alarm monitoring system on an oil tanker, they chose the DEIF AMC 300 advanced programmable controller and AGI 410 advanced graphical interface .

Based on his experience of working with DEIF on the project, Technical Director Vinay Naik of Afford Marine does not hesitate to recommend the AMC 300 and AGI 410 to colleagues in the marine and offshore business.

“The AMC 300 is a robust PLC that can withstand high working temperatures and vibrations in marine environments,” he says. “And the AGI 410 is easy to set up to show what the client needs.”

Afford Marine Control Pvt Ltd

Founded: 2013

Headquarters: Mumbai, India

Services offered: marine, offshore, and industrial services including maintenance, repairs, and retrofit

A leader in the Indian marine sector

Founded in 2013, Afford Marine provides marine electrical and automation solutions to a long list of clients that includes several well-known global shipping companies.

“We bring growth to our clients’ businesses by reducing downtime and through timely technical advice and proper periodic maintenance procedures,” explains Vinay Naik. “In brief, we are ready to support our customers with all technical requirements. Our engineers are capable of handling all systems such as main engine controls, power management systems, and so on.”

Robust performance from DEIF

The company’s portfolio of services includes retrofits with customised design and development. For the oil tanker project, Afford Marine decided to partner with DEIF.

“The client wanted to upgrade the existing alarm monitoring system because it was obsolete,” says Vijay Naik. “The new system had to be able to communicate with third-party equipment via RS485, and we designed a solution that fulfilled all technical requirements and also included additional operator displays.”

Dissatisfied with the lead times of their normal PLC and HMI brand, Afford Marine needed to look elsewhere for a control solution. After a talk with DEIF, the search was over.

“We normally use a different brand of products, but the DEIF Mumbai team suggested that we try the DEIF AMC 300 PLC for our project,” says Vijay Naik. “So, we tried it and were happy with its performance. This PLC is also suitable for high-temperature, high-vibration environment projects. It’s a robust product.” The PLC will operate in temperatures from -40 to 70 °C and has superior bump, 50G shock, and vibration resistance properties.

“We tried the AMC 300 and were happy with its performance. This PLC is also suitable for high-temperature, high-vibration environment projects.”

Vinay Naik

Technical Director, Afford Marine Control Pvt Ltd

Watch the recorded webinar and learn how to save time and money with DEIF’s marine applications

User-friendly and easy setup

Apart from the built-in robustness, one of the advantages of using the AMC 300 was its CODESYS programming environment: Afford Marine’s programmers found the system easy to learn because it is very user-friendly and is similar to the development platform the team had previously used. Afford Marine selected EIM3.1, IOM3.2, IOM3.3, and IOM3.4 modules for the AMC 300; once again, using the DEIF solution made system design easy.

“It was easy to do the setup,” remarks Vijay Naik. “We used the modules for the main engine control and safety systems, and for various parameter data.” He adds that it was easy to set up the AGI 410 user interface to communicate with 3rd party equipment as per customer requirements, and to create multiple pop-ups and interfaces.

The entire process went smoothly, and when Afford Marine needed technical and commercial support, DEIF’s Mumbai team were ready to deliver.

Peace of mind with robust and reliable performance

The upgraded alarm monitoring system is now ready to give the customer peace of mind with robust and reliable performance, in line with Afford Marine’s ambition to provide best-fit product and service solutions to its growing customer base.

While the DEIF AMC 300 and AGI 410 may not have been the company’s initial choice of product, the upgrade process has convinced Vijay Naik and his colleagues that DEIF can be a valuable partner for Afford Marine. “I could see myself working with DEIF again on future projects,” he concludes.

AMC 300: robust PLC performance

The PLC will operate in temperatures ranging from -40 to 70 °C and in a relative humidity up to 97 % (condensing). It has superior bump, 50G shock, and vibration resistance properties, provides efficient protection against lightning impacts, and is immune to ESD bursts at a level conforming to international standards.

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Advanced Programmable Controller AMC 300

Fully production tested control system units
Designed for a lifetime no less than 10 years @ 40 ºC
Suitable for Offshore, Marine and near shore environments
Superior robustness to vibrations, bumps and shocks
Better ESD protection, Surge protection of I/O and Power supply
Warranty: 2 years (not including wearable parts) with option to 3 years.
Core specifications:
- Cold start-up/Operating temperature: -40 to 70 °C
- Storage temperature: -40 to 85 °C
- Climate: 55 °C 97 % RH condensing
- Altitude: < 4000 m
- Vibration : 2.1 g (3.2 to 50 Hz) 1.0g (13.2 to 100 Hz)
- Shock: 50 g, 11 ms, half sine
- Bump: 25 g, 6 ms, half sine
Multifunction I/O modules with 24V DC Digital Inputs, Digital Outputs, Relay Outputs, Voltage / Current Analogue Inputs, Thermocouples, PT100/1000 inputs, Frequency Counter inputs, PWM outputs.
Direct 3-phase 690 V voltage and 1/5A current measurement with class 0.5 Power measurement
Modular I/O concept with distributed I/O nodes based on Standard EtherCAT and supporting EtherCAT cable redundancy
CAN/CANopen, TCP/IP, RS-422/485 serial communication interfaces
Operating system software with fail-safe update
- DEIF In-house maintained OS
- Real-time Patched Linux
- Discover the device via hostname (mDNS services)
- Web based configuration
- Simplified update procedures (no special tools, same for OS and firmware)
- Secured Certificated based access by standard protocols
- Customer manages all users, rights and credentials
- Network config on build-in 5 port switch (VLANs)
- Network Time protocol support as both Client and Server
- Fail-safe system software start up with two OS images (active and fault-back)
- Fault-tolerant file system

Open software development with Linux, CODESYS V3 (IEC 61131-3)
- Regular updates to newest CODESYS V3.5 Service Packs
- Modbus TCP Client and Server library
- OPC UA Server (Open62541) library

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Programmable automation controller with EtherCAT based I/O AMC 600

Cold start-up/Operating temperature: -40 to 70 °C
Storage temperature: -40 to 85 °C
Climate: 55 °C 97 % RH condensing
Altitude: < 4000 m
Vibration : 2.1 g (3.2 to 50 Hz) 1.0g (13.2 to 100 Hz)
Shock: 50 g, 11 ms, half sine
Bump: 25 g, 6 ms, half sine

New platform formfactor – height of just 122 mm; depth 114 mm
Design lifetime of no less than 10 years at 40 ºC surrounding temperatures
Backplane mounted rack ensuring stable inter-module communication during operation in the entire products lifetime
Fully production tested control system units lowering in-sourcing costs for series production at customer
Suitable for Stationary, mobile, wind turbine retrofit
Increased mechanical robustness
Increased electrical protection levels ; ESD up to 6kV, up to 4kV on power inputs and 2kV on all signal and communication power for fast transients protections
Designed the input circuits with protections against failure connections
Cold start up in very low-temperature without pre-heating
Proven electronics design for demanding condensing climates
Built-in standard EtherCAT as native communication protocol for use as distributed I/O
High density IO modules
- 24V DC Digital Inputs, Digital Outputs, Voltage / Current Analogue Inputs, PT-100 inputs
Condition monitoring modules with High Frequency Analogue Inputs
Support for most widely used fieldbusses : CAN/CANopen, PROFINET, RS-422/485, TCP/IP ( OPC UA, Modbus TCP etc. )

Warranty: 2 years (not including wearable parts) with option to 5 totally years

Operating system software with fail-safe update
- DEIF In-house maintained OS
- Real-time Patched Linux
- Web based configuration
- Simplified update procedures (no special tools, same for OS and firmware)
- Secured Certificated based access by standard protocols
- Customer manages all users (Operator, Service and Administrator), rights and credentials
- Network configuration of the 2 independent network interfaces.
- Network Time protocol support as Client
- Fail-safe system software start up with two OS images (active and fault-back)
- Fault-tolerant file system
Web based configuration
User management
Programming with CODESYS V3.5 and C/C++
- Regular updates to newest CODESYS V3.5 Service Packs
Secure Web based visualization

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Advanced Controller AWC 500

Cold start-up/Operating temperature: -40 to 70°C
Storage temperature: -40 to 85 °
Climate: 55 °C 97 % RH condensing
Altitude: < 4000 m
Vibration : 2.1 g (3.2 to 50 Hz) 1.0g (13.2 to 100 Hz)
Shock: 50 g, 11 ms, half sine
Bump: 25 g, 6 ms, half sine
Direct 3-phase 690 V voltage and 1/5A current measurement, with class 0.5 Power measurement
Fully EtherCAT-based I/O and CAN, SSI, TCP/IP, RS-422/485 communication interfaces
Operating system software with fail-safe update
Fault-tolerant file system
Open software development with Linux, C/C++, CODESYS (IEC 61131-3)