00:07
Well, my family's been farming
00:12
My grandfather farmed apricots and
prunes in Santa Clara valley in the
00:17
early nineteen hundreds, and my father
has been in farming all of his life, and
00:22
I grew up on a farm.
00:25
At California Controlled Atmosphere we
provide our customers with a high-quality
00:30
refrigeration system. That refrigeration
system allows our customers to get their
00:35
fruit to the market at the highest
quality level possible.
00:40
My name is Doug Gerdts. I went to UC Davis
and studied horticulture and post-harvest
00:49
pomology, and while I was there I also
took electives in computer programming
00:58
I started working in the industry in
packing houses and quality control.
01:02
You know trying to maintain quality for
fruit and seeing what the potential is
01:07
to do automation is was what interested me in doing what I'm doing.
01:14
Cold storage allows us to pick the fruit
at a high maturity. Getting that product
01:21
cold quickly makes a huge difference in
getting that quality product to the
01:26
So we're monitoring temperatures very
close to the freezing temperature of the
01:31
We're monitoring hummidity. In some cases we monitor oxygen, carbon dioxide.
01:37
We also monitor for ammonia leaks. in the environment that we have
01:42
we're both exposing the sensors to high
levels of water and corrosive
01:48
So, the temperature sensors and
evaporator coils that we make have to
01:54
stand up to those conditions.
01:56
We just finished a project that is
storing table grapes. They store for a
02:02
number of months so we have to maintain a high level of accuracy when we're
02:07
storing them. The installation included
our control systems and evaporator coils
02:13
and our system design. Each of the
refrigeration zones has a number of
02:22
They are remotely controled to our switch
and light panels with the Opto 22
02:27
hardware. With Opto 22 we've been able to
02:31
maintain systems for a long period of
time and keep them operating without
02:37
having to change out the whole system.
02:40
I've been able to integrate the SNAP
system in with projects that we put
02:44
together back in the early nineteen
nineties. The iOS is very hardy. We're
02:51
able to do most of our controls directly
through the output modules without any
02:57
interposing relays. With the the I/O
racks we can have an individual power
03:03
supply for each output module. Each
output module is fused. the Groov allows
03:09
us to have a number of operator panels
that run off of the same screens. Each
03:17
one. We don't have to build a new
set of screens for each operator panel.
03:25
when I grow up we were harvesting
oranges and the crew was my family.
03:31
It's actually been very good to come to
CalCA and have that same feeling. We're
03:36
a big family and everybody watches out
for each other,
03:40
makes sure everybody has the support we need.