Armadillo852

Paul, I know crane operations are safe. A lot of people use them. The issue I have is the reaction time. As I have never done this, nor have I looked at it, I am no expert. I have always had issue with a few things: 1) What is the reaction time and how long does it take before the "machine" stops? 2) What about frequencies? If you have multiple wireless devices, would there be interferences? Not saying this ever happens, but what if someone had something with the same frequency broadcasting and an accidental start/stop occurred? 3) How would you decide the "heartbeat" time? I guess it would be broadcast timeout. You need it long enough to not cause faults, but yet short enough to not have a big lag. 4) What about line of site? I always like to have line of site for any commanded motion. My theory is, if I want to have line of site, why do I need wireless? The crane is different because there are issues with going over things in which you cannot always climb over. Back to number 2, which is my biggest concern and I will explain why here. We had numerous stand alone welding machines we had been running for years with no issues. We added some sensors to these machines when we added automatic nut feeders. They were standard off the shelf Turk sensors. I was working on a machine next to it when all of a sudden the machine cycled for no apparent reason. This happened a few times while I was standing there. I called my boss out to look at this with me as I did not see anything where and why it would cycle by itself. He looked, I looked, and then the production supervisor came over to ask what was going on because, of course, he saw it cycle and they "NEED" to run production. I told him what happened and he got on his radio and called his boss. As soon as he keyed his mic, the machine cycled. We did this several more times with the same outcome. To make a longer story shorter. Come to find out, Turk made some sensors with the wrong switching frequency. The same frequency as our radios. Which, by the way, need to be registered with the FCC and can only broadcast on a certain frequency band. This is why I have the issue with it. Now, if you tell me the manufacturer can without a doubt guarantee this will never happen, I would be very interested in wireless. But until then, I have my doubts because of the above. Please don't take this as wanting to start an argument or anything bad. I just wanted to voice my thoughts. I am all for wireless. I have used it for robots before and works great for I/O in non-critical applications.

I didn't study the whole thing, just skimmed threw it. But there are 2 things I noticed right away: 1) Comments. VERY VERY NICE. That is a big key is making sure the comments are there for troubleshooting and understanding. 2) You used one timer to trigger everything. Again, I like this. It eliminates wasted memory and makes it easier to follow. If it works, I say good job. Was this for a school project or just something to just do? I like doing things like that just to pass the time when I am in the office bored. Which I am at the moment.

We have done them both ways without issues. I prefer to use internal because it is there and you paid for it. What we have done is always run a separate input card strictly for feedback. Thus making sure all the commons are the same. The key is to document very well that this card is strictly for the feedback and not any other inputs.

Sorry about that. I forgot to add the link for the touchscreen calibration: http://rockwellautomation.custhelp.com/app...600/r_id/113025 One other post as well about the touchscreen: http://rockwellautomation.custhelp.com/app...600/r_id/113025

Hot start or cold start? I assume you meant cold start. What signals are you waiting for to restart the robots? I was in the auto world for a long time and I am sure we can figure this issue out. Send me the PLC program and let me take a look at it. How are you doing program select? And what about a restart? It should be from some physical device. Palm button, PV reset button, operator button, etc. Also, we usually wait until all robots in the interference zones are ready before we start and/or continue any. What about interference zones? Are you using them?

There was a recall with some. Here is the link: http://rockwellautomation.custhelp.com/app...rts/r_id/113025 Other than that, according to AB, NO the touchscreen is not replaceable. I have never used a stylus on these, always a finger and most of the time a finger with a glove on it. It is possible that the screen is just worn out depending how old it is and how many times it has been used and/or abused. Not implying it has been.

Check this publication: http://rockwellautomation.custhelp.com/app...779/r_id/113025

Jeff, Sorry about the name thing. I replied to the wrong posting. Anyways, of course the tool room never adds or removes anything without re-weighing and marking on the die the new weight. Cough cough choke choke. As Management would say, that is just a lessons learned and a practice that needs to be worked on. I do like the idea of using the current draw to adjust, I just haven't seen it done before by any press manufacturer. Danly, Blow, Verson, Kamatsu, Shuler, Clearing, Niagara. Those are only the presses I have worked on. It makes me wonder if they didn't do it all these years, why? It would eliminate a lot of variables of die weight, and completely take the operator out of the equation. I guess it wouldn't be any different than using an analog feedback(counter balance pressure in tank) to adjust the counterbalance pressure. Just check on the way back to the top and adjust at the top of the stroke. The only issue I can see with it is if you do use motor draw, you will have to make sure your PM's are ALWAYS DONE AND DONE CORRECTLY. You have got my interest peeked now about this Jeff. I am going to ask a few of my engineer buddies that have been in the stamping world for years and see what they think. Now about the feedback device. I do not think you need to be real concerned about what you use. I.E. go cheap. You are just going to command it to a set speed and leave it there anyways. Basically you are using it to make sure the motor is spinning. I assume you are using a pot for speed control anyways. We also have a master and a slave resolver on our press. (Well the one in question) We use the master for adjusting counterbalance pressure off of press angle and for the transfer system. We use the slave just to make sure both entry and exit of the press is moving and we didn't break a shaft. We do not use our press resolvers for speed at all.

If this is a real world application, I am not sure it is "safe." Is it? I would be concerned with a safety issue using wireless. I have never done this, nor have I seen it done before, but safety comes to mind first and foremost.

Sparky, 2 things. I come from the stamping press/automotive industry(Worked for Verson Stamping Press and then a Tier 1 auto supplier in Iowa as well. Not to mention GM, Ford, Chrysler as a contractor). We were using a tach on a magnetek drive until we couldn't get it anymore. Then we switched to an encoder. We used a 600HP DC motor. The thing to remember is that once the flywheel starts spinning, it will keep the speed close to where you will need it. We were accurate within 0.4% of commanded motor speed. This is a 2500 ton stamping press with a 20 inch stroke and max speed of 30SPM. We ran 95% of our jobs between 27 and 30 SPM. With inch speed of 10 SPM and micro-inch, and reverse at 8 SPM. The second regarding the counterbalance. If people only knew what damage they are doing by having the counterbalance settings wrong, the stamping world would be a great place. We used automatic counter balance settings based on die weight, and not motor feedback or current draw. I just do not think you can adjust the counterbalance quick enough going off of current draw. It would also be too expensive to do because you would always be exhausting and adding air unless you had a big enough delay, and then that defeats the purpose of having an automatic counterbalance system anyways. If you have any questions or need help with something, let me know. I would love to be back in the stamping/auto world again.

Yes it is possible to make online changes with a SLC 5/03. Once online, either double click the rung you want to modify or else right click on the rung you want to modify and select "modify rung." Then make changes Accept changes test changes assemble edits Forgot, make sure the key is in the remote position.

Really Controlnet? Wow, I have used controlenet in the past strickly for HMI communications. I am no expert by any means, and I am sure it was not a good application for it. It was an automotive mig welding line with 63 Fanuc robots, and 30 HMI's. Just the HMI's were controlnet and we had nothing but issues with it. We would loose communication all the time. Like I said, I am sure it was either setup wrong, or routed wrong, or something.

To answer your question without any personal input. In the robot stacking industry, our trend is ethernet last year, this year, and all the projects coming up are ethernet. We do however have one project that has both ethernet and devicenet. That is because we cannot get one device that is devicenet campatable. It is funny, that we will have that one device on devicenet and everything else on ethernet. Guess that tells where our company is going with the whole structure of things.

Ken, I will give you if EVERYTHING is done correctly, then yes, devicenet will be the easy choice. HOWEVER, you and I and the rest of the world knows it will very rarely happen that way. Don't forget about the old "why can't we run this devicenet cable in with our 480? It has a shield." In a perfect world, devicenet works fine. In a real world, no devicenet is not the choice because of the problems. Not necessarly a devicenet issue like you said, but it is still getting a bad rap for it. Onto ethernet. In most plants I have been in, it is almost easier to get managed switches because you have a buyin from IT, which seems to help. It makes it more of a need instead of just a personal choice. Bottom line, unless every job is designed and built correctly, I do not see devicenet making a strong comeback. Beside that, I can change all my drive parameters very easy with ethernet via RsLogix5000.

I just saw this on AB's forums. Not sure if this will help, but worth a shot. I had to turn the "User Account Control Settings" to never notify. Now it all works. My user account was already set to administrator and I tried sever times to run the software "as adminstrator", but nothing worked. Hope this will help others.

As a robotic machine builder, we are seeing most everything go ethernet now. I think customers have had their fair share of devicenet, as well as us. Ethernet is something almost everyone can relate to and it doesn't have the bad rap that devicenet does. We have everything we can on ethernet; robots, drives, HMI's, I/O, etc.

Ahhhhhhh AI I love AI software. I didn't switch to Logix until 2003 because I refused to use that windows crap. I was a DOS man thru and thru!!!!!!!! Now, DOS, pfffff I don't think so.

We can all "guess" at the share, but unless someone comes up with an article published by a reliable source, we will never know. I have worked at many GM, Ford, Chrysler, BMW, Toyota, and Tier 1 and Tier 2 automotive plants. I can say almost for certain that GM will not go plant wide with any other PLC than AB. I say this for the same reason Ford doesn't want to stop using the PLC-5's. The cost to "train" union Employees on a new pice of technology is way too much investment for the return. Hence, "no bang for the buck." I have worked with a lot of PLC's and they all have a place. If you want motion control built in, AB for sure. If you are looking function blocks , then Siemens is the way to go. If you want high speed, than Beckhoff is the way to go. Again, I think it really comes down to who you like as to who would get the major share in the market. Just my 2 cents worth.

Yes. Very good job. Documentation is always very important. I agree with the OSR for the start button. I ALWAYS use it, as I come from the auto world and everything is redundant and safety safety safety! Other than that, great job.

I understand that the SLC is going to be phased out, but if it gets phased out like the PLC-5, he/we have a lot more years ahead of us. AB has been going to phase out the PLC-5 for how many years now?

Of course Asprin, Tylenol, Ibuproffin, etc!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I agree, the Micro will work fine. HOWEVER, I would think down the road. I have not used the Micro software only because everywhere I have ever worked there were more than just micrologix in the plant. The advantage of using RsLogix 500 is that it will also cover the SLC 500 processors. Thus eliminating having to use multiple software packages which we all know are expensive. If you can say you will never ever get anything besides MircroLogix processors, than get the Micro software. Otherwise go for the Logix 500 platform. Just my 2 cents worth.