Alaris Project I have been working on...

[jeffellis1 0]

I've made alot of progress (so I think) on the project ALARIC sent to me. I am running it using the Emulate 500 and its alot of fun watching it work, figuring out how to construct my ladders, etc... It is not completely done yet but I feel I'm about half way there now. I've attached it for downloading. DISKFORM.RSS Ignore the last rung in the Indexing file, I am letting it run on the emulator to see how many parts will be made this afternoon. If anyone wants to send me feedback I am open for it. thanks Jfls41 Here it is and my project file I am working on. Here is a brief description of the machine and process. The machine is used to form plastic disks to a particular shape against a steel die. The machine consists of a ten position rotary indexing table. The table top is a 1/2 inch (13mm) thick steel disk about 18 inches (460mm) in diameter with ten 2 inch (50mm) holes placed every 36 degrees around the outside edge of the table. The back half of the rotary table is behind a permanently mounted plexiglas safety shield which runs down the centerline of the rotary table. Thus at any time five of the holes in the table are in front of the shield and five are behind the shield. The operator places a small die and plastic disk in one of the empty positions (holes) in front of the shield. Each hole has small flat in it so that the die is properly oriented. The rotary table indexes counter clockwise when viewed from above. Thus an operator can remove a die with its plastic formed part on the left and place a new die with an unformed plastic disk on the right. Behind the safety shield above each position of the index table is first a proximity switch which detects if a die is present in a position, second, an infrared heater which heats the plastic disk for a time along with a temperature switch which maintains the infrared heater temperature using simple on/off control, third a forming station which consists of a pneumatic cylinder which presses a forming die down onto the plastic disk and the die in the index table, and fourth and fifth, stations where the disk/die cool as they are waiting to be indexed to the front of the safety shield where they are removed by the operator. As you can see from the drawing, the IO count is small. The indexing of the table is started/stopped using the start/stop buttons. There is an optimate panel from which the operator sets two parameters: 1) heating time, or the amount of time spent under the infrared heater, and forming time, or the time for which the air cylinder applies the forming die to the disk and the index table die. The heating time is always several times longer than the forming time so it is what will regulate the indexing of the table. When the operator first starts the machine the IR heater must be preheated. Therefore the indexing of the table does not begin until the IR heater reaches temperature as indicated by the temperature switch. The temperature switch opens when temperature > switch point. Once temperature is reached it is regulated using simple on/off control by the temperature switch and the PLC. Approximate heating time is about 35 seconds. Once the part has been heated the forming time is approximately ten seconds. On the real malchine this is operator adjustable, however, for this exercise you don't need to worry about this as the Optimate panel sets the values, not the PLC program, so just program 35 and 10 as the times. The table is indexed one position each time the solenoid SV01 is activated. SV01 activates a single acting spring return mechanical indexing cylinder under the table to move the table one position. SV01 must be turned off for long enough for the indexing cylinder to spring retract before the table can be indexed again. The table will index at a maximum rate of 4 RPM, however experience has shown that this is too fast for the average operator so we slowed the machine down to index at a maximum rate of one index every five seconds. Thus we programmed the pulse on time of SV01 at one second and allow at most one pulse every five seconds. The proximity switch detects if a part exists or not so that heating and forming operations are not performed on a station where no part exists. Thus if no part exists under either the heater or the forming cylinder then the table will advance again after five seconds. If a part was under the heater, the table indexes that part to the forming cylinder, but no trailing part exists, that is, the trailing position is blank, then the table will index once the ten second forming is complete. It is common for the operator to leave blank stations while loading new parts onto the table as the operator is typically loading the machine as well as doing something else. The forming cylinder is a short stroke single acting cylinder controlled via SV02. The cylinder forward travel time is a part of the 10 seconds that SV02 is on. If there is a part to be formed then after forming a 1/2 second delay after SV02 is off allows the cylinder to retract to clear the part before indexing the table again. Each time a part is formed the external counter at output 0 is up counted. The output turns on for one half second to increment the counter. The operation continues until the operator presses the stop button or until two full revolutions (20 counts) have been made without detecting a single part die with the proximity detector. When operation is started it is to be assumed that there are no parts behind the safety shield. Any parts left there from any previous operation will have been removed by the operator. Attached File(s) sampleproject.pdf ( 90.62k ) Number of downloads: 12 DISKFORM.RSS Edited 24 May 2006 by jfls41

[Mickey 71]

[jeffellis1 0]

I've made alot of progress (so I think) on the project ALARIC sent to me. I am running it using the Emulate 500 and its alot of fun watching it work, figuring out how to construct my ladders, etc... It is not completely done yet but I feel I'm about half way there now. I've attached it for downloading. DISKFORM.RSS Ignore the last rung in the Indexing file, I am letting it run on the emulator to see how many parts will be made this afternoon. If anyone wants to send me feedback I am open for it. thanks Jfls41 DISKFORM.RSS Edited 24 May 2006 by jfls41

[jeffellis1 0]

Here is my latest update on the project Alaric sent to me. I made a Custom Graphical Monitor. If you have the Emulate 500 driver on your pc you can download and run this for yourself. This is my first program from scratch and I have had alot of fun doing it. ALARIC.RSS Edited 25 May 2006 by jfls41

[TConnolly 13]

I haven't had a chance to look it over very closely yet - but it appears that you have a reasonable start, thought its very different from what we developed. I see several things that aren't complete, but as I said, I haven't had time to do more than skim over it. However, I wanted you to know that I wasn't putting you off. Keep plugging.

[TConnolly 13]

For anyone who might be following along, here is the link to the original thread http://forums.mrplc.com/index.php?showtopic=7810 in which Jfls41 asked for a sample project to practice with. The description of the process as well as a PDF of the electrical print (sans border and corporate identification info) can be found there. Its just too bad the original machine no longer exists - otherwise I could try out Jfls41's completed program when he gets it done. Oh well...

[jeffellis1 0]

Could you tell me what doesn't look complete and do you have the actual logic file from the machine? Edited 25 May 2006 by jfls41

[Been Around 0]

You may also have a HMI with an initial value writing plc during startup