Cycle time generation

Hello all.

Firstly i'm new to posting on here (i've been viewing this site for over a year just never posted).

I was hoping you guys could help me with a piece of code i'm trying to make.

At the back of the shop floor robotic cells parts are dropped off which break a beam sensor then move along on a conveyor to the end of line checking members.

I would like to make a piece of code that gives me the cycle time of the parts going through the cell using this beam sensor e.g. every time a part is made what is the space of time between the last part dropped and the part just dropped.

Is there a way to snapshot a T, Timer then reset it? or any other way to do this?

Thanks a ton for the help I'm currently manually timing the parts by standing at the back with a stop watch and its got a PLC which could easily do this for me for all 20 odd Cells...

Firstly what make is the PLC. And yes this will be relatively simple to do. Do you have a HMI installed as this could show you the cycle times. If you try to do it your self there are people on here that will guide you through it.

Welcome. I'm sure there are a few ways to do this. It would help to know what type of PLC you are using. I'm used to AB so I would probably either use a Retentive Timer (RTO) or Time On (TON). Once the beam is broke, the accumulated time is moved to a holding register, the timer reset to zero, and then the timer is latched in to timing until the beam is broke again. Repeat move and reset process. You could even have multiple registers that index the last 60 cycle times, etc.

any picture/video/drawing sketch can post

Cheers guys. Sorry about the lack of info.

So we use FX Q-series Mitsubishi PLC and attached is a GOT-100 HMI.

I did scribble an idea down on my notes but really what dginbuffalo said was exactly what i was thinking. However I dont know much about PLC code using registers.

While I am not familiar with your PLC or HMI, I can say that the trick here is going to be to capture the "elapsed time" by moving the "accumulated value" into a "holding register" just before you reset the timer for the next part.
So, in other words, as your beam is broken, move the value of the timer into a register (look into indexed addressing to see how to put it into an array of registers for longer storage) and then reset your timer allowing it to run for the next part.
As a side note, I would set the timers "Preset" value (or value that it is trying to get to) to some number that would indicate to the PLC that it has taken too long, and production must have stopped for lunch or something so just wait for the beam to be broken and start over...hope that makes sense!!

Although this isn't in Mitsubishi code- hear is some basic cycle time logic.

You could try something like this very simple code.

Steve

oops
bit of a typo try this revised code

Steve