Box Problems

Greetings


I have a problem with a photo eye and some boxes. Currently, the boxes are coming down a conveyor and when the operator wants a certain box to be "held" he will put a piece of reflective tape on it, the photo eye senses the tape, and the box is stopped until its called. The problem with this setup is that sometimes the box gets disoriented and the photo eye misses the reflective tape. There are six different conveyors which the boxes get sorted into and the box could end up on any one of these conveyors. Each conveyor has its own photo eye.

The current solution I’m following up on is using RFID. The operator would put an RFID tag on the box and the antennae would sense the RFID tag and then stop the box. My gut feeling is that there is a better solution to this problem.

Could anyone suggest any RFID products that would be cost effective for doing this? Does anyone have a better idea to tag and stop the boxes?

Thanks in advance,

Joe

How about barcode tags or labels? Raster or omnidirectional barcode scanners are very economical and would be very forgiving of the tags placement or orientation. It would make it possible to direct the case to a certain conveyor in relation to the barcode data or which operator applied the tag, if that was be beneficial.

how about vision sensors??


www.bannerengineering.com

You could look at some simplee mechanical options to make the boxes run straight or at least straight at the point where the sensor is.

A vision sensor might work if there is a way to detect a mark on a box with a vision sensor. I'm not experienced enough with vision systems to know their capabilities.

I gotta vote along with Ron on this one. Some simple, inexpensive mechanical modifications to better align the boxes sounds like the best place to start.

Steve

I think the problem is actually operator error, as in they put the reflective tape on the boxes then set the box on the conveyor tape side down, for example. I have been looking into this already, thanks for your suggestions.

In that case add another sensor, maybe in parallel, to read in either position.