As you all know there are suppliers who sell belt conveyor weight measuring systems that come with the electronic modules(integrators), load cell and weigh frame and speed sensor. I have an application where this would work for me but I don't need that much accuracy and budget is too high.
I was thinking of having one of the idlers mounted and suspended one a load cell with its output going to a load cell to 4-20ma converter. At the head pully shaft I would like to use and existing proximity sensor that would be used to calculate the RPM or speed based on the revolution of counts. From this I can also use a simple volumetric rate calculation for material going over the conveyor. Prior to using the scale the PLC would "zero" the scale read-out. I would also add to the calculations some way of calibrating the full range measurement value.
If I could get an weight accuracy of 5-10 lbs that would be fine. The head pulley speed is about 60-90 rpm, 2' wide belt and volume rate is about 1200lb/min of concrete.
I also forgot to add that the belt is driven by a hydraulic motor. The tail end of the pulley is fed by a hopper and it seems that the more full the hopper is the belt travels slower due to the weight of the concrete in the hopper
Thoughts on this?
I was thinking of having one of the idlers mounted and suspended one a load cell with its output going to a load cell to 4-20ma converter. At the head pully shaft I would like to use and existing proximity sensor that would be used to calculate the RPM or speed based on the revolution of counts. From this I can also use a simple volumetric rate calculation for material going over the conveyor. Prior to using the scale the PLC would "zero" the scale read-out. I would also add to the calculations some way of calibrating the full range measurement value.
If I could get an weight accuracy of 5-10 lbs that would be fine. The head pulley speed is about 60-90 rpm, 2' wide belt and volume rate is about 1200lb/min of concrete.
I also forgot to add that the belt is driven by a hydraulic motor. The tail end of the pulley is fed by a hopper and it seems that the more full the hopper is the belt travels slower due to the weight of the concrete in the hopper
Thoughts on this?
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