I am looking at an application that I hope someone in this forum has seen before. A customer that I am working with in the lumber industry, has a conveyor which transports pieces of wood which are of various lengths down to a sorting mechanism. Currently there are 4 photo eyes set up at various positions, to try and establish the length of the wood. Depending on the inputs from the eyes the PLC will sort the wood accordingly, and dump it to the correct bin.
The owner of this piece of machinery would like me to make it more accurate. His major complaint is that the majority of the pieces that come down the conveyor, do not sit perfectly straight on the belt. This causes the eyes, to read a short piece, and thus some wood is wasted. The owner has already tried several mechanical fixes to try and straighten the pieces directly before the eyes, but because of the nature of the wood, there are still some pieces becoming skewed.
The first fix that we looked at was a vision system. Because of the width of the conveyor, we found that we would require at least two cameras. There would also be some pretty intense math that would have to be executed within the PLC to determine the length of each piece. Currently the I am a little wary of this fix. Not only is it expensive, but when I look at the environment that the cameras will be in, I am not sure how long they will last.
I have talked to a few manufacturers reps, regarding different sensors, but I am very cynical. These guys always seem to wear clean white shirts, with a pair of Dockers. When I tell them it's a dirty environment, I am not sure they know what I mean. If any of you have some experience using a vision system, or other sensor, in an application similar to this, I would appreciate your thoughts, and/or advice.
Thank you
Big Al
The owner of this piece of machinery would like me to make it more accurate. His major complaint is that the majority of the pieces that come down the conveyor, do not sit perfectly straight on the belt. This causes the eyes, to read a short piece, and thus some wood is wasted. The owner has already tried several mechanical fixes to try and straighten the pieces directly before the eyes, but because of the nature of the wood, there are still some pieces becoming skewed.
The first fix that we looked at was a vision system. Because of the width of the conveyor, we found that we would require at least two cameras. There would also be some pretty intense math that would have to be executed within the PLC to determine the length of each piece. Currently the I am a little wary of this fix. Not only is it expensive, but when I look at the environment that the cameras will be in, I am not sure how long they will last.
I have talked to a few manufacturers reps, regarding different sensors, but I am very cynical. These guys always seem to wear clean white shirts, with a pair of Dockers. When I tell them it's a dirty environment, I am not sure they know what I mean. If any of you have some experience using a vision system, or other sensor, in an application similar to this, I would appreciate your thoughts, and/or advice.
Thank you
Big Al