Equipment: Conveyor Controller

• Display Name: Conveyor Controller
• Type Name: ConveyorController

Description

A Conveyor Controller controls all those conveyors which are allocate to the control zone. They have multiple operational mode that determine their behaviour during the simulation.

Creation

From the Toolbox, simply drag and drop a Conveyor Controller into the simulation.

Access

From the Project Explorer > Equipment > Conveyor Controller.

Or directly by clicking on the conveyor controller in the simulation.

Conveyor Controller Operation Modes

All 3 operation modes are based on the logic of Train mode.

• Train Mode
  • Each control zone could have 2 states; “Release” or “Accumulate”. A zone is always running (“Release”), unless the downstream is stopped AND blocked (“Accumulate”) or force to Accumulate state by property.
  • Downstream has to be controlled by the controller in order for the logic to work. So for the leading zone, it doesn’t matter what operation mode it was set to, there will be no logic apply to it. It will operate as the conveyor in manual mode.
• Gap Train Mode
  • The logic is basically the same as Train Mode. All above apply to Gap Train mode as well.
  • The only difference is when item pass the PE(unblocked), a delay timer will start (time configurable via property), if the next item block the PE before the timer expired, the zone will stop and only will start again when the timer expired.
  • The timer will be and only will be effected by the downstream zone. If the downstream somehow stopped, then the timer paused, and only resume when the downstream starts moving again. This logic is trying to maintain the gap created between items.
  • Note: If half item length is longer than the distance from PE to the end of conveyor, then potentially the delay timer might not be started. Consider this scenario a long item transferred to downstream which is stopped, the PE will still be blocked, so the delay timer will not be started and next item will not stop when hit the PE.
• Singulation Mode
  • The logic is basically the same as Gap Train Mode. All above apply to Singulation mode as well.
  • The only 3 differences are:
    • The delay timer time is calculated, not configurable. Currently it is calculated based on the downstream conveyor length and speed, then double it.
    • If the downstream is blocked and then unblocked, during the timer running, the timer is cancelled and the zone will start moving again.
    • If disable arrive timeout is set, then the timer is ignored and the zone will only resume if it detect downstream blocked and then unblocked, otherwise it will stop forever.

Properties

Control Zones:

Click on the “+” sign to create the zone which have the following properties.

Name	Description
Equipment	Name of the equipment want to be part of zone.
PESensor	Name of PE sensor want to be part of zone.
Operation Mode	Can be selected from the drop down list define above.
Status	Define the status i.e Not Running/Not blocked.
Accumulate	Set the zone to accumulate state.
Reversed	The direction is reversed.
Max Speed	Max speed of equipment.
Speed	Speed in percentage of the max speed.
Acceleration	Acceleration in millisecond.
Deceleration	Deceleration in millisecond.

Connections

Name	Description
Upstream	Name of the conveyor controller set for upstream.
Downstream	Name of the conveyor controller set for downstream.