Type 8 into the Length of a BSL whose array is DINT[8] and you have built a shift register eight positions long, not eight elements long, and the other 248 bits of that array will sit there untouched for the life of the machine. 1756-RM018A prints the reason in one line under Operands: Length is … Read more
Two cartons released 1.1 seconds apart from line A and line B arrive at a 30 degree merge at the same moment, because line A’s release eye is 1.3 m from the junction and line B’s is 1.7 m, and 0.4 m at 0.28 m/s is 1.4 seconds. The rung that let that happen was … Read more
A 42EF retroreflective eye bolted 150 mm back from the discharge roller of a 1.5 m zone stops a 600 mm carton with 750 mm of zone still behind it, and stops a 1219 mm carton with 131 mm. Move the same eye to 50 mm from the discharge and the first carton overshoots into … Read more
On a 1.5 m zone pitch at 0.28 m/s, a 600 mm carton is invisible to both photo-eyes for 3.2 seconds of its journey between them. An upstream zone whose release permissive is nothing more than “the next eye is clear” will use that window to send a second carton, and the two of them … Read more
Time it with a stopwatch before you type anything into the preset: the longest carton you run, crossing the photo-eye, on the slowest zone. A 1219 mm carton at 0.28 m/s sits on that eye for 4.35 seconds, which is why the 2000 ms that came across with the copied project trips every time the … Read more
Zone 5 is stopped, PE5 is clear, Zone[5].Expecting is 0, and there is a 600 mm carton standing 30 mm short of the beam that no zone on the line is driving. Zone 4 behind it has a carton on its eye, Owns clear, its hold timer done, and every permissive it needs to release … Read more
The infeed conveyor’s GuardLogix 5580 consumes one safety tag from the case packer’s 5580, CP_Safe, and at 02:04 every night for a week CP_Safe.ConnStatus.ConnectionFaulted went to 1 for between two and nine seconds, the consumed data went to zero, the conveyor’s CROUT dropped its contactors, and the shift lead reset it and wrote “network” on … Read more
The E-stop is reset, the safety relay is closed, every one of the twelve PowerFlex 525s on the accumulation line has S1 and S2 at 24 V again and F059 cleared from its display, and nothing moves. No fault on any drive, no alarm on the HMI, twelve zones with a carton on every eye … Read more
The takeaway conveyor’s 25B-D010N104, a 480 V PowerFlex 525 on a 4 kW motor, ran all day and tripped F005 OverVoltage on the first stop of every shift, with the PowerFlex 525 decel time at 2.00 s, b005 [DC Bus Voltage] sitting at 812 V in the fault history, and a belt carrying forty cartons … Read more
Two PowerFlex 525s with 42.50 Hz on both keypads were running the takeaway at 0.500 m/s and the palletiser infeed it hands over to at 0.462 m/s, and every carton that crossed the transfer between them arrived 7.6% closer to the one in front than it had left. A 1219 mm carton that left the … Read more
PLC programming for beginners without the theory dump: pick a simulator, write a start/stop rung, add a timer and a counter, wire one HMI button.
P033 [Motor OL Current] on a PowerFlex 525 holds exactly one number. Land two 3 HP motors on T1, T2 and T3 and that number is now watching the pair as though they were one 6 HP machine, which leaves neither motor protected. That single parameter is the whole argument. Two standard induction motors will … Read more