Dual conveyor system, how to create simulation?

Process Modeling
1

Hi,

I am new to this forum, hope to get some help. Visual Components and simulation in general is new art form for me. I have few years of experience of 3D modeling and engineering thou.

Im trying to figure out how to build two conveyor system which acts somewhat simultaneously :slight_smile:

Conveyor 1: A production line where product is placed on a assembly wagon. Goes straight line until product itself is transported/lifted to the other conveyor and in to the surface treatment. Wagon transports to the next station and other surface treated product is placed on the wagon.

Conveyor 2: Should be kind a like power and free type of conveyor, where products can be transported or buffered. This should be moving at same speed with conveyor 1, but have a buffer of x amount of products before surface treatment. When conveyor 1 is stopped at the end of the day, Conveyor 2 continues with x amount of cycles and “eats” its pre-surface treatment buffer to after the surface treatment buffer. This allows the start of the next day production to have surface treated products immediately.

Can i make this kind of trickery with process nodes, buffer statements, some kind of counter system, or do i need sensors and play with signal functions? At this stage of the project it would be great just to get visual overview of the process, so i think it would be easier to do with process nodes somehow. Any advice how to start would be appreciated. And what kind of tutorial do you recommend to get solution ideas for this project?

image
image614×560 114 KB

Thanks,

AMP3

2

Hi,

Using process modeling or some scripted signaling mechanism are both valid options.
For help, it’s easier to ask directly from VC technical support for specific layout questions.

I made a rough test of how something like this could work with only PM. I added a property to control if the shift has ended or not, which controls the second buffer.

image
image1394×714 159 KB

conveyor_buffer_test.vcmx (454.5 KB)

2 Likes
3

Thank you for your reply. I will look into this. At first glance this seems to be what i have been looking for.

4

Interesting! I opened your buffer test vcmx file and there is that option in the process node to tick or untick end of shift. I dont have that option in my process nodes at my own simulation. And another weirdness that i discovered, is in the process product feeder im using, which produces only 3 products even thou i have set it to limit 10.