Limit products on a conveyor to only 1

Process Modeling
1

I have the following layout where a robot tends to a stone polishing machine.

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I’m using a generic conveyor to model the machine (ToConveyor → FromConveyor) while robot moves the products in and out of the machine.

It’s important that there would be just 1 product on the conveyor (meaning in the machine) at any time. How to limit the conveyor to hold just one product at a time?

I thought ConveyorCapacity is the obvious answer, but setting it to 1 does not change anything.

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The robot can move products between

  • Feeder -> PositionerIn
  • FromConveyor -> PositionerOut -> Sink

But it’s important no products are added to the conveyor while a product is already there.

What’s the best way to accomplish this?

2

Capacity Control components from eCat might be a possible solution for this. I had asked a question last year, and the wonderful guys here helped me out. Have a look at the comment from @Tilma here How to Implement “Wait until either M1 or M2 is Free” in Process Modelling (No OR condition available)?.

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3

Instead of using the To Container mode of these processes, you could utilize the To/From Next process for hte transports. This would help manage that there is not too many products on the conveyor at one time.

4

Thanks @kpr, I’ll check it out.

Meanwhile I was able to get it working by simply adding an additional boolean signal into the conveyor MachineBusy.

At ToConveyor, it waits for MachineBusy to become false before transporting in the product. After the transport, it sets MachineBusy to true.

And at FromConveyor it sets MachineBusy to false.

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Still doesn’t explain why the ConveyorCapacity does not seem to do anything :thinking:

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