This is going to be rather long question so sorry about that. Or actually 3-4 questions.
Is it possible to make a Buffer shelf that lets you store 1 or 2 products on the same level of the shelf depending on their size?
The idea is that I have a Buffer shelf that has 3 levels and the levels are for example 2 meters deep. And I have 2 different sized products that are either 1 meter deep or 2 meter deep.
If AGV brings 2 meter deep product to that Buffer, then because it is as deep as one level of that shelf, the product fills that one level and there is no space for more.
However, if the AGV brings 1 meter deep product to that same Buffer with 2 meter deep levels, then the product doesnât fill the whole level and there is space for another 1m deep product in front of this last product.
So is the scenario on the picture above possible to do in VC 4.5 Professional?
After I have delivered the products to the Buffer shelf, can I retrieve 2x 1m deep products as a pair from the Buffer shelf (Like in the picture)? And In case the product is 2m deep, AGV only picks one.
The products go to the next process (To Conveyor). Is it possible that this âTo conveyorâ process requests if it wants the AGV to retrieve 1x 2m deep product or 2x 1m deep products from the shelve?
If this is too complex, then I can live with a compromise that this pair of 1m deep products are destroyed in the Buffer and replaced with some other part that visually looks like there were 2 x 1m deep parts when in reality it is just one part. However it must be different that 2m deep part.
But even in this case it would be mandatory that the âTo conveyorâ process can ask some specific product or products to be retrieved from the Buffer based on the product parameters. Is this even possible in VC 4.5? Some guy asked this on the forum while he had VC 4.3 but didnât get an answer as far as I understood.
Probably better to ask detailed questions such as this from the support, but Iâll try to give a short answer.
I donât think this is possible. Maybe you could have one buffer assigned so that it can accept 2m boxes, and then have another buffer that can only accept 1m boxes.
If you want to combine two boxes into âoneâ, you should attach these items together. This is not possible in a buffer, but you could use TransportIn, Attach, TransportOut to do this.
You can have TransportIn statement in the âTo Conveyorâ and change the AcceptedProductTypes setting. This could be used to control if the process requests a large box or small boxes.
There is still a limitation with this option that at some point the system can go to a deadlock if there is no suitable space available in the storage. Storage_test.vcmx (1.4 MB)
I donât know if anyone can think of better alternatives.
I know that my question was a bit vague, but I just didnât have a clue how to even begin making a buffer that is needed.
I hope VC adds a feature that allows buffers to be âDouble deepâ as they are very often used in real life storage applications. Especially with stacker cranes, but also with AGV:s. I currently have a few projects at work and every one of them have this âdouble deepâ storage.
I will study your lay-out and ideas and I will get back to this topic, if I end up banging my head to the wall again with this.
The current pm shelves do not have the capability but e.g the rack of old school warehouse layout in ECat does. Utilizing that requires a few lines of Python: stacker cranes, rack, controls âŚAfter all quite doable.
Good morning,
Thank you for your answer, but I donât think that will help me:
Here is a picture of my situation: on the left is what the simulation does and on the right is what I would like to have.
If a level is free, there are different ways to store it
1x red
2x green
4x blue
1x green 2x blue
1x green 1x blue
3x blue
completely free
and so on.
Is there a way to measure the free space and store it accordingly?
If itâs enough to have a static buffer position assignment, I would just add process nodes on the shelves and set the transport in the filter to only accept specific product types for each shelf.
Yes, thatâs exactly the problem, it should be dynamic, as there are several possibilities of arrangement and also different numbers of places, as it is in reality.
Again as a reminder, this is +2 years old thread, although we do appreciate that duplicates are not created it is better idea to create a new stand-alone thread than ânecroâ old ones. Half the replies of this thread are already âdeadâ due to the age of the thread. Do also note that pinging directly a member may discourage others from answering.
As for the assembly answer, you can generate or build the assembly somewhere else and push the whole system in one go into a âsingle slotâ. The main issue would then be to bring out the assembly one-by-one as it comes out as âone blobâ.
Again as a reminder, I would recommend to create a new âfreshâ thread and link the old one in the new thread.
