Truck Dumper - part Deux
·Almost 10 years ago I used a Stamp BS2sx to automate a truck dumper. It was written up in the 2006 Parallax Catalog.
·You can read this story here: http://www.parallax.com/tabid/332/Default.aspx
· Now, the client has come back to get some additional features added and to put the Stamp controller on another dumper on site.
This involved building three complete BS2px systems (two to be immediately installed plus a spare).
· The system works with the truck scale at the entrance to the mill. When the truck comes over the scale, a load slip is printed which contains a barcode. The barcode includes information on the product, the chip species, the area which produced the chips, the weight, the time/date and whether a sample needs to be taken. The Stamp board reads the barcode and sends information to the mill PLC to dump the truck, move the out-feed conveyor to the correct pile and to take a product sample when required.
··For administrative purposes, the truck must get from the scale to the·dumper within three hours to·minimize the possibility that the incoming chips contaminate the pile being used at the moment. This meant using a real-time clock (DS1302) on the·Stamp to compare against the time shown on the barcode.
· The clock code started out with Chris Savage's clock demo code and was modified to allow easy comparison of the two times and to compensate for times over-lapping midnight. As well, extra code was written to deal with the different length of months, leap year and the change-over to/from daylight saving time. Of course, a method of setting and checking the time was needed as well.
· The barcode scanner and·printer are set to use serial communication at 9600. Also, when setting the time, a computer with communications software (Debug, Hyperterminal, etc) is used to see what's going on.
· I've attached the schematics and the code used in slot 0 and slot 1 of the BS2px.
··
·Heres the link for a short video of the new system: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rGCLqlnjCY
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Tom Sisk
http://www.siskconsult.com
Post Edited (stamptrol) : 6/1/2010 1:56:27 PM GMT
·You can read this story here: http://www.parallax.com/tabid/332/Default.aspx
· Now, the client has come back to get some additional features added and to put the Stamp controller on another dumper on site.
This involved building three complete BS2px systems (two to be immediately installed plus a spare).
· The system works with the truck scale at the entrance to the mill. When the truck comes over the scale, a load slip is printed which contains a barcode. The barcode includes information on the product, the chip species, the area which produced the chips, the weight, the time/date and whether a sample needs to be taken. The Stamp board reads the barcode and sends information to the mill PLC to dump the truck, move the out-feed conveyor to the correct pile and to take a product sample when required.
··For administrative purposes, the truck must get from the scale to the·dumper within three hours to·minimize the possibility that the incoming chips contaminate the pile being used at the moment. This meant using a real-time clock (DS1302) on the·Stamp to compare against the time shown on the barcode.
· The clock code started out with Chris Savage's clock demo code and was modified to allow easy comparison of the two times and to compensate for times over-lapping midnight. As well, extra code was written to deal with the different length of months, leap year and the change-over to/from daylight saving time. Of course, a method of setting and checking the time was needed as well.
· The barcode scanner and·printer are set to use serial communication at 9600. Also, when setting the time, a computer with communications software (Debug, Hyperterminal, etc) is used to see what's going on.
· I've attached the schematics and the code used in slot 0 and slot 1 of the BS2px.
··
·Heres the link for a short video of the new system: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rGCLqlnjCY
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Tom Sisk
http://www.siskconsult.com
Post Edited (stamptrol) : 6/1/2010 1:56:27 PM GMT
Comments
That is quite impressive!
What controlled the process prior to a Stamp? How was the decision made to change controllers? What were the difficulties & lessons learned from the change?
DJ
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Previously, only one dumper had a Stamp. It was still working fine, but they wanted all units on site to be inter-changable.
Also, the previous system didn't use the real-time clock for checking the elapsed time from scale to dumper.
Finally, the barcode now used has more characters so the BS2px was ideal since the SERIN can directly store incoming data in the scratchpad memory. Its not a traditional communication buffer, but does help.
Lessons learned? Standardization is good! Having the same controller board all these years means the service techs don't have to keep re-learning how a system works. They just look at it and say "oh, thats almost the same as our scale controllers or the video text inserter or the serial -to-BCD converter". The only major thing that changes is the program and they're very comfortable with working at that level.
Cheers,
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Tom Sisk
http://www.siskconsult.com
Post Edited (stamptrol) : 6/14/2010 7:18:47 PM GMT
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There is no problem that can't be solved with a suitable amount of explosives!
EOD Memorial
·· The first project meeting was late August and the Stamp stuff was ready to install about a month later. As I said before, always using the same board helped, plus I already had done the barcode thing previously. Most of the new work was for time and date manipulation.
·· As luck would have it, the client had some other changes to make and also wanted some extra features added, so there was about another month of time involved.
·Cheers,
·
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Tom Sisk
http://www.siskconsult.com
·
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There is no problem that can't be solved with a suitable amount of explosives!
EOD Memorial
I'm gonna guess that the driver is not in the truck when dumping occurs? How high does the front end lift up?
What's "Hog Fuel" noted on the pdf?
Also on the pdf, a 24V wall-wart is shown to power the board.· Is there any reduction·for the two Stamps?
May I ask where else SiskConsult products have been put to use?
Questions, questions, questions...
DJ
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Post Edited (davejames) : 6/1/2010 10:35:02 PM GMT
· If you go to the first post, there's also a link to a youtube clip where the truck is in the air. If you search "truck dumper" on youtube, there are some other examples.
·@davejames
· For safety, the driver is in the booth with his hand on a spring-loaded joystick while the truck is lifted. Nobody leaves the truck engine running....well, nobody who owns his own truck.
· When up, the deck is probably at about a 50 degree angle. If the deck is 70 feet long, the front edge is about 50 feet in the air. Looks higher than that because we're not used to seeing trucks at such an "up-hill" angle.
· Hog fuel is the bark and other stuff left as residue from the sawmills and chipping operations. It is stacked and dried then put through a mechanical "hog" where its chewed up to make the pieces uniform in size. It is burned in a boiler to make steam for the rest of the mill.
· The EnT board has a switching regulator on it that allows any input from about 8 volts to 30 volts AC or DC. I've·attached the original board schematic if anyone's interested.
· As for other projects, the EnT board is used in municipal wastewater treatment plants, offshore fish farming systems, dye injection on fuel oil delivery trucks, automated truck scale controller, firewood scaler and technology museum controllers.
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Tom Sisk
http://www.siskconsult.com
Post Edited (stamptrol) : 6/1/2010 10:56:02 PM GMT
DJ
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