Project completed- Propeller controlled digital readout machine controller

Don M

I have been working on a project to replace an existing machine controller on a large belt sanding machine that had failed. The controller gives a digital position readout of table height and also allows one to put in a dimension and have the table automatically move to the new position.

I retro-fitted a new display and circuit board that I designed using DipTrace. The original had a 4 digit red LED display. My design utilizes a 2x20 OLED display I purchased from New Haven displays.

I made a machine simulator using a proto board. You can see it hooked up on one of the attached photos. It mimicked the machine sensors timing exactly even including an overshoot as if the motor was slowing down after you released the button.

I want to thank everyone here on the forum that contributed to my questions I had along the way while I was programming this. Also a big thank you to my good friend Mike who gave me a lot of support with the code.

Today I installed it in the machine for my customer and it gave me great pleasure to see it work.

Here are some pictures and a YouTube video link to see it in action.

http://youtu.be/65TZxj79uUQ

idbruce

Well Don that is very cool. It is nice to see that another person in the forum is interested in machinery applications. Very cool indeed. Keep up the good work.

Bruce

StefanL38

cool project.

I want to know a little more. Does the new controller have a propeller-chip too?
How did you examine the sensor-reactions?
What kind of signal does the sensor provide?

best regards

Stefan

Don M

Stefan-

The new controller uses the Propeller chip. I retro-fitted a new board that I made for the original board that utilized a 87C51 micro that had gone bad.

The sensors provide a hi/lo output depending on whether there is a metal lobe by it or not. Some sort of metal proximity switch. In order to "record" the sensors I used my Logic Analyzer like this one that Parallax sells: http://www.parallax.com/StoreSearchResults/tabid/768/txtSearch/logic/List/0/SortField/4/ProductID/743/Default.aspx

I connected it to the outputs of the sensors and then ran the machine. I was able to mimic these pulses exactly with a propeller proto board so that I could test my device on my bench rather than have to go to the machine for testing.

Here's a trace from the machine sensors: