Is it possible to have a motor power my product in a set distance with an encoder measuring how much product has been fed and stopping at the set distance?.
The distance stays the same every time.
I need it to feed in 1078mm. Stop. The machine will then cut it off. Then needs to be fed again the same distance.
This is a very simple thing for a plc and encoder to do right?
I have zero knowledge of this type of engineering.
Any help would be much my appreciated.
Thanks
Jim
Hi Jamie!
If you want to have a position control in a system like that, what you should probably use is a stepper motor, it offers you excellent speed control, precise positioning and repeatability of movement, you control it as an integrated encoder like a NEO.
Probably someone else can give you a better response about projects they have done, but here at 1156 stepper motors have worked pretty well for applications like that.
I don’t know about the integration with the PLC but a quick search can answer you that.
There are thousands of references to measuring moving material on the Internet and they depend on the material.
Is the material laying on a conveyor? Is it in the air being pulled through a swage like wire? Is it rigid, floppy, irregular? Maybe a camera can see something on the material surface to track or count camera pixels to determine the length. On and on.
Sure counting pulses from an encoder is easy to control a motor but what kind of sensor is needed and how is it “attached” to the material?
So start with your material and how to “touch” it with a sensor.
Then consider the previous good suggestion
Maybe you’re trying to do this but for far less cost:
An adjustable hard stop may be the simplest and most reliable solution.
Your description of your application doesn’t contain sufficient detail to allow someone to give a definitive answer. It sounds like you are feeding material into something like a chop saw.