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The palletiser patterns are stored in the individual palletiser PLCs and also
in the “Movement Controller”.
They are edited within the “Movement Controller”,
and then downloaded to the PLCs.
The palletiser patterns are known through the industry by standard names such
as 8S1, 9D1, and 6U1. If you need to define patterns differently for different
machines, you may wish to append further information to this name, otherwise
these names serve as our pattern names.
Below is shown the first table used to define a pattern, in this case the
classic 8S1 (from the MS-DOS version of the “Movement Controller”):
There are 12 fields to be filled in, to provide the overall information. In
some instances, several fields share the same line; in these cases the prompt
will change as the cursor is moved to these fields.
The next step is to provide the information for the rows of the odd and even
layers. The table below corresponds to the first row of the odd layer (from the MS-DOS version of the “Movement Controller”):
The three blocks at the lower left of the screen represent the three rows of
the pattern. Moving from block to block will present the table for each row in
turn.
The first piece of information needed is the turn peg pattern, which consists
of a number, indicating the number of cartons in the row, followed by a series
of 'T's and '_'s to indicate whether the cartons are to be turned or not.
Following this is the carton counts to the various gates. Gates with counts
equal to or greater than the number of cartons in the row will not operate.
Once all this information has been entered, the resulting pattern may be
viewed. To view a pattern, first a machine must be chosen (as all machines have
different dimensions a pattern will turn out differently on different machines),
and then a product must be chosen (since the carton size will affect the pattern
as well).
The results will be presented as shown below (from the MS-DOS version of the “Movement Controller”):
This shows the results for each layer, first in the row form area, then after
the row sweep, then after the side compression and finally after both side and
end compression and with respect to the pallet.
The yellow outline can be moved to any of the four windows, which can then be
zoomed into. The display will then appear as shown below (from the MS-DOS version of the “Movement Controller”):
Using the ‘Left’ and ‘Right’ cursor keys, the
subsequent images can be seen, simulating the row sweep, enabling you to
anticipate the pinch points.
For more information on defining patterns for palletisers and other
palletiser properties, please refer to the Operator's Manual sections
Enter or Modify Products for Pallets,
Enter or Modify Palletiser Alarms,
Enter or Modify Palletiser Patterns,
Enter or Modify Palletiser Product Data,
Enter or Modify the Palletisers, and
Palletiser Commands.
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