Electronic program control

Abstract

Abstract An electronic control system for controlling a sequence of operations on products moving on an indexing conveyor. The electronic control system is illustrated as controlling a sequence of operations, carried out at various work stations, on cartons in a packaging machine, such as filling operations, sealing operations, and clean-in-place operations on carton filler heads. A limit switch carton detector detects the presence or absence of cartons on the indexing conveyor of the packaging machine and feeds such carton information into a first shift register, which in turn feeds the carton position information into a first "and" gate. A limit switch machine timing indicator functions to feed a first machine timing signal into said first shift register, and into a machine cycle counter. An output signal from the machine cycle counter is fed into a sequence selector which products a sequence signal that is fed to said first "and" gate, which in turn produces a filler sequence signal. The carton position information from said first shift register is also fed into a second shift register, and together with a second machine timing signal produced by a second limit switch machine timing indicator, produces a second shift register output carton position signal that is fed into a second "and" gate. The last mentioned second machine timing signal is also fed into an overtime timer which produces an output signal that is also fed into the second "and" gate, and the output from the second "and" gate produces a sonic sequence control signal for controlling the sonic sealer head on the packaging machine. A limit switch machine mechanism position indicator produces a machine mechanism position signal which is fed into a C.I.P. sequence timer which produces an output signal that is fed into the sequence selector to provide an output signal to the first "and" gate which produces a filler sequence control signal when the packaging machine is not running.

Inventors

• 👤 Walter D. Nitz

Bibliographic Details