The Home Machinist!

I was running my homebuilt barfeeder yesterday and remembered I never made a digital video of the barfeeder running. Now that I have a camera that also takes videos I'm building a library of my automation projects actually running.

The barfeeder is controlled with an Allen-Bradely Micrologix 1000 PLC.
The air cylinders are actuated by SMC air valves. The barfeeder runs a little slow because the air valves are undersize. However, the slow speeds make for a smooth running barfeeder with accurate feed lengths.
Not much chance of overfeeding or underfeeding at these speeds.

The saw and barfeeder. Eight years old and still going:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v30/j ... eeder6.jpg

The feed clamps:
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v30/j ... eedend.flv

The drop end:
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v30/j ... ropend.flv

In case someone is wondering the Kant-Twist-Clamp is clamping a white plastic block holds the bar stock down. Sometimes the barstock wants to creep upward without the retaining block.

Hope this was of interest,
Jim

wow, sure is to me Jim.

I have a punch press to set up and I was wondering about an autofeed of some sort.

Because of expense, I was leaning toward ice cube relay logic for function. Key motion, sense,(feedback) next motion, trip, etc to reset/replay. a missed sense would stall operation.

I dont know how expensive plc controllers are, probably way past my wallet, but I am thinking of the future as I have no need at the moment.

Dave:

I buy Mircrologic PLC'S on Ebay all the time for around $100. The software is expensive and there is a learning curve. There are tons of other PLC's on the market. But, I have the software and twelve years of experience with Allen-Bradely PLC's so that is why I use them. The program used to run the barfeeder will come very close to running a strip feeder for a punch press. I have used the same program for several jobs that require a feed advance. A little tweeking for each application.

However, for small strips of metal there are strip feeders that run on compressed air all ready to go. The punchpress hits a button on the feeder to initiate the feed advance. I have seen those on Ebay for
$25 to $50. Those feeders have a name that I cannot remember this morning. Ah, I just remembered, "Rapid Air".


Jim

Ya, mostly Allen Bradley for me, but they were magic boxes, mostly looked at the logic ladder to find what was missing, as most failures were in field controls or wiring, not the controller. So I dont have much experience in setup, that will be new ground for me.

The strip feeders I have seen were much more expensive, and I am not aware of micro logic, so you have advanced me several light years here. thanks.

Many processes can be done on a press, bend, form, shear, with spot, or progressive handling. Most often depends on the press tonnage. With the mechanical press I have, I thought of doing small sheet forming work. A hydraulic press can be VERY handy for the home guy that needs to bendstuff, and forms for low production or general one-offs are easy to concoct. I gave 75 bucks for a 12 tonner, I am happy.

Hi all. Another option for controlling a saw like Jims, is a (smart relay). Its basically a small plc but way cheaper and software is included. The basic units can handle about 20 lines of logic. IDEC is one brand, most of the plc providers are puttin gthese out now. doa google search for more...