Counter for Footage

R

Thread Starter

river100

I work for a manufacturing company and have just recently started working with the control systems, 3 years. I am a component level repair tech by trade, so control technology terms are new to me.
I'm learning along the way with 3 simple controls done so far.

This is my problem. I know is simple. but with all the research I've done, I still don't know exactly what I need.

We have a product printer on our QC line. along with the product data it prints the footage every foot on a flat product that can be up to 600 feet long, or longer. The encoder that comes with the printer is 300cpr using a 3 inch diameter wheel. It is approx' 1/8inch off for every foot. The print controller software is hard coded for inches with only 2 decimal points so I can't put in an accurate off set.

The printer will accept an outside pulse to trigger the printing so My goal is to get a better encoder and device that can be programmed to give us a pulse every one foot, or even every 3 to 5 feet.

Although this sounds pretty crazy, they want an accuracy of 1 foot in every 1K feet.

One more additional hurdle, the machine will be stopped and restarted often in the course of say 600 feet. From what I have read this could add a jitter issue.

Thanks
 
M
I just hope your machine is gear driven instead of chain driven. It is impossible to get any accuracy with the chain drive because of the slack.
 
S
Chain's fine if you have a support. Heck, it wouldn't even work right without the support. The catenary loosening and tightening all the time destroys the motion and puts a LOT of repetitive stress on all the components. No one competent would use a chain for positioning without supporting it. PLUS, if even that's not good enough, you can switch out the chain for timing belt (and yes, still support it).
 
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