Subject:
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process control and automation
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.robotics
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Date:
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Mon, 12 Jun 2000 09:30:11 GMT
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Original-From:
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DOSULLIVAN@PILZnomorespam.IE
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Viewed:
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543 times
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list members,
i work for a major international industrial safety systems company. As part
of our current research we have a requirement to model an industrial
process and to visualize this model on a pc. We are thinking of using lego
for our requirements. I am asking for your advice and possible assistance
on some issues we have.
As an example of what we want to do, consider a guilotine (as per the
french revolution). We may use a motor to raise and lower the blade. We may
use a contact switch to monitor the blade arriving at both ends of its
travel. We may use an ir sensor to detect the presence of foreign bodies
entering the cutting area. Now we could (i guess) program the lego rcx to
stop the blade if something foreign enters the cutting area. However this
is totaly against the rules of the game we must play. The RCX can only
raise or lower the blade or stop the blade under instruction. As you can
see the rcx implements a fairly dumb set of features.
Connected to the rcx (via serial, ir or rf) is a pc based device upon which
all the control logic will be implemented. This device displays a visaul
representation of the guilotine. It shows the realtime position of the
blade and state of all inputs. This device is responsible for starting and
stoping the blade. How the blade travels (speed, direction, etc) is the
responsibility of the rcx.
Given the above can someone please answer the following questions.
1) is there a documented comms protocol to the rcx ?
2) can i read the state of inputs back to a pc from the rcx during runtime
?
3) can i set variables, outputs in the rcx from the pc during runtime ?
4) is there an rs232 connection available to the rcx?
5) is there an RF connection available?
6) is the rcx addressable, i.e. if i have two rcx devices can i set their
addresses so i talk to one in particular?
7) do you think it is possible to do the above in less than a day, i.e. of
primary concern to us is the requirement that building of the device to
monitor/control takes the minimum of effort - our focus is the monitoring
software not the rcx!
any assistance you may have to offer in this area will be greatly
appreciated,
denis o'sullivan
PILZ Ireland Industrial Automation
11 Emmet Place
Cork
Ireland
Tel: +353 21 274883
Fax: +353 21 274894
dosullivan@pilz.ie
www.pilz.com
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | RE: process control and automation
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| I just bought RCX and thererefore do not take my statements as absolutes, I basically spent a day going around and reading info on WWW, so this is all second hand experience. Go to this link and start from there: (URL) are RCX internals described: (...) (24 years ago, 12-Jun-00, to lugnet.robotics)
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