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Design and Fabrication of PLC Based Conveyor System with Programmable

Stations

Article · October 2017

DOI: 10.26706/IJAEFEA.3.4.20170906

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 International Journal of Analytical, Experimental and Finite Element Analysis (IJAEFEA), Issue. 3, Vol. 4, Sept 2017
e-ISSN: 2394-5141, p-ISSN: 2394-5133, pp 53-58
DOI: 10.26706/IJAEFEA.3.4.20170906

Design and Fabrication of PLC

Based Conveyor System with
Manoj M. Nehete1
[email protected] programmable Station
Uday C. Patil2 Abstract— The conveyors are the basic primitive component of material handling. There are
[email protected] various types of conveyors used in industry like belt conveyor, chain conveyor, gravity
conveyor, etc. The basic features of conveyor systems are not only to convey the objects but
Department of Mechanical also to stop at predefined locations for some operation. The dissertation on conveyor is taken
Engineering, up to design and manufacture a table top model, with programmable number of stations and
relevant control panel. The proposed conveyor is 780mm long, capable of conveying the
Sinhgad College of objects of 60 cubic mm size, The number of stations are programmable from 2 to 5, with or
Engineering, without interlocks. The efficient use of timers and counters are incorporated to optimize
Vadgaon Bk., thei/os. The proposed conveyor is PLC based and with little amendment, it will be coupled
with the palletizer. The advanced programming features of PLC with respect to timers and
Pune-411042, Maharashtra,
counters and programmable variable inputs are the key operating features which minimizes
India the input and outputs as required by PLC.

Index Terms— Programmable conveyer, Palletizer, Programmable PLC, Material Handling

I. INTRODUCTION inference and Center of Gravity method is used for

defuzzification. Experimentation is carried out to validate the
The “Mechatronics” is now being deployed in Flexible
simulation results. Vallance et al (2003) designed the split-
Manufacturing System (FMS). The material handling was
groove kinematic coupling technique for locating the pallets
one of the significant applications of Mechatronics in
in multi-station assembly systems. The split-groove
FMS followed by Robotics. In this dissertation the main
kinematic couplings are more effective than three-groove
focus is to develop a demonstrative setup of conveyor
couplings when geometric constraints are not feasible.
system with programmable workstations and a provision
Xiaohui Cheng and Jie Wan (2013) states in paper that the
to be interfaced with Pallatizer with see through
supply speed of the coal and energy utilization rate of
technology. The conveyer system is selected as it is most
telescopic belt conveyor can be increased upto 150% by
commonly used, simple to demonstrate yet it has highly
implementing PLC based conveyor system. Closed loop
complicated PLC programming aspects. One of the
motor control system is designed by using frequency
objective was to develop a test bench for the
convertor. The system regulates the speed of motor along
undergraduate students to study PLC programming with
with the on-off control of conveyor power equipment.
all the insights.
Kanmani et al. (2014) elaborates in a paper about the need of
The PLC was selected to be a controller for obvious
automation and proposes a SCADA and delta series PLC
reasons. The most significant is market share of PLC,
based automation system which is highly reliable and
which is more than 60% in automation industry. The
efficient in operation without delay. The parameters used for
students who are familier with PLC programming have a
monitoring are tearing of belt conveyor, oil level reduction
natural preference while in selection process of the
and temperature level of conveyor motor.
recruitment drives. Simulteneously the post graduate
students shall have an opportunity to amend the set up
and take it further for the artificially intelligent tasks for II. PROBLEM STATEMENT
PLC programming. The application setup also has a To design and fabricate the demonstrative setup of PLC
unique feature that it could be interfaced with Pallatizer, based conveyor with optimized inputs/ouputs, with minimum
which arranges the objects being conveyed with a two locations as InLoc and OutLoc, along with three
systematic array. This enables the dissertation work to intermediate programmable locations interlocked with
demonstrate how the independent components are respective timers, with overall conveyor length of 1 m, with
interfaced and linked for the common objective of a suitable control panel, with a feature button to interface this
material handling. Some of the important features and conveyer with palletizer.
control procedures are inherited from the selective The basic objective is to develop PLC based conveyor
research publications which are summarized as below. system having centralized control over five stations to
Tsalidis et al. (1998) explained the design phases of minimize total time required for material handling using
belt-conveyor design. Design parameter, design task, conveyor.
design prototype, design state and design rule these are
the five steps of designing a product. Yilrnaz et al (1999) III. LAYOUT OF THE SYSTEM
configured PLC unit for fuzzy logic to synchronize the Layout of conveyor system can be classified in
speed of two conveyor belts. Sum-min method is used for following sections:
© 2017 RAME IJAEFEA 53
Research Association of Masters of Engineering www.rame.org.in
Design and Fabrication of PLC Based Conveyor System with programmable Station

Pulley Mounting Sub-assembly

Drive and Driven Roller
It is end portion of assembly. Flat-shaped pulley
usedto maintain proper tangency in arrangement of belt
drive. The pulley diameters are calculated in belt drive
design. they should comply with standard values. There
is a relationship between the width of belt and width of
pulley,or to be more specific ,width of the rim of the
pulley. Pulley's mounted on shaft. It is light duty
application hence plastic manufactured pulley's are
selected according to the dimensions.
One pulley on shaft carry the load of the belt whose
axis is connected to the shaft of geared motor and another
pulley is free to rotate along belt direction to give the
support to system are called drive and driven roller
respectively. Following figures (1) and (2) show
drawings of (i) Drive roller and (ii) Driven roller
respectively.

Figure 2: Drive roller

Figure 3: Motor bracket

Driven roller clamp: Material: mild steel

Figure 1: Drive roller
Dimension: 795×75×3mm

Mounting Bracket for Drive Roller, Mounting

Clamp/Bracke for Driven Roller, Bearing Housing Motor
Mounting Bracket:
System components such as motor drive and driven
roller and bearings require a support that can help to
position and lock at the position on the frame. Mountings
and brackets are required such a that it can withstand the
working forces of the system and maintain position of
components.
Following are mounting and bracket designs and their
regarding specifications that are uses in conveyor: Figure 4: Motor bracket
Motor bracket: Material: cast iron
Dimension: 40×118.25×3mm

© 2017 RAME IJAEFEA 54

Research Association of Masters of Engineering www.rame.org.in
Manoj M. Nehete and Uday C. Patil

A. DC Motor: The conveyor has following specifications:

The DC motor used in this system. The DC motor Total Length : 780 mm
used here is bidirectional in nature but it is restricted to Total Width : 150 mm
unidirectional. Shaft of motor get engage with shaft of Total Height : 200 mm
pulley with grub screw on flat surface of motor shaft. Driving Motor : SM1 Gearbox D.C. Motor
Rotation of shaft is completely depends upon rotation of Proximity Sensor : M18 × 35mm, 5mm sensing distance
motor direction. the motor is high speed rpm motor .The Power Supply : 24 Volt
rpm of the motor is reduced to suitable range through Maximum Speed : 10 rpm
geared box which increases its torque capacity .The Weight of conveyor System : 15kg
geared box is integral part of dc motor assembly.It has
reduction ratio for every step by 5. As per signals
received from the controlling device motor will react
accordingly. The motor used here having operating
voltage range from 12V to 30V.
In the system motor is used to rotate only in single
direction With given supply voltage of motor 24V. As
per signal received from programming logic control unit
motor will start to rotate or stop according to the signal.
Dimensions: 1050x120mm.

B. Sensor Mounting Sub-assembly

With Inloc and Outloc, also 3 intermediate positions
inductive proximity sensors are provided which sense the
actual presence of object location. It can sense up to
range of 5mm. Due to its inductive property it sense any
metallic component. It tells to controller to take further
actions as soon as it senses the object.
Figure 6: Conveyor final assembly
Sensor mounting plates maintain the constant distance
throughout length fromobject. Sensors are fixed to Inloc
and Outloc as well as three work stations. Proximity
C. Wiring and Control Panel:
sensor used here are PNP NO in nature. It has sensing
range up to 5mm with total length of 35mm. Sensor Control panel is required to batch controls at one location
mounting assembly has overall dimensions are 1050mm and monitor the process flow at particular stage. Consist of
x 80mm. following components:
Above all drawings shows detail drawings of [1] Plastic Board: For the mounting of lamps and switches
manufactured parts of conveyor system. A complete needs to cut profile for required mountings. Dimension of
assembly of model of a model for a conveyor system the board is 200×150×50mm.
with most important components is shown in the [2] Switches: start button: 1× push to ON (NO)
drawing. In following table, all the important technical 18mm diameter switch
data listed in an overview. Stop button: 1× push to OFF (NC)
18mm diameter switch
Selector Switch: 1× 1Pole and 3
selector position 4mm diameter switch
Reset switch: 1× push to ON (NO)
18mm diameter switch
iii) Lamps: Process Lamp: 1× 24v 12mm
diameter Green Lamp
Emergency Stop Lamp: 1 × 24v 12
mm diameters Red Lamp
Object position indicators: 5 × 24v 12mm
diameter Green Lamp

Wiring Layout:
The wiring is an important phase for installing a
conveyor and configuring the sensors and actuators so they
can all communicate with each other seamlessly. It is done
Figure 5: Sensor monitoring
scientifically to save time and money. The following figure
gives more simplified idea about the wiring layout.

© 2017 RAME IJAEFEA 55

Research Association of Masters of Engineering www.rame.org.in
Design and Fabrication of PLC Based Conveyor System with programmable Station

A. Selector Switch at Station 2 (Work Station 1)

When selector switch is at station 2 position i.e. selection
for workstation 1, the object detection at InLoc station will
occur and it will set timer of 5 sec for the demonstrative
loading purpose and the it will move to station 2 i.e.
workstation 1. After successful detection at workstation 1 it
will skip station 3 and 4 and will go directly to OutLoc
station.

Figure 9: Selector switch at station 2 position

Figure 7: conveyor wiring layout

V. PROGRAMMING
The main objective of this dissertation is to control
motor motion at five stations including three intermediate
working and two mandatory stations. This section
quickly introduces the PLC Environments with respect to
dissertation work carried out. It specifies requirement of
the system and its working. This section gives overall
working idea and its physical system. Developed logic in
the system is in terms of ladder diagrams. All program
and inputs of the system developed using Picosoft
software in terms of ladder logic. Figure 10: Logic Ladder for Work Station 1

Following figures shows the algorithm / flow chart

which is implemented in the system: B. Selector Switch at Station 3 (Work Station 2)
When selector switch is at station 3 position i.e. selection
for workstation 2, the object detection at InLoc station will
occur and it will set timer of 5 sec for the demonstrative
loading purpose and the it will move to station 3 i.e.
workstation 2, skipping workstation 1. After successful
detection at workstation 2 it will skip station 4 and will go
directly to OutLoc station.

Figure 11: Selector switch at station 3 position

Figure 8: System flow chart

Figure 12: Logic Ladder for Work Station 2

Following are demonstrative diagrams to understand

the working of system at different position selection at
selector switch.
© 2017 RAME IJAEFEA 56
Research Association of Masters of Engineering www.rame.org.in
Manoj M. Nehete and Uday C. Patil

C. Selector Switch at Station 4 (Work Station 3) 11 Reserved for Palletizer I:0.0/11

When selector switch is at station 4 position i.e. 12 Reserved for Palletizer I:0.0/12
selection for workstation 3, the object detection at InLoc 13 Reserved for Palletizer I:0.0/13
station will occur and it will set timer of 5 sec for the 14 Reserved for Palletizer I:0.0/14
demonstrative loading purpose and the it will move to 15 Reserved for Palletizer I:0.0/15
station 4 i.e.workstation 3, skipping workstation 1 and 2. 16 Reserved for Palletizer I:0.0/16
After successful detection at workstation 3 it will go 17 Reserved for Palletizer I:0.0/17
directly to OutLoc station. 18 Reserved for Palletizer I:0.0/18

Once physical address is acquired we can start

programming due to the wrong addressing. As shown in
table bellow, purposefully physical blank addresses are kept
in order to further connections of subsystem like conveyor.
RSlogix 500 software is used for the programming
Figure 13: Selector switch at station 4 position
purpose which is capable of offline logic failure detection.
TABLE II
OUTPUT DEFINITIONS OF SYSTEM
Sr.
Output Description Address
No.
1 Reserved for Palletizer O:0.0/1
2 Reserved for Palletizer O:0.0/2
3 Reserved for Palletizer O:0.0/3
4 Reserved for Palletizer O:0.0/4
Figure 14: Logic Ladder for Work Station 3 5 Reserved for Palletizer O:0.0/5
6 Reserved for Palletizer O:0.0/6
7 Reserved for Palletizer O:0.0/7
8 Motor DC Motor O:0.0/8

VI. CONCLUSION

The important deductions of the dissertation work are as

follows:
(a) The PLC based Conveyor system with
programmable locations, of 1 m span is ready in
Figure 15: Logic Ladder Common Timer for workstations
the laboratory for undergraduate and post graduate
D. I/O Definition and Programming students.
(b) The installed control panel has start, stop, selector
I/O definitions plays role of bridge between the plc switch, reset switch and indicator lamps.
and physical setup of the system. It allows to system (c) The Conveyor has InLoc, OutLoc and 3
program to communicate with switches, sensors as processing stations.
inputs and actuators as outputs. At first total inputs and (d) Each intermediate location has a 5 sec timer to
outputs of system are identified. process the specified operation.
TABLE I
INPUT DEFINITIONS OF SYSTEM (e) The speed of conveyor is synchronized with
Sr No Input Description Address palletizer.
1 Start
System setup, wiring connections and programming is
accomplished. Mentioned objectives are achieved.
Btn Start switch I:0.0/1
2
In RSlogix 500 logic ladder and sensor inputs are
Stop
checked and errors are eliminated. The system is ready for
Btn Emergency Stop I:0.0/2
experimentation, bug fixings as well as upgrades.
3 SS 2 Selector S/W Station 2 I:0.0/3
4 SS 3 Selector S/W Station 3 I:0.0/4 VII. FUTURE SCOPE
5 SS 4 Selector S/W Station 4 I:0.0/5
6 InLoc InLoc Proximity Sensor I:0.0/6 The conveyor object are picked by an at loading point
7 Station 2 Proximity of its path and are delivered to palletizing mechanism at
ST-2 Sensor I:0.0/7 unloading station this is entirely planned by PLC control in
8 Station 3 Proximity modular way this will not only expose the student to
ST-3 Sensor I:0.0/8 programming environment but also open an aspect of PLC
9 Station 4 Proximity program planning and execution and also operation plan to
ST-4 Sensor I:0.0/9 be introduced with RFID. The RFID identifier shall be
10 OutLoc OurLoc Proximity Sensor I:0.0/10 fixed on the object to be stored on pallet racks and PLC
© 2017 RAME IJAEFEA 57
Research Association of Masters of Engineering www.rame.org.in
 Design and Fabrication of PLC Based Conveyor System with programmable Station

shall store the IDs and respective location the IDs shall [3] R. Ryan Vallance, Chris Morgan, Alexander H. Slocum,
be categorized so that similar group shall be stored “Precisely positioning pallets in multi-station assembly
nearby. systems”, Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.0141-6359, 2003.
[4] Xiaohui Cheng and Jie Wan, “Retractable Conveyor Control
System Design Based on PLC”, published by Advanced
REFERENCES Materials Research Vols 655-657 pp 1332-1336, 2013.
[1] S. S. Tsalidis, and A. J. Dentsoras, “Application of [5] M. Kanmani, J. Nivedha, and G. Sundar. “Belt Conveyor
Design Parameters Space Search for Belt Conveyor Monitoring and Fault Detecting Using PLC and
Design”, Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. Vol. 10, No. SCADA”, Published by IJAREEIE, Vol. 3, Special Issue 4,
6, pp. 617—629, 1998. May 2014.
[2] Serhat Yilrnaz, Bekir Cakir, Adem Gedik and Hasan
Dinqer,”Speed Control of a Conveyor System by Means 6f
Fuzzy Control Aided PLC”, Published by IEEE, 0-7803-
5662-4/99, 1999.

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