topic Re: Issues with flow item going from a thinner to a thicker conveyor in FlexSim Forum

Issues with flow item going from a thinner to a thicker conveyor

matheus_rosa — Thu, 02 Jun 2016 17:01:19 GMT

[ FlexSim 16.0.1 ]

I would like to make the item enter in the thicker conveyor along the edge before it hits the decision point, where the flow item will then rotate 90 degrees. Is there a way to do that?

I took some screen shots:

How it is right now:

How it should be

Re: Issues with flow item going from a thinner to a thicker conveyor

brenton_king — Thu, 02 Jun 2016 17:46:02 GMT

A decision point has picklist options for "Movement" that allow you to add kinematic movement and rotation to your flowitem. You can even choose the point of the object you want to rotate around.

I first built this model by rotating around the center of the object and then translating it to the side of the conveyor. (Both can be done at the same time) After looking at it further, however, I decided to remove the translation and have the item rotate around the front right corner. As you noticed, the flowitem will keepconveyor-transition-rotation-and-translation.fsm it's location when it goes from one conveyor segment to the next. I think that this is a feature because it keeps the items flowing smoothly.

Re: Issues with flow item going from a thinner to a thicker conveyor

matheus_rosa — Thu, 02 Jun 2016 18:10:36 GMT

The problem for me is that my flow is coming from a thinner to a thicker conveyor. As soon as the product passes through the thinner conveyor output it goes half out of the conveyor as you can see o the photo 1

Re: Issues with flow item going from a thinner to a thicker conveyor

jeff_nordgren — Thu, 02 Jun 2016 18:43:53 GMT

From what I understand your question to be is a flowitem going from the narrow conveyor to the wider conveyor and having the flowitem stay in the same location on the wider conveyor as it is on the narrow conveyor until it has cleared the flowitem length.

With that in mind, here is what I did in the attached model. By default, the "Box" flowitem does not have the "offset" nodes, which it does not normally need. But in this case I added them so that the flowitem going from the narrow conveyor to the wider conveyor will look to have the same position. To add them to the Box flowitem, in the FlowItem Bin, while the Box is highlighted, press the Properties button at the bottom left side of the screen. Then on the General tab, click the Edit button next to the Shape Factors, then click the OK button at the bottom on the Properties window. This should add the "offset" nodes as you can see in the 3rd tab of the main window (Tools/lowItemBin/Box/Box).

In the model, in DP1 in the On Arrival code area, I added a Code Snippet to change the Y offset of the flowitem. This makes it appear at the bottom part of the wider conveyor. Then in DP2, in the On Arrival code area, first I reverse the code from DP1. Then I rotate the flowtiem in the second block of code.

I believe that this is what you are looking for? If not, please let me know.

Here is the model:

flowitemchangeonconveyor.fsm

Re: Issues with flow item going from a thinner to a thicker conveyor

Matthew_Gillespie — Thu, 02 Jun 2016 18:47:16 GMT

You should be able to apply the concepts he's teaching, Basically just the same thing in reverse.

Re: Issues with flow item going from a thinner to a thicker conveyor

jeff_nordgren — Thu, 02 Jun 2016 19:00:04 GMT

Here is another example model that doesn't use the "messy" offset nodes. This model just uses the Translate and Rotate drop down menu options on the DPs. A much easier way to do it.

flowitemchangeonconveyor-fs2.fsm

Re: Issues with flow item going from a thinner to a thicker conveyor

brenton_king — Fri, 03 Jun 2016 21:05:08 GMT

Here is a version of the model that shows both kinds of transitions.

conveyor-transition-rotation-and-translation-1.fsm