conveying items not centered

Hey everyone,

one part of my model looks as shown in the first picture: I have 2 conveyors and a side-transfer. In the model I have 3 itemtypes with different lengths.

I would like the items to be conveyed to the end of the first conveyor and then be transfered to the second one.
Also I want the items to be conveyed not centered on the second conveyor but close to the right side of the conveyor (as seen in the second picture [I dragged the items there for the picture ] ).

Is there an easy way to get the items to travel to the end of the converyor and then transfer?
How can I get the items to be conveyed close to one side of a conveyor?


Another related question:
I was wondering why there is a conveyor module 1.0.10 in the FlexSim 7.7 beta but only a conveyor module 1.0.8 in FlexSim 7.5.4. Is there an upgrade I missed?

On the Visual tab of the Conveyor, you can specify a Roller Skew Angle to get the items to line up along a certain side of the conveyor.

You didn't miss an upgrade of the module. Conveyor module 1.0.10 is the conveyor module updated to work with FlexSim 7.7. Conveyor module 1.0.8 is the latest version of the conveyor module that works with FlexSim 7.5.

Thank you for the quick response. Now I get the conveyor module versions.

I tried the roller skew angle but what I would like is that the item is conveyed on one side of the conveyor right from the start and the item should travel to the end of the first conveyor before transfering.

I got it to work using multiple conveyors to transfer the items (see model in the attachments - I used FlexSim 7.7 beta 2) but maybe there is a nicer and way to do it.

In the model all items that are transfered to the upper conveyor travel as I would like them to.
For a comparison the items that are transfered to the lower conveyor use standard flexsim and travel centered.

Is there an easier way to model it than using mutiple conveyors and positioning them according to the itemlength?

Attached is your model with a modified section that shows how you can do this without a bunch of extra conveyors, decision points, or photoeyes.

I made a new conveyor type and changed its roller skew angle to 90 so that it conveys to the side immediately upon entering the conveyor.

I connected the skinny conveyor to the last conveyor using an A connect so that the connection was made from the end of the skinny conveyor instead of the side.

I moved the last conveyor close to the skinny conveyor, which automatically added a side transfer. I then deleted that unnecessary side transfer.

Thanks Phil,
that is a much easier approach than using multiple conveyors.

I just have one problem.
If you disconnect the sink you can see that the items accumulate on the ExitTransfer588 (even if the "Max Transports in Transit" value is set to 1). Why is that?

Also the items on the first conveyor overlap a little bit. Is this because I set the itemsize in the onExitTrigger of the source?

I ran into another issue as I tried to apply this approach to my model.

The skinny conveyor feeds two conveyors (as seen in the picture below). The items should be conveyed on one side of the conveyor (in this case on the left side). When I use a roller skew angle of 90 it works for the upper conveyor but it is the wrong side for the lower conveyor.

If I enter roller skew angle = -90 the value is set to -45 automatically which means that the items will be conveyed to the left side but not be conveyed on the left side from the start.

[For any roller skew angle value >90 the items are always coveyed to the right side.]

So it is not posible to enter a roller skew angle value < -45 ?

Hi Anna Lisa,

here is my solution to your problem:
- the DP on the infeed conveyor just determines the output to the outfeed conveyor.
- the DP on the outfeed conveyor does three movement modifications OnArrival, all of them taking zero time:
1. Rotate the item
2. Translate the item to the left edge of the conveyor
3. Translate the item to the xlocation of the outfeed conveyor to reflect the position when it left the infeed conveyor

However, you have to add logic to avoid the following item moving into the previous item, which can technically happen, when they arrive to close to each other.

Does that help?

Best wishes

Ralf
FlexSim

I just noticed the items being lifted by one meter after transfer. Please change "Conveyor Up" to zero in the second translate pickoption. Sorry.

Thanks Ralf,
that is another good approach to keep the items on one side. I could probably use it to transport the items on the lower conveyor on the left side.

Unfortunately the items run into each other when the items accumulate on the conveyor.

Maybe there is a way I can get Phil's approach to work for both the upper and lower conveyor but use a DP (like you said) to limit the number of items in transport so that the items accumulate on the skinny conveyor instead of on the EntryTransit.

Is there a reason why I can not set the roller skew angle to -90?

The items stacking up in the entry transfer is a bug. For now, you can work around it by putting a Queue between the two conveyors.

Attached is an example model that shows how this can be done. It also has small, unconnected conveyor pieces so that it doesn't look like there is a gap in the conveyor where the queue is used for positioning.

I'm not sure why the GUI doesn't let you enter a value less than -45 for the roller skew angle. You can change it directly in the tree though: MODEL:/ConveyorSystem>variables/conveyorTypes/Kettenfoerderer Copy Copy/rollerAngle

I'll add an item to the development list to look at these issues for a future release of the Conveyor module.

Hi Bobo,
Regardless of Anna's requirement, I built a model based (see model in the attachments) on RalfGruber's model to work for both the upper and lower conveyor.
It has something wrong with items accumulate on the upper/lower conveyor, since I use "Rotate Item" and "Translate Item" in DP (see the picture attached)

How can I get the items to be accumulated normally?

Any suggestion will be appreciated.

The problem is the 2nd translate in each decision point. What are you trying to do with that? If you delete it, then your items will stop overlapping.

You are forcing them to overlap with your additional translation along the direction of each conveyor.

Thanks Bobo,

When the item enter the upper/lower conveyor from the middle-conveyor, it will seem to be enter start from outside the conveyor (Slow down the runspeed, you can see it clearly. Or you can see the gif in the attachments).

The reason I add the 2nd Translate in each DP is try to modify the overlapping.

Could you please give me any suggestions for avoiding the overlapping?