Electrical pulse counters – pulse dividers – or shift registers: c – Applications – Counting animate or inanimate entities
Patent
1986-12-23
1988-11-01
Heyman, John S.
Electrical pulse counters, pulse dividers, or shift registers: c
Applications
Counting animate or inanimate entities
377 10, G06M 700
Patent
active
047825006
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The invention concerns a method of counting uniform objects passing a counting location on a conveyor.
Uniform objects to be counted during conveyance may be, for example, beer bottles, which are conveyed in a brewery between various treatment stations, often in several lanes on the conveyor. The counting of bottles at two or more locations on the conveyor may be used, for example, for controlling the speed of a belt conveyor for the bottles for reducing the noise caused by bottle collisions thereon.
Known counters for this have plural sensors at each location, each of which inhibits the other sensors when activated in counting an object. The inhibition is to prevent a passing object from being counted again by a second one of the sensors, and the geometrical arrangement of the sensors ensures that any passing object will be counted by one of the sensors.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The object of the invention is to provide a method of the above type which eliminates the uncertainty that may arise when an object passes the sensors exactly halfway between two adjacent sensors.
This object is achieved in that the method scans the sensors and inhibits the sensor or sensors adjacent a count-activating sensor. The scanning ensures that it is always and only the first one of two successive simultaneously activated sensors which has count status.
The scanning frequency must be high enough to ensure that at least one scanning cycle is traversed during the time it takes for an object moving with the highest possible velocity to pass the row of sensors. The scanning process further ensures that two or more groups are never established simultaneously.
The invention also concerns an apparatus having a row of sensors above a conveyor for objects in an electric control circuit for a counter. The control circuit scans sensors and inhibits the second scanned of adjacent, simultaneously activated sensors.
In particular, when cylindrical objects are involved, e.g. beer or mineral water bottles, the certainty of all bottles being counted once and only once may be established in that each sensor of the row of sensors has a detection diameter about half the diameter of the objects and satisfies the condition that there are about twice as many sensors per row as objects.
When, additionally, the control circuit inhibits the one or two sensors adjacent one activated for counting, any first-activated sensor will establish itself either as the central one of a 3-group or as one of a 2-group with the adjacent sensor or sensors inhibited, and each group counts one object. The adjacent groups may overlap, but the overlap must not affect the initiating sensors. An unactivated sensor which is a member of a group may be activated later, but does not count because it is inhibited.
A differentiator and then a half-wave rectifier between the control circuit and counter ensures that it is only the leading flank of the pulses applied by the control circuit which activates the counter. As a result, there will always be a minimum time interval between two counter activations, corresponding to the time interval between two successive scanning pulses.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING
The invention will be described more fully below with reference to the drawing, in which
FIG. 1 is a schematic plan view of a plurality of sensors over a conveyor on which uniform, cylindrical objects are packed as densely as possible,
FIG. 2 an electrical schematic of a portion of a preferred embodiment of an apparatus according to the invention.
FIG. 3 is a block diagram of another display-unit portion of the preferred embodiment, and
FIG. 4 shows single wave forms in a signal processing circuit which forms part of the display unit shown in FIG. 3.
DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT
FIG. 1 shows a sensor assembly consisting of a row of sensors 1-9 over a conveyor 16 conveying a plurality of uniform objects 10. The objects are bottles in a typical use of the present invention.
The sensors 1-9 are so designed that their detecti
REFERENCES:
patent: 3665444 (1972-05-01), Scott
patent: 3678254 (1972-07-01), Graff
patent: 4303851 (1981-12-01), Mottier
patent: 4344520 (1982-08-01), Czoch et al.
patent: 4528680 (1985-07-01), Archambeault
De Forenede Bryggerier A/S
Heyman John S.
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