power control

From: Vance Dereksen <vance_at_ikickass.org>
Date: Tue Jun 26 09:11:45 2001

Responses inline:
On Tue, 26 Jun 2001, Douglas Quebbeman wrote:

> > Maybe that is why I have ended up doing process control work so many times.
> > Its just fun to turn stuff on and off with the computer, and the bigger the
> > mess of stuff, the better.
>
> Hey, I used to do distribution centers: sortation conveyors, vertical and
> horizontal carousels, pick stations, etc. We used Quatech boards with Opto
> 22 modules stuffed in IBM PS/2 Model 80s which we stuffed in turn in big
> Hoffman cabinets, and, contrary to my specs, unventilated. They ran like
> gangbusters!

I've never had a problem with Opto's stuff. Good solid stuff. (I do
concurrent robotics for a living.) Plus Mod80s are built like a brick
shithouse. I once saw one that had been running in an unventilated closet
in someone's office for almost 4 years continuously. Had only been
rebooted a couple of times. Running AIX/2, of all things.

> We'd gone in to Rose's Distribution center down in Raleigh-Duram area,
> and found they had to keep a $250,000 inventory of spares *just* for
> the custom controllers they used. We figured it would be a lot cheaper
> to keep a couple Model 80s and some Quatech I/O boards around.

Sounds reasonable to me.

> We were told that if we botched the timing of the sortation conveyor,
> that the whole line could "explode"; the contractor said he'd seen
> conveyor rollers embedded in a warehouse ceiling, once...
>
> Lights going on and off, arms swinging lanes shut, packages shuttling
> off into other lanes, etc. Some of the most fun I've had in computing!

LOL. That would be a scene 8-) The same kind of thing happens with
robots with screwed up timing.

> And all on-topic, as everything described in the list is > 10years old.
>
> Regards,
> -doug q
>
>

Peace... Sridhar
Received on Tue Jun 26 2001 - 09:11:45 BST