Making a counter that monitors input in the background of a MachineLogic app and preforms an action

Sean Wilson

Preface:

This is presented solely as information. Use it at your own risk.

The visual references in this discussion are screenshots from Machine Logic (as of 8/28/20) inside the online environment of 3D Machine Builder and may display options that are not available or are named differently then what your current firmware / controller version has. This is reference to how a counter was made and not specifically a step by step guide as to how a counter should be made. A version of the counter has been run and proven on a Machine Motion controller version 1E running firmware V1.14 (hotfix) I can not attest to its viability on any other combination of hardware or software.

Go out and build cool shit!

The goal of this was to:

1-    Monitor an input, parallel to the main operation

2-    Count the amount of times the input was triggered to a set number

3- Once the set number was reached preform an operation to indicate to the operator that the correct number of cycles has been reached.

Step 1

Create three child sequences:

1-    "Count – Values": Allows the setup of times you want to count and the times to preform the output

2-    "Count – Monitor": Sets what and how you want to look at to be counted

3- "Count - Complete - Action": Sets what you want to do to indicate that the count has reached its set point.

Step 2

In the sequence "Count – Values".

1-    Add two loops.

2-    #1 will be your input counter. Set your desired # of counts. For "Do" select "Count - Monitor"

3-    #2 set the # of times the operator indicator will happen. For "Do" select "Count - Complete - Action"

Step 3

In the sequence " Count - Monitor ".

1-    Add a wait instruction and select the input you would like to look for.

Step 4

In the sequence "Count - Complete - Action" you are creating the operator indicator. For this example an on-wait-off sequence was created. For example this could be used to flash a tower light but could be any other operation you can program.

1-    Add an output, select the one the want to use and its state

2- Add a wait and set

3- Add an output, select the same one and change the state back

Step 5

In the main sequence

1- Add an execution, set it to parallel. Select "Count - Values" for the sequence