Week #4: (10/29-11/2) Electrical Wrap-Up, Fluid Power

[rjagodowski]

Monday, 10/29: Finish discussion of ladder diagrams and problems from Week #3 handouts. I'll also give a quick presentation of Electronics Workbench, and old circuit analysis program we used to use on campus. Then we'll begin discussing Fluid Power systems and components.

IMPORTANT: The second "quiz pack" will be distributed in class today (10/29) and will be due before noon on Monday, 11/5. If you do not pick up a copy, please see me ASAP.

Wednesday, 10/31: Basic Hydraulic & Pneumatic Symbols and components. We'll start the discussion by working through this tutorial Comparing Hydraulics and Pneumatics.

Some other supporting Fluid Power links:

Pneumatic Directional Control Valves

Simple Pneumatic Circuits

Pneumatic Control Valves from AutomationDirect.com as well as this Interactive Demo of Control Valve Operation.

These are a bit advanced for our course but helps bring together the concepts an automated fluid power system and the ladder diagram which is used to control it. Manual Control of a Reciprocation Circuit and Continuous Cycle Reciprocation Circuit.


Friday, 11/2: We will continue with some discussions on pneumatic and hydraulic components & diagrams. We will also look at MS Visio again to create a simple fluid power diagram.

In-Class Visio Assignment: Here is the assignment to create a Pneumatic Dual Acting Cylinder Diagram in Visio. NOTE: The control valve was created out of the Visio symbol library and then "Grouped" into a single component. See the assignment sheet below. This assignment will be distributed in class on Friday, 11/2, and is due no later than noon on Wednesday, 11/7. A pdf is attached here:

Visio Fluid Power Diagram Assignment v18.1.pdf

(58.09 KiB) Downloaded 133 times

As an FYI, Here are a few tutorials on Pneumatic Components:

Pneumatic Directional Control Valves

Pneumatic Schematic Symbols & Flashcards

Control of a Reciprocation Circuit.

To put some perspective on the technical diagrams and content we're learning, I thought this might be a good time to show a recent senior project.

Here is a YouTube video of the Spring 2015 Senior Advanced Automation Bottle Filling Project. Note the use of electrical, pneumatic, robotic, microcontroller and PLC (programmable logic control) components in their project. An electric screw-drive motor feeds the empty bottles. Pneumatic cylinders are used to push & position the bottles into the proper position. A microcontroller is used for table rotation control. An electrically controlled fill valve is used to control the fill of the bottles. A robot is used to screw on the caps. The end-effectors of the robot were made in-house with a Makerbot 3D printer. Pneumatics control the bottles as they drop into carriers. The entire process is controlled by a Click PLC.