All the Parts below are cut to length by one machine.

SAM 11 - The Night Shift

The Machine is controlled by a 16F84 Micro Controller Chip. (CPU)
The Program takes up a little over 3/4 of the 1K of program space.

Material up to 26 feet in length is set on ball bearing rollers to the left of the machine.
A small DC gear motor feeds the material to the right until it pushes on the push rod
which makes a micro switch that tells the CPU to turn off the feed and clamp the part.
A Grinder motor with a 10 inch Saw Blade is slowly moved out and cuts the material.
After the blade moves back the clamp releases and the part falls in to a bucket.
The process is then repeated. Well until 10 parts are cut, then it goes on break for
15 minutes. (even the machines are treated good here.)
Push Rods
for all the
different length
parts it cuts.

.

Because of the push rods, parts cut this week are exactly the same as parts cut months ago.

The length of the parts varies
less than .002 of an inch.
Every aspect of the operation is timed. If any step takes longer than is should
the CPU shuts every thing down and flashes an error code on one of the LED's.
That way in the morning I know if there was a problem and what it was.

Sam 11 went on line in April 2004, it has had some up dates and changes
made in that time. And several software changes.
A counter was added in Sept.of 05.

As of 11/16/05 the counter reads 2,827

 It is really cool to set a stick of material in the machine, push the Start Button and go home.

Next Morning there is a whole bucket of parts.

Under the Hood
It was a lot neater before all the changes were made.

Last Updated 11/16/05
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