JPH06235475A - Solenoid valve control device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To efficiently drive a system by way of carrying out a sequence action by a mechanism except for a PC by furnishing a self-judgement mechanism with a logical computer as its core. CONSTITUTION:An action command from a PC1 is output to a solenoid valve by an output mechanism controlled by a self judgement mechanism 4. Accordingly, an output signal of each sensor provided on the solenoid valve which informs that the solenoid valve is actuated in accordance with the action command is input to an input mechanism 7. Thereafter, by a logical computer 5 of the self judgement mechanism 4, the output signal which is the action command and an input signal are compared with each other, and whether the solenoid valve is normally actuated or not is judged. In the case when there is abnormality, the PC1 is informed that an error is detected. Consequently, as the self judgement mechanism 4 carries out monitoring of an action of the solenoid valve and judgement of whether the solenoid valve is normally actuated or not, the PC1 can continue another work unless the error is detected when it outputs the action command. In the case when the error is detected, interruption is made by the PC1, and the error is treated there.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a solenoid valve control device for controlling a plurality of solenoid valves according to a command from a programmable controller.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Programmable controller (hereinafter referred to as PC
Will be abbreviated as ") and a general control method for controlling a pneumatic control device such as an air cylinder by a solenoid valve will be described based on the conceptual diagram shown in FIG.

In FIG. 6, an air cylinder 16 driven by an electromagnetic valve 11 is provided with two sensors 14 and 15 for detecting the position of a piston 17. And
The signals of the sensors 14 and 15 are the sensor input lines 14a and 1
It is adapted to be read into the I / O port 20 of the PC 1 via 5a. The PC 1 outputs the operation command from the I / O port 20 to the solenoid valve 11 via the solenoid valve output line 11a, and then detects that the piston 17 has moved to either the position of the sensor 14 or the sensor 15. 1
Check the input signals of 4 and 15.

As described above, the output line to the solenoid valve for controlling one air cylinder and the sensor input line necessary for confirming the operating state of the air cylinder are connected to the I / O port of the PC. When controlling multiple solenoid valves with one PC, a considerable number of signal lines are required, and when controlling solenoid valves further away from the PC, a considerable number of signal lines are routed. Therefore, there was a problem in terms of man-hours for wiring and appearance.

In order to solve this problem, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2-2
A solenoid valve control device as described in Japanese Patent No. 12902 has been proposed. The outline will be described based on the conceptual diagrams shown in FIGS. 7 and 8.

In FIGS. 7 and 8, 1 is a PC, 2 is a signal transmission means consisting of a serial transmission cable, 9 is a parallel-serial conversion and transmission unit, 10 is a serial-parallel conversion and reception unit, 11 is a solenoid valve, 12
Is the manifold. 8 is a space inevitably generated by the coupling of the solenoid valve and the manifold, and the wiring from the transmission unit 9 to the reception unit 10 is connected by one serial transmission cable 2 and the reception unit 10 is connected.
Is arranged in the space 8 generated by coupling the solenoid valve 11 and the manifold 12, and is connected to the solenoid valve 11 by a connector.

In the control device configured as described above, the transmission and reception are connected by one serial transmission cable,
By arranging the receiving unit 10 in a space that is inevitably generated by connecting the solenoid valve 11 and the manifold 12, and connecting the solenoid valve to the connector, a wiring-saving solenoid valve control device excellent in wiring man-hours and appearance can be realized.

[0008]

However, according to the above-mentioned conventional technique, although the wiring is saved, the piston 17 is operated by the piston 17 after the PC 1 outputs the operation command to the solenoid valve 11.
The PC 1 needs to confirm the input signals of the sensors 14 and 15 in order to know that it has moved to either the position 4 or the position of the sensor 15. Therefore, it was always necessary to incorporate the sequence program into the main program as a sequence operation.

During the sequence operation from when the PC 1 outputs the output signal which is the operation command to the solenoid valve 11 until the input signals of the sensors 14 and 15 for notifying that the operation is performed according to the operation command are input. Is in a waiting state and cannot do other work, so he will waste time during that time.

The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned problems of the prior art, and its object is to perform a sequence operation in P
An electromagnetic valve control device provided with a control mechanism for efficiently driving the system by performing a mechanism other than C is provided.

[0011]

A solenoid valve control device according to the present invention will be described with reference to the conceptual diagram of FIG. 1. A communication mechanism 3 connected to a PC 1 by a serial transmission means 2 and an output mechanism 6.
The self-determination mechanism 4 including the logical operation unit 5 for comparing the output signal output by the input mechanism 7 and the input signal input by the input mechanism 7 is provided.

[0012]

According to the above structure, the operation command from the PC 1 is output to the solenoid valve 11 by the output mechanism 6 managed by the self-determination mechanism 4. Then, the output signals of the sensors 14 and 15 notifying that the solenoid valve 11 has operated according to the operation command are input to the input mechanism 7, and the logical operation unit 5 of the self-determination mechanism 4 outputs the output signal and the input signal, which are operation commands. The comparison is made to determine whether the operation is normal.
If there is an abnormality, the PC 1 is notified that an error has been detected. As described above, the self-determination mechanism 4 monitors the operation of the solenoid valve 11 and determines whether or not the solenoid valve 11 is normally operated. Therefore, when the PC 1 outputs an operation command, other work can be continued unless an error is detected. If an error is detected, an interrupt may be generated in the PC 1 and the error may be dealt with.

[0013]

Embodiment 1 FIG. 2 is a block diagram of this embodiment, and FIG. 3 is a piston 17 in a cylinder 16 and an OFF sensor 1.
4, the positional relationship of the ON sensor 15 is shown, Table 1 shows the data of the output state of the OFF sensor and the ON sensor with respect to the output state of the solenoid valve, and FIG. 4 shows the flowchart of the program of the self-determination mechanism 4.

[0014]

[Table 1]

In FIG. 2, the self-determination mechanism 4 includes a CPU 5 which is a logical operation unit 5 and a ROM 2 which contains a program.
6, a RAM 25 for storing input / output states, a PIO 23 which is an I / O interface, and a timer 24. The solenoid valve 11 and the sensors 14 and 15 are connected to the output mechanism 6 and the input mechanism 7 through the photocoupler 27, and the P
Although connected to the IO23, the DC24V power supply supplied to the solenoid valve 11 and the sensors 14 and 15 and the DC5V power supply supplied to the self-determination mechanism 4 and the communication mechanism 3 are completely separated by using the photocoupler 27. Has been done. Regarding communication, the line transceiver / receiver 21 is switched between receiving and transmitting by using Arcnet 22 which is a LAN protocol IC proposed in the United States.
It communicates with the PC 1 through the RS485 cable 2.

The operation of the solenoid valve control device configured as described above will be described. In FIG. 3 and Table 1, the direction in which the solenoid valve 11 turns on the cylinder 16 (when the output state of the solenoid valve 11 is "1"). The piston 17 in the cylinder 16 moves from the position of the OFF sensor 14 to the position of the ON sensor 15 by air pressure through an air tube (not shown). Accordingly, the rod 18 is also in the OFF position 1
It moves from 4b to the ON position 15b and moves to drive the load. At this time, the output data of each sensor 14, 15 as shown in the column "a" of Table 1 is returned to the control mechanism 4. On the contrary, when the solenoid valve 11 operates in the direction to turn off the cylinder 16 (when the output state of the solenoid valve 11 is “0”), the piston 17 in the cylinder 16 is turned on by the pneumatic sensor 15
From the position of the OFF sensor 14 to the position of the OFF sensor 14, and the self-determination mechanism 4 displays each sensor 14 as shown in the “b” column of Table 1.
15 output data is returned.

Then, the CPU 5 of the self-determining mechanism 4 compares whether the output signal output to the solenoid valve 11 and the input signals of the returned sensors 14 and 15 match. Next, the details of the comparison operation will be described below with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

In FIG. 4, the arc net 22 is RS4.
85 Cable 2 and Line Transceiver / Receiver 2
The presence / absence of transmission data from the PC 1 is constantly monitored via 1. When the transmission data is recognized, the transmission data is immediately received, serial-parallel data conversion is performed, and the CPU
Transfer to 5. Then, the CPU 5 sends an output command to the corresponding solenoid valve to the PIO 23 based on the transferred data. At the same time, the CPU 5 sets the timeout time in the timer. Next, the CPU 5 confirms whether the output signals of the sensors 14 and 15 corresponding to the solenoid valve 11 driven by the output command are input to the PIO 23 within the timeout time. When there is an input signal to the PIO 23, the operation completion data is converted into parallel-serial data in order to send the operation completion to the PC 1 and is sent to the PC 1.

However, when there is no input signal even after the time-out period has passed, error determination data is converted into parallel-serial data and transmitted to the PC 1 as an abnormal occurrence such as air outage or sensor destruction. After that, the arcnet 22 also monitors the presence or absence of the transmission data from the PC 1, and when there is no transmission data from the PC 1, the CPU 5 monitors the state of whether the solenoid valve or the cylinder is operating normally. If there is a change in the status, it is determined that an abnormality has occurred and error determination data is transmitted to the PC 1.

In the solenoid valve control device of this embodiment described above, the completion of the operation of the solenoid valve 11 and the cylinder 16 can be confirmed and an error can be detected only by the self-determination mechanism 4, and if an error is detected, an interrupt is issued to the PC 1 Therefore, the load on the PC 1 can be reduced. In addition, the solenoid valve configuration can be sufficiently coped with, although there are differences in the number of solenoid valves used and types such as single solenoid and double solenoid. Further, since it is serial communication, it also saves wiring.

[0021]

[Embodiment 2] FIG. 5 shows a solenoid valve control device of the present embodiment, and in particular, a modification of the portion of the self-determination mechanism 4 in the first embodiment. The self-determination mechanism 4 compares a latch circuit, which is an output data holder 29 that holds an operation command from the PC 1, with a comparator 30 that compares the output data and the input data under a certain condition and determines whether the operation is normal. A dip switch, which is a condition setter 31 that can easily set / change the above-mentioned conditions, is provided. The output data holder 29 is connected to the solenoid valve 11 through the photo coupler 27, and is also connected to the comparator 30. The comparator 30 is connected to the sensors 14 and 15 through the photo coupler 27. Regarding communication, RS2 via Arcnet 22
32C communicates with PC1.

The operation of the solenoid valve control device configured as described above will be described. The operation other than the self-determination mechanism 4 is the same as that of the first embodiment, and therefore the description thereof will be omitted. That is, the operation command from the PC 1 is serial-parallel converted by the arc net 22 to output the output holder 29.
Output to. The output holder 29 latches the output data, which is an operation command, and leaves the output data in the comparator 30. At the same time, output data is output to the solenoid valve 11 via the solenoid valve output line 11a. When the solenoid valve 11 operates according to the operation command,
The output signals from the sensors 14 and 15 are the sensor input lines 14
It is input to the comparator 30 via a and 15a.

The comparator 30 reads the condition from the condition setter 31, and compares the output data left in the comparator 30 with the output signal of the sensors 14 and 15 under the condition. If the conditions are met, it means normal operation and waits for the next operation command from the PC 1. If they do not match, the error determination data is detected in parallel by the arcnet 22 as an error detection.
Serial-converted and sent to PC1.

In the solenoid valve control device of the present embodiment described above, the structure of the control mechanism 4 can be realized with a relatively simple circuit structure, so that it is inexpensive. Further, when the condition setter 31 is a dip switch, it can be realized only by hardware, so that there is an effect that man-hours for software development become unnecessary.

[0025]

In the solenoid valve control system of the present invention, P
Since C1 outputs the operation command to the solenoid valve, the self-determination mechanism is responsible for the subsequent sequence operation.
1 has the effect that it is possible to continue other work and drive the system efficiently.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a conceptual diagram of a solenoid valve control device of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a self-determination mechanism of the solenoid valve control device according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing the position of each sensor of the cylinder and the movement of the piston in the first embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart of an electromagnetic valve error detection program in the first embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram of a self-determination mechanism of a solenoid valve control device according to a second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a conceptual diagram of a general control method for a conventional pneumatic control device.

FIG. 7 is a perspective view of a conventional control device.

FIG. 8 is a conceptual diagram of a conventional control device.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 programmable controller (PC) 2 serial transmission means 3 communication mechanism 4 self-determination mechanism 5 logical operation mechanism 6 output mechanism 7 input mechanism

Front page continued (72) Inventor Kenichi Arai 2-43-2 Hatagaya, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo Olympus Optical Co., Ltd.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A solenoid valve control device controlled by a programmable controller, wherein the solenoid valve control device comprises a self-determination mechanism whose core is a theoretical calculator, an output mechanism managed by the self-determination mechanism, and an input mechanism. A solenoid valve control device comprising a communication mechanism for exchanging data with a programmable controller by serial transmission means.