[WIP] Technic Warehouse XL

[Mr Jos]

A new project has started,

Technic warehouse XL: A dual sided warehouse for storing Lego pallets using high bay racks and crane on rails.

Objectives:

1. Having a telescopic fork working fast and reliable in both directions.
2. Having a high bay crane allowing precise positioning in 2 directions, driving + up/down.
3. Strong warehouse racks that stay straight from top to bottom and along all rows as there will be only a few mm tolerance for the forks to fit inside. Trying to use as less as possible parts as repetetiveness will eat loads of the same.
4. Cable chains for all long cables on moving parts.
5. In-/Outfeed system to bring pallets to the crane and take them away.

Objective 1:

• I restarted my telescopic fork design trying to make it smaller then my previous version, but I didn't manage to get it smaller. But it did get a bit stronger and a more reliable geartrain is used (no bending axles/gears).

 

Objective 2:

• The base structure has a directive drive on 1 wheel.
• Inside is a sensor for resetting the basket heigth and length position.
• Still point to work on; rolling up the string on a repetitive way.

Objective 3:

• The racks will store 6 palets high probably, need to make a full prototype to test out spacing. Length is adjustable and depends on pieces available.
• Current testing phase:

Objective 4:

• Basket going up has 1 Medium motor and 1 Color sensor. They both will need a cable longer than the longest available cable from Lego (50cm).
• Cable holder needs to guide these 2 cables on a reliable way along the mast without being to bulky.
• Cable for charging the EV3 brick needs a reliable cablechain alongside the rails for long duration demonstration without changing batteries. Real cranes use a "multiconductor system" like from 'Akapp-Stemmann'. This can't be done with Lego, so an "Energy chain" like from 'Igus' will be used in Lego form (same as for basket cables)

• Testing the energy chains by driving to random positions and back to the front for over an hour.

How these long cables are made;

 

Objective 5:

• For feeding in new pallets, and simultaneous bringing old ones out of the warehouse, a double conveyor system is needed at the entrance of the warehouse.
• Possible systems are chain conveyors, roller conveyors, combination of those 2 as a corner transfer. Small pallet lift, using a 6DoF robot, pallet stacker, etc.

 

Extra's:

 

Spoiler

• The design will be based on the real life versions I have installed/am installing like these;

The red arrow is me at ~12m high, and throughout the previous video I am walking around (mechanical installer/supervisor).

• First biggest part will be the mechanical construction of this MOC, programming will be last when all finished. The technical part to make a strong accurate build will not be easy I guess. No idea if it will stay all in place when moving.

 

 

Edited December 17, 2021 by Mr Jos
Adding video's to 1st post to have all info at 1 place

[GerritvdG]

Nice project! Looking forward for further updates and progress!

Edited September 4, 2021 by GerritvdG

[Mr Jos]

1 row of the high bay racks has been made with top and bottom rail in place, and guiding wheels on the stacker crane. It can reach 6 levels of dropoff zones on each side. 1 row is 16studs long exactly making 3 rows fit on 1 baseplate from 48x48studs. This gives a storage capacity of 36boxes per plate.

  

  

I will have to see when I run out of liftarms/connectors. Studfull 1x10 brick with holes will certainly be gone quick to make the triangle reinforcements.

5 hours ago, GerritvdG said:

Nice project! Looking forward for further updates and progress!

Thanks

[Carsten Svendsen]

Cool, an industrial project for once! I like it :)

[Mr Jos]

8 hours ago, Carsten Svendsen said:

Cool, an industrial project for once! I like it :)

Thanks, nearly all my MOC's are industrial based. Check out my YT channel to find some of them (I have a playlist made with all my industrial machinery).

https://www.youtube.com/user/profjos/videos

• Lego Technic Perforating Press; Perforates a roll of ticketpaper by decoiling it, and cutting it on desired plate lengths. Based on a steel plate/coil perforating machine.

Spoiler

 

• My first version of a High Bay Warehouse.
• 6 Degrees of Freedom (6DOF) robotic arm. 6 joints working together to do complex tasks like ABB/KUKA/etc robots, not based on 1 of these though.

Spoiler

v1.0

v2.0

This one has instructions on Rebrickable: Here

• A T-bot gantry system. It was just a quick test to see possibilities with Lego to make quick moving 3 dimensional portals.

Spoiler

This one has instructions on Rebrickable: Here

• A sorting device; For technic pins, sorting on color and length of the pin. Not based on a particular real machine, but there are many sorting machines used in the industry.

Spoiler

This one has instructions on Rebrickable: Here

Many more industrial MOC's will come in the future I hope.

[Mr Jos]

Next problem to be solved; The string for lifting the basket has to be wind up on some kind of reel.

The standard 3x2 reel is to small for reliable winding up the string accurate to calculate the height and have a somewhat constant speed (diameter not changing to much). The inside diameter therefor should be around 2x2 or 3x3 and supersmooth. If anyone has an idea, I'll be glad to test it out.

So far failed experiments;

• Long chain made of '3711' chain links. It stretches to much by added weight making it unpredictable how high you are. + they disconnect under heavy load and crashes the basket downwards.
• 3L axle connector with some kind of sidewalls added. Hard to attach the string and not pull the string in between the connector and sidewalls.

Edited September 5, 2021 by Mr Jos
Typo

[Mr Jos]

Seems the 3L axle connector with bevelled 20T gears work pretty good as a big size reel. The extra length of the 2,5m Lego string makes it a perfect start to have an even surface.

A simple remote control was used driving at 20% speed without softstart/slowdown and 100% lifting without softstart/slowdown. With ramping up/down the movements will be much smoother and the crane will not be swinging so much when starting/stopping to drive.

Edit: 

Reel changed from double bevel to single bevel, this even allows to put the string through the axle hole of the 20T, and have it locked with a small knot on the outside of the reel.

This gives a very smooth finish after running the extra string on the reel.

Next challenge; cablechain for the motor cables to extend and center the telescopic fork.

Edited September 5, 2021 by Mr Jos

[howitzer]

These kind of projects are really cool, it's just that they also tend to be very large and require tons of parts, so it's a huge investment to build one.

A while ago I was working in a pharmacy with a storage robot system and I began to wonder if it would be possible to build a similar machine from Lego. Basically it has a lot of shelves in which the medicine boxes are stored, and the computer knows where each box is and can both, take them in and deliver them out to the counters for pharmacists to give out to customers. The entrance was a series of conveyor belts where transit containers (with medicine boxes in them) were poured and then the belt system oriented them correctly, identified each box and stored them in an appropriate place. Non-suitable stuff was ejected, and inside there was a picker which delivered the "orders" made by pharmacists. I wonder how difficult it would be to build this kind of machine?

[Mr Jos]

21 hours ago, howitzer said:

These kind of projects are really cool, it's just that they also tend to be very large and require tons of parts, so it's a huge investment to build one.

A while ago I was working in a pharmacy with a storage robot system and I began to wonder if it would be possible to build a similar machine from Lego. Basically it has a lot of shelves in which the medicine boxes are stored, and the computer knows where each box is and can both, take them in and deliver them out to the counters for pharmacists to give out to customers. The entrance was a series of conveyor belts where transit containers (with medicine boxes in them) were poured and then the belt system oriented them correctly, identified each box and stored them in an appropriate place. Non-suitable stuff was ejected, and inside there was a picker which delivered the "orders" made by pharmacists. I wonder how difficult it would be to build this kind of machine?

That sounds a bit like my first version I made of this Warehouse, I might remake this XL one with input/output conveyors aswell again. I then used 3x EV3 set, now I have 6bricks where 5 of them have the rechargeable battery. So maybe I will expand it with more conveyor belts, no idea yet. It does sound as a fun project to try, and certainly will be possible I think.

But first I want to finish this crane as standalone and program it completely. Then it should be easy to add any other system connected to it for in-/output. I did also think about using my 6DOF robot as in-/output, it would look cool, but not very realistic to use a robot arm for feeding containers. Just the complexity does make me want to try it!

[Jeroen Ottens]

Nice different project. As a suggestion for the reel you can maybe use wheelrims. They come in all kind of diameters.

[Mr Jos]

11 minutes ago, Jeroen Ottens said:

Nice different project. As a suggestion for the reel you can maybe use wheelrims. They come in all kind of diameters.

I would need a wide one, but not to big in diameter, as it should stay direct drive (no gearing at all), to have most accurate and fast positioning as possible. But the single 20T bevel design seems to work pretty decent so far. Only problem is the 3L axle with stop wanting to go out, but might have to just put a connector in front of it to block it in place.

I also added objective #4, I tested with some older cables to get the correct length and a good working energy chain. It's not easy to make a flexible guiding system that stays small in size compared to all other parts in the crane.

My solution so far is a combination of thin 5L liftarms with and without axle holes alternated.

Cables made after testing with my 2m older cables first;

• The 80cm motor cable goes into some fixed points on the outside of the mast, but the 100cm sensor cable goes inside the mast. It needs to be connected the the bottom ports of the brick.
• To put a 2L liftarm in between the 3x11 panels I had to take the mast almost completely apart, but the cable goes nice inside now.

Edited September 6, 2021 by Mr Jos

[howitzer]

7 hours ago, Mr Jos said:

• The 80cm motor cable goes into some fixed points on the outside of the mast, but the 100cm sensor cable goes inside the mast. It needs to be connected the the bottom ports of the brick.
• To put a 2L liftarm in between the 3x11 panels I had to take the mast almost completely apart, but the cable goes nice inside now.

I wondered about your cabling, as these things tend to require wiring for motors in far away locations, and the aforementioned pharmacy robot would also require that, which has been one of the problems that I hadn't solved yet with it. So apparently custom cabling is required...

[Jurss]

Interesting project.

Then You need to make some standard forklift, which drives in to those shelfs, and ruins everything at the end.

[Mr Jos]

13 hours ago, howitzer said:

I wondered about your cabling, as these things tend to require wiring for motors in far away locations, and the aforementioned pharmacy robot would also require that, which has been one of the problems that I hadn't solved yet with it. So apparently custom cabling is required...

The cable is just a flat 6 wire (old) phone cable. RJ12 6P6C, right side connector is what you need as plugs, and a crimping device that can crimp these right sided plugs. Standard phone plugs have the tabs in the middle, these will not fit in the EV3, only right side tabs. I think I bought 2bags on amazon with 50connectors each and the crimping tool. In a local electric store the cable for like 0,50€/meter, I bought a 50m roll that I can cut on any length I need.

Here is another project I made with all self made cables, so they can go under the baseplates to the EV3 build in the metal frame;

Spoiler

 

12 hours ago, Jurss said:

Interesting project.

Then You need to make some standard forklift, which drives in to those shelfs, and ruins everything at the end.

Sounds like something happening in a lot of factories. People with forklifts driving into poles/racks/pallets. 

I do already have such a forklift ready

So might do that when I think about breaking down this project!

[howitzer]

1 hour ago, Mr Jos said:

The cable is just a flat 6 wire (old) phone cable. RJ12 6P6C, right side connector is what you need as plugs, and a crimping device that can crimp these right sided plugs. Standard phone plugs have the tabs in the middle, these will not fit in the EV3, only right side tabs. I think I bought 2bags on amazon with 50connectors each and the crimping tool. In a local electric store the cable for like 0,50€/meter, I bought a 50m roll that I can cut on any length I need.

Here is another project I made with all self made cables, so they can go under the baseplates to the EV3 build in the metal frame;

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Yeah, unfortunately I don't have any EV3 equipment, only the RI set (51515) and a bunch of other PU stuff. The lack of extension cables makes it quite hard to build anything large with it, though I guess there might be some third party cables that are compatible.

[Mr Jos]

20 hours ago, howitzer said:

Yeah, unfortunately I don't have any EV3 equipment, only the RI set (51515) and a bunch of other PU stuff. The lack of extension cables makes it quite hard to build anything large with it, though I guess there might be some third party cables that are compatible.

That's one of the reasons I din't buy Robot Inventor yet. As I tend to make always big projects, needing long cables.

For the progress on the project so far; I've got the homing for all 3 motors finished (Programming with Pybricks MicroPython). Now it's finding the coordinates for each pallet position and just put them in a list. Then still need to test if this new rack design does work.. it's more narrow then my old style rack, so fingers crossed.

[Dazzzy]

This is going to be fascinating to watch once you've fully completed it.  Looking forward to it!

[Mr Jos]

Today I tried to find a solution for the cables during programming, testing and for long showcases.

Energy chain with 2 cables inside that is firm enough, still bends good and moves freely in both driving directions so accuracy will not be changed.

• #1 charging cable for the rechargeable EV3 battery, it can now stay plugged in for infinitive running without danger of running over the cable.
• #2 USB programming cable, only used during testing/programming. But this will be a long time I guess, and when unplugged from the laptop the cable can just stay in the chain without problems.

I could have made the lego chain much shorter (starting between rack 2-3), but I liked it to have it end at the beginning of the racks. Might change this in the future.

 

When the high bay crane is at the front position hitting the safety shock the energy chain still has a nice flexing form.

I added a few cheese pieces to guide the chain in place when running backwards. Will have to order some 1x2 cheese's (have 0) to make it look nice if I will stay with this design.

Edited September 9, 2021 by Mr Jos

[Carsten Svendsen]

Wow, I love that design of the flexible cable tray. I can't seem but notice that you're using halfpins to hold the triangles on. How come you don't use 2L axles and halfbeam 1x2 ? Too many parts maybe? At this point does it really matter? But then again, it works perfectly fine clearly, I would just imagine it's a bit wobbly.

[Mr Jos]

12 hours ago, Carsten Svendsen said:

Wow, I love that design of the flexible cable tray. I can't seem but notice that you're using halfpins to hold the triangles on. How come you don't use 2L axles and halfbeam 1x2 ? Too many parts maybe? At this point does it really matter? But then again, it works perfectly fine clearly, I would just imagine it's a bit wobbly.

I did start using the 1x2 thin liftarms and use a 2L axle, just like you have very well seen, but I would need around 60 of them to make the full energy chain, I didn't have enough, and found out I could use the Thick 1x2 with 1 crossaxle and the cable tray works pretty good. In both cases the chain would run a little away making the 'guidings' a need. But real world cable chains also run in a tray to keep them rolling in a straigth line.

I did many, many tests to find this one suitable and working like a real energy chain, bending in one direction, but not (to much) in the other direction. It's not easy to do this in a small scale (2wide), and still have space inside for cables. All my other designs would crash when running backwards with the crane, this one works perfect. I will see how it holds running several hours during testing/programming, if needed I'll change back to the thin double crossaxle liftarms and order a few more.

[Mr Jos]

At the moment of writing the crane has been running for more then 1 hour just randomly going to a pickup/dropoff position and return to the beginning of the warehouse. Forks not going out/in to have faster cycle times to see if accuracy+mechanical structure keeps working fine.

Only problem I have found so far is the 3L axle with stop in the string drum. After about 15minutes it's coming out like 3mm and needs a push back in place, if not it will fall out I guess. So will see if I can reinforce that part.

Due to the fast acceleration and driving on tiles only without a gear rack (looks waaay better without gear racks) the driving wheel tended to slip just a margin. A few mm every minute. To keep it perfect I added black and red tiles to the 'train-rail'. Final adjustment is done with these to be sure the wheel didn't slip, but it all keeps working pretty fast and with ramp up/ramp down still working so the crane doesn't tip over.

[GerritvdG]

Nice!

[Mr Jos]

5 hours ago, GerritvdG said:

Nice!

Thanks, I really like this project very much. Trying to improve every little thing and still working on high accuracy.

Change I just made is the reel design. It had to much friction because it was a 3L axle connector with 2 axles inside, trying to get pushed out.

On 9/6/2021 at 11:04 PM, Jeroen Ottens said:

Nice different project. As a suggestion for the reel you can maybe use wheelrims. They come in all kind of diameters.

And there come the dutchies to the rescue, thought about your comment, and looked in my box of rims/wheels/tires. I found one that had a pretty good inside diameter, high flanges and smaller than 3x3x3.

The amount of degrees to go from bottom to top used to be 6250°, and with the new rim it's only 3020°. Speed for lifting has been doubled and the motor can easily handle it. It looks way better now (the range for driving is 2950°) So from all the way in the front bottom, to top end is nearly arriving at the same time, and the motors run around 800°/second so it takes around 4 seconds only with ramping up/down inclusive!

I did let it run without the forks for like 20minutes and looks very good, then added the fork in/out (this takes also a few seconds to do). The accuracy is incredibly good. I let it put in some pallets and all seemed to be put down perfect. Not uploading a video of it as I already did one today but looks very good so far. I think I'm near the end now for the crane. Will add objective 5; in-/outfeed for the warehouse, if that's finished I can start long AS/RS testing. (Automatic Storage/Retrieval System)

I appreciate everyone commenting as it's helping develop some unique Lego machines.

Edited September 11, 2021 by Mr Jos
Typo

[Mr Jos]

Chain conveyors for in- and outfeed are already finished. Now need to connect them and some kind of other system for the boxes.

All construction parts still in 'Galvanized steel' (LBG) and safety equipment for moving parts/crushing hazard in yellow. Might have to change some more parts to yellow later.

[GerritvdG]

Cool, it's going to be a massive build!