Mr Jos

Hello, For my projects I would like to be able to give some names to the boxes being stored, so when retrieving them you can choose from a list with names in addition to just browse through the rack-image onscreen. So the objective would be, tell the conveyor system to come pickup a box, it asks the crane to come pick it up, meanwhile I want to be able to write a name with the EV3 buttons (Example: 2x1 plates). This name should be limited to the length of the EV3 brick screen (max characters). And possibly when no movement on the keypad has been tracked before the box was stored, give it a default name. The warehouse program is made in EV3-G so I would like to make a keypad on screen with the brick buttons in EV3-G. Don't know if anyone has done that yet? No need for uppercase, just 26 letters, 10numbers, a 'spacebar', 'back' and 'enter'. Here some photo's from the current steps/screens, After this step, choosing either the automatic pickup, or manual adding a 'forgotten' box I want the keypad to pop-up, if one button touched on the brick stay at the keypad until 'enter' has been hit to give it the name, no button hit give it default name (Example: Box 01). Then return to this mainscreen to store another box, or be able to take one back, and then add the option to get a droplist with the names from all stored boxes, if you need the '1x8 plates' but don't know where it is. Greetings Jos.

Very nice MOC. Size, speed, turn radius etc all look good. Only thing I seem to notice is that the mast tilt seems to not stay stable when you drive around with a load. Looks like it starts to tip over. Well done!

Nice MOC! I like to see technic models/machines that are not often made, certainly with pneumatics. Hope they will bring out a new set with the 1x11's to get a reasonable price for them. It's the only reason I don't own any now. Does the compressor pump have some overpressure shutoff or is it manual on/off?

I would be interested in a 4-8 outputs gearbox with 1input and a second motor to choose the output axle, with one some axles heavy power needed and others not. Working in both directions. This to make a machine which uses a sequence of linear actuators need less motors to be driven. This one drives all 4 outputs at once I think?

Thank you! It can now be seen in action! Next project is in the thinking on how to do it. It will need massive long pistons (Baling Press). While it remains in thinking how to do it I will keep adding upgrades to the software for the warehouse.

One more who thought first picture was to show how it should look like a diecast toy. Very nice manufactured pneumatics!

Thank you very much! It does fit nice with a lego camera to look like a theodolite, will keep it and maybe order some if I can find them, to go with my Industrial MOC's.

Looking to know what number/name this tri-pod is. I use it as legs for a 'theodolite', used for measuring or aligning machines/floors/etc. Found it in the box with old LEGO. [

Today the manager for the boxes was written, now selectable where to put and which one to bring back. Also multiple boxes can be waiting on the line. Bringing back is only allowed when the infeed line is empty. Used all my 5*11 panel plates so don't have enough boxes to fill it up.

And here it is working with the WMS made in EV3-G.

Just an update, I managed to program all I wanted, it was easier then I thought. First time ever it just creates the offline file and puts one blank 0 inside. It reads then the file and puts it in an array of 24 containing all 'False' for boxes present in the rack. Then in the program, everytime a box has been confirmed put in the rack the location in the array gets modified to true, or false if it gets taken away again, and the offline file gets deleted and rewritten. This makes on next startup of the program just a 0 gets added as 25th box not present and the real 24 get put back in the array, shown on screen and able to select for return the box to the chain conveyor. As for the moving along the screen with the arrow keys I found a way to do it with just 8 variables I need to give in for every position. A logic for each direction if it's allowed to go up or not etc. And when allowed what number in the array it will be at when the key has been pressed and released. Now the crane works completely, the conveyor brick just needs to send a number 0-23 as box number via bluetooth and the crane reports back when it finishes a part of the job. Only part left to program is the conveyors to work in auto mode, perhaps extend the roller conveyor a little. Greetings Jos.

Hey, Currently making a WMS (Warehouse Managing System) for my High bay warehouse. See the topic, post #2 above for the mechanical pictures/info. I started with a visualization on the conveyor EV3 brick. Blank boxes in racks and conveyors mean they are empty, small 2x2 square inside them mean there is a box present. I made a file that is being read upon startup of the program with all data of previous positions when shut down. Worked fine. Then we have the rack squares, one is darker lined, this means it is selected and empty inside (so no box there). I want to program it as if there is a box available on the conveyor that it brings it here when selected and I push middle button on the brick. It worked all fine, but then I started programming the movement of the selected rack, and there it went wrong. There are so many options to click right = array position 9, down 4, up 2, left should not be allowed. And this then again for every position different. I forgot to put it in a loop and as I dragged a part of the code into the loop the whole application stopped and crashed, I forgot to save 5hours of programming offcourse, now starting again drawing the mainscreen and making arrays with X/Y positions of the possible box and cursor locations on screen. I was thinking if anyone had already programmed something to make the selected box/text/whatever move to next one with the arrow keys and have multiple options. In my other project it was just up or down and select so not time heavy to make. Now I have 24 locations with option to move in 4 directions and select the box, if it is full it should bring back the box, when empty bring next box here. I see no possibility to make it myblock friendly as I can't drag inputs into switch blocks, making me need to make a switch block with 24options, with each again a switch block with 6/7 options. So any suggestions are helpfull. Greetings Jos

And here is the progress into the LEGO High Bay Warehouse. Little bit based on a high bay warehouse I constructed myselve in real. First part would be the telescopic forks, I knew they would be the hardest part to keep small. So I tried many times and started again, each time thinking, it can't get smaller (and stay strong). I wanted the telescopic forks to be realistic, extending all the way under a pallet and lift it up, being able to just put it on the other side of the rack. But this means both parts (top+middle) each need to extend 2/3 out of the center of the crane base, in 2 directions. This means no fixed points possible. I had been searching if no one already made a crane like this, without just pulling the pallet with a hook instead of gently lifting it up I found none moving in both directions so far. I had finally found a way but was lacking parts again and so waited for the order to get here. Because the smallest fork I could make was 8x16 studs I had to keep it to 1 fork instead of the real 2 small forks. The problem now was, what if the crane is shut down with the forks not centered? The EV3 brick would not know and just destroy the racks/crane. So I tried many options and set with a color sensor looking at the bottom of the middle fork. A base for the crane constructed, Placed a touch sensor at the bottom to search the point 0 at the start of the program. Suffered some problems (almost got crazy) with the guiding system to move the forks up/down, it always jammed due to the load hanging so heavily to 1 side. And started building the racks. Redisgned the bottom part to fit the sensor inside the small frame, to get lower with the forks. Racks rebuild on the bigger 48x48 studs baseplates making it all stronger. Bringing new pallets with a roller conveyor, lowering onto a chain conveyor angled 90° bringing the pallet in position for pickup. Video showing the current state. It still needs a bluetooth connection between the EV3 bricks for communication to pickup/dropoff and a WMS (Warehouse Managing System) to remember where the pallets are after a shutdown of the bricks. And little better positioning, but the crane program is getting pretty heavy already with all frequency drives I've made for soft start/stopping. All black/yellow parts in the racks still need to be replaced with light Bley for uniform galvanized steel look. Next to do is the screen selection of where to put/pickup a pallet. If there are any questions I will try to answer them. Or if you have suggestions feel free to tell. Greetings, Jos

Hello there, Index: Post #1: Steel coil, sheet metal perforating press Post #2: High bay warehouse with conveyors for in/outfeed and a WMS system. 20years ago as a kid I played a lot with LEGO first with regular bricks, but fast fascinated by Technic models and had a "Technic Code Card" for "automation". Now installing/servicing some real automated industrial machines I thought it would be fun to make "a part" of "one" of the machines I work with. At first it was supposed to be just a small part of a sheetmetal perforating eccentric press. The press went easily up and down with a PF XL Motor after many prototypes, but it was missing something, some material to punch holes in. After trying to manual feeding in some paper it seemed it would work with very thin paper. So began the building of the whole press. Infeed guiding table to make the sheet stay in the middle and feeding rolls. To make this all possible many orders were made for Technic sets to take apart and discovered BL (oh boy). Saw some EV3 video's on YT, mainly cars, and thought it would be perfect to make it fully automated. Coilcar loading the "roll of steel" onto the decoiler. Prototype was being build to cut the finished material, first with hand, then using a medium EV3 motor to mechanically cut with a technic brick. The punch and die until now all LEGO received a machined steel punch, die remained LEGO. The scissor got changed to a fast pneumatic one. And there is the service technician, coming to align the machine. Who knows if this tripod is LEGO? I found it in my old boxes with LEGO but can't find it on BL. I tried making a compressor that automatically shut off around 2.5bar and started around 2bar, as the scissor needs 1.9bar to cut. But failed, many times. Finally the decoiler rolling the plate onto a scissor table to assist loading the plate in the infeed guiding table (adjustable in width) was made. Some small adjustments were made to make it look better and perform without failing. But here is a video made showing the working and how to choose the distance between the holes, amount of holes per sheet. Next machine, "High Bay Warehouse, double sided with conveyor loading" is now in programming fase, will add a post to this topic when I find time for it. Many greetings Mr Jos

Hi, I've been strolling around to look if there are some impressive Technic models based on real life machines/factories. After many years not playing with LEGO anymore I recently started again with the lockdown forcing us to stay in home. As I am a service technician, installing small and rather larger machines I tried to reproduce the said machines in LEGO and write the program to make them automated. Perforating Press High Bay Warehouse. For more information and progress I will make a new topic in the Technic section soon. Greetings Jos.