Chnages made for Pathfinder 5226 controllers.

Some folding machines come with a shear/slitter used for cutting their material into the length they want for the part they are going to make. If you are doing a shear operation in Pathfinder there are 2 options on how the shear will make its target. The user can either hold the pedal the entire time in a maintain state or just press the pedal and let the entire operation finish without inturruption. In the maintain state you can let go of the pedal and the shear will stop. Pressing the pedal again will continue the operation. In the other scenario the shear will not stop unless there is an e-stop or it finished the operation. It seems necessary that this should not be the case and there should be some way to pause.

The solution was to create options on how to pause in the non-maintain mode. The user can now press the pedal that started the shear movement or they can press the clamp up pedal if the machine has that input wired into the machine. Once paused pressing the pedal that started the shear movement at the beginning will make the shear start moving again.

Changes made for Pathfinder 5226 controllers.

If you are doing a bend operation in Pathfinder there are 2 options on how the bending beam will make its target. The user can either hold the pedal the entire time in a maintain state or just press the pedal and let the entire operation finish without interruption. In the maintain state you can let go of the pedal and the bending beam will stop. Pressing the pedal again will continue the operation. In the other scenario the shear will not stop unless there is an e-stop or it finished the operation.

In case there is a safety concern or a material problem there should be a way to stop the bending beam in the non-maintain scenario. To accomplish this the clamp up pedal will now pause the motion of the bending beam. Once paused a press of the bending beam cycle pedal will continue the bend operation.

Changes made for Pathfinder 5226 controllers.

There are many variations of pedals that can be used on a folding machine. In a perfect world you would have a pedal that is specific to what you would like to happen. As in a clamp down pedal that is used for moving the clamp down at the appropriate time, a bending beam cycle pedal to start a bend operation or even a shear start pedal to start a shear operation. In reality though the machine may have a limited amount of pedals that will do multiple operations. Some of these pedals might have two contacts that allow the user to push through to a different wiring set which can be considered a different pedal. The most common type of a push through is having a clamp up be the push through of the clamp down pedal. This is mainly for safety to make sure the user can quickly push through to a clamp up move when the clamp is moving down. A problem has arouse from this type of pedal with the clamp up pedal now able to return a bending beam or shear if they are in a paused state. The main problem of this is if there is no dedicated bb cycle or shear pedal then the clamp down pedal will switch to those other pedals logic based on which operation you are in. If the clamp down does have a clamp up push through then the return process will be thrown off because the clamp down will restart the operation before the up pedal signal is seen.

The solution to this problem was to have a small delay with the clamp down signal logic being started if the bending beam or shear are not home and in a paused state. The delay gives time for the user to push through and hit the clamp up to return either axes home. If the delay times out before seeing a clamp up then the clamp down logic will take over and the move will resume.

Changes made for Pathfinder 5226 controllers.

Since the bending beam can now be paused in both maintain and non-maintain movement types the operator might not want to continue with the bend operation and would rather return it back to home. This could be because it was stopped for a safety concern or something wrong with the material. To accomplish this the clamp up pedal will now return the bending beam home if it was in a paused state when pressed. Once home the operation will be considered finished.

Changes made for Pathfinder 5226 controllers.

A user operating a machine with a shear has the capability to stop the shear into a paused state with pedals. Once paused the user can then press the clamp up pedal and the shear would return home. This was only an option though if the user had parameter 747 Require Continuous Pedal Down to Move Shear set to yes. This seemed unnecessary once the shear got the ability to be paused in a non-maintain way.

The enhancement was then to allow the user to return the shear back to home with the clamp up pedal as long as it is in a paused state. It no longer matters how it got into that state.