XL2OL
4.72.0
11/17/2020

Allow the Stitching Feature on the XL200 OL and CL. Since an XL200 has no gag outputs, short parts are stitched together by leaving out shear operations. The parts must be separated by cutting them down by hand in post operations.

On Feed to Stop applications, while Stitching parts, this change allows the Shear press operation to be selectively omitted without stopping at the shear target. It does this while still accurately tracking material and part completion for the parts that have the omitted press fires.

Internally, tracking part completion without stopping and without firing the shear press has been described as a Phantom Shear.

Some feed to stop machines don't have a physical shear tool. A future, generic implementation of a phantom shear for those machines will be able to make use of this same mechanism that has been implemented for Stitching.

This feature is not currently compatible with the SGF option. We have a customer waiting for this for a Brake and Hump line. There are too many concerns with the target adjustments for the Weld Station and the Weld Knockoff station to consider right now.

A request was made to add a PLC handshake for stopping shear operations. This will allow a PLC to control the production rate of the line. The PLC must give permission for every shear while in the Run Mode (Automatic). Full documentation on how the Handshaking works is documented in the MODBUS spec.

When waiting for the OK to Shear from the PLC the controller will display "STANDBY" in the run status.