The PE Sensor (Photo Eye) component is used to detect when products are travelling on transporting equipment (typically Conveyors). When a product breaks the PE Sensor beam, the status of the Sensor will change and can be acted upon.
PEs are placed at a fixed height of 150mm but can be considered as a logical vertical plane at the Path Distance distance and will trip when objects smaller than 150mm pass through
From the Toolbox, simply drag and drop a PE Sensor into the simulation. If the PE is dropped on a Chute or Conveyor then it will become attached to it.
From the Project Explorer > Equipments > PE Sensor.
Or directly in the simulation.
Mode: None
Blocked: Default false. Displays the current state and changes the state of the beam.
Free Position: Default false. Allows the PE to be freely positioned . If this value is true, X, Y, Z, Direction, Tilt and Roll and Length properties will be used to position the PE. Also, Path Distance is not used in this mode. The Z value can be used to detect product Height. Please note that Tilt and Roll are not taken into account during the simulation for the blocking state of the PE.
Path Distance: The distance from the beginning of the Source component in the units chosen when the project was created (metres or feet) where the read occurs. This value is used only when Free Position is false.
Geometry (Only in Free Position mode)
X: X position is local coordinates
Y: Y position is local coordinates
Z: Z position is local coordinates. Product less than this value will not block the PE during simulation
Direction: Rotation angle around Z axis in local coordinates.
Tilt: Note taken into account during simulation. Visual only
Roll: Note taken into account during simulation. Visual only
Size
Head size: Default 1. Scale factor for the size of the Sensor head.
Beam Width: Default 1. Scale factor for the width of the Sensor beam.
Length: Default 1.14. Length Of the PE (Indicators included). Read only except when the PE is in 'Free Position' mode.
Visual
Beam: Allows the beam color to be set and whether it is visible.
Indicators: Allows the indicator color to be set and whether it is visible.
New in Sym3 V5.2. When a PE is blocked the color of both the beam and indicators changes to red.
The 'Blocked' property (boolean) will be 'true' if the product blocks a Photo Eye and will be 'false' when this product unblocks the Photo Eye. When two products are touching (no gap between each product), by default the 'Blocked' property wil be false when first product leave the photo eye and back to true with the second product. If you don't want this behavior (to have a realistics behaviour), go in:
'Project Explorer' > 'System' > 'Properties' > 'Simulation' and tick the option 'Touching Products Do Not Unblock Sensors'
In this configuration, the Photo Eye will be blocked once by the leading product and unblocked once by the trailing product.