Hi! So I'm trying to use a digital relay to turn lights on/off in a machine (work-related). I use this machine that uses a vision system to locate parts and pick them up..the camera locates two pins on the parts in order to locate the part itself...quite often, due to poor lighting in the machine, the vision system is unable to pick up the pins and displays an error message saying so upon which the user has to turn on a switch to turn on 2 fluorescent lights in the machine...part is picked up and problem solved..user then has to turn off the light (the light cannot be turned on for a long period of time due to negative impact on the part (increased heat/humidity due to light)....It should be noted that the lights are inside the machine and are controlled by one switch on the outside of the machine.
The issue is this happens for several parts which means that someone has to constantly monitor the machine to turn on and turn off a light....to prevent this, i envision the following: when the computer displays the alert, the light turns on, stays on for a few seconds and turns off. Repeat this every time the error comes up. Sounds simple enough but I have no idea where to start. I have more of a biomedical engineering background but the electronics stuff is a little more challenging for me...I am not familiar with digital relays but was told that this is a possibility....Any advice would be great
Some more background about the robot:
the robot is controlled by the computer..the robot itself only performs mechanical tasks while the computer provides input for the tasks via software. The message is displayed on the monitor. To be clear, I can explain the particular program that controls the robot application I am talking about. There are several parts in one run...Each part requires the software to go through its logic. Say the program has 10 steps. So for part 1, the logic goes through step1-10, for part 2 it goes through steps 1-10 and repeats this for 10 parts. Steps 4 and 5 require that the part in question be located (this is the part I need the lights for)...I want to be able to turn the lights on every time steps 4 and 5 are run...I hope I explained this clearly.
The issue is this happens for several parts which means that someone has to constantly monitor the machine to turn on and turn off a light....to prevent this, i envision the following: when the computer displays the alert, the light turns on, stays on for a few seconds and turns off. Repeat this every time the error comes up. Sounds simple enough but I have no idea where to start. I have more of a biomedical engineering background but the electronics stuff is a little more challenging for me...I am not familiar with digital relays but was told that this is a possibility....Any advice would be great
Some more background about the robot:
the robot is controlled by the computer..the robot itself only performs mechanical tasks while the computer provides input for the tasks via software. The message is displayed on the monitor. To be clear, I can explain the particular program that controls the robot application I am talking about. There are several parts in one run...Each part requires the software to go through its logic. Say the program has 10 steps. So for part 1, the logic goes through step1-10, for part 2 it goes through steps 1-10 and repeats this for 10 parts. Steps 4 and 5 require that the part in question be located (this is the part I need the lights for)...I want to be able to turn the lights on every time steps 4 and 5 are run...I hope I explained this clearly.
