A monitoring apparatus and method are disclosed for monitoring the occurrence of a plurality of events in a cyclical process. An event transducer detects the occurrence of such events in such process, a progress transducer detects the progress of such process, a search means searches for events by sensing whether respective events occur at expected positions in the progress of such process, and a self-delete means automatically prevents the search means from searching for a prescribed event at its expected position when such prescribed event is not sensed during a predetermined number of cycles of such process. In the preferred form, the monitored process is the cyclical operation of an endless conveyor which is automatically shut down when a rip occurs; the self-delete means reduces unnecessary nuisance shut downs.
A method and an apparatus of removing works from each of the facilities in a production line is described in order to facilitate changing of a work monitoring operation in accordance with, for example, a layout change in the production line and a change in the facilities. Work tracking conditions are stored in a memory in the form of a table, and work tracking management data and plant status data which have been stored in the memory separately are retrived while the work tracking conditions are referred to, thereby extracting management data for which tracking conditions have been completed. The extracted management data is subjected to processing such as movement and updating in accordance with the contents of the above-described data which are referred to. In addition, in order to efficiently effect a process monitoring operation for each lot even when the arrangement of a lot consisting of a plurality of works joined together arbitrarily changes, such as, as a result of dividing the lot into a plurality of sub-lots, the arrangement of each lot is stored in the form of data of a tree structure, whereby the lot arrangement is readily changed by changing the tree structure.
A data logger having a plurality of input ports has a library of predefined selectable input data conversion protocols. Inputs are individually controllable as to the type of sensor conversion. The data logging rate is varied during the recording period to ensure that all meaningful data values are recorded, while at the same time ensuring that the entire data storage capacity of the data logger will be substantially fully utilized at the completion of the recording period. Sensitivity is constantly adjusted to ensure that no meaningful data values are missed, whether the pertinent information concerns high frequency, low amplitude fluctuations (e.g., noise), or concerns longer-term trends, ignoring short-term variations.
An infrared dryer is provided for a printing press which uses a series of carriers, each comprising one or more gripper bars, on a conveyor to respectively carry printed sheets past the dryer. The sensor produces different binary signals in response to the presence or absence of material, viz, a gripper bar structure or carried sheets in the path, each carrier producing a predetermined number of transitions between the presence and absence signals, the only change between an empty carrier and one carrying a sheet being the duration of the presence and absence signals. A microprocessor is programmed to cyclically count from zero to the predetermined number of transitions, with each count cycle representing the passage of a carrier. The microprocessor also measures and compares the total durations of the presence and absence signals during each count cycle. If the presence signal duration exceeds the absence signal duration, then the heater is actuated to a preselected operating intensity. If the presence duration does not exceed the absence duration, then the heater is actuated to a low stand-by intensity. The heater is also actuated to the stand-by intensity if either the presence signal or the absence signal persists for more than a predetermined duration during a count cycle.
A system activity monitor for monitoring the performance of an electronic apparatus, e.g., a computer. The system activity monitor includes a plurality of data acquisition modules that are connected to the monitored system as desired. The actual connection is made via a customizing board that provides the necessary flexibility so that the system activity monitor can be connected at any desired location of the monitored computer system. An event board of the system activity monitor detects the occurrence of predetermined events. An event occurs when a predetermined sequence of signals occurs within the monitored system; the sequence is determined by the user. When an event is detected an accumulator board of the system activity monitor accumulates performance data of the monitored system.
The present invention is a method and apparatus for conditioning an AC input signal to a control system having a plurality of AC input signals. An AC system signal is substantially phase-synchronous with the AC input signal. The AC input signal is sampled a plurality of times to determine whether it is present or absent during a periodic half cycle of the AC system signal. A result value is determined which represents a state of the AC input signal determined a majority of the times that it was sampled. It is then determined whether the state of the result value has changed.
