Gearsim

Gearsim is a PLC utilizing Zeugwerk Framewerk. This demo application showcases how to use Units and Axes to control indivuals gears, which can be moved relative to each other. A python visualization provides a visual representation of real-time control and collision detection.

In the demo, you can see three gears:

• The left gear is the primary gear. During the automatic sequence of the machine, this gear rotates at a constant velocity.
• The upper right gear tries to match the velocity of the primary gear and occasionally spins at twice the speed. However, this gear is not phase-synchronized with the primary gear—only the velocity is matched. As a result, you can observe crashes in the demo.
• The lower right gear exhibits similar behavior to the upper gear, but it uses Struckig to synchronize the phases. This ensures that the phases of the primary gear and the lower gear are aligned when they move together. The behavior is reminiscent of a flying saw.

Requirements

To run this application, ensure you have the following installed:

• TwinCAT >= 4024.xx
• Zeugwerk Development Kit >= 1.6
• Python 3.x (We recommend Miniconda)

Visualization

To run the Visualization in Windows a python distribution has to be installed (Anaconda or Miniconda is recommended). With an installed python distribution, execute the following commands in the Visualization folder to prepare a virtual environment for python and install all requirements

pip install virtualenv
virtualenv venv
venv\Scripts\activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

Activate the PLC and run the Visualization with

python main.py

You can use the Servicepanel, which is integrated into Zeugwerk Creator to control the PLC.