EMPCCCC Coal Ship Loader

EMPCCCC
December 2016 both my XP computer power supplies failed. December 2017 my laptop - my only working computer - failed. Merry Christmas
This page last updated: December 21, 2012 as of January 2018

Coal Ship Loader Building instructions

As of 2016 September the code is posted to SourceForge.

Coal Ship Loader

Coal in train cars from mine floodloader is transported up and delivered to be rotary dumped into conveyor into ship loader into ship. Ship sails to distant port. Then the ships conveyor unloads at dock into conveyor-flood loader that loads train cars for delivery to steel mill rotary dumper and from there the coal is funneled down into the mine floodloader .

Coal Ship Loader

Rotary dumper unloads train cars coal into a conveyor that loads into the top of the ship loader [maybe someday when the antigravity device is installed]. The ship loader has an input at the top. From there the coal is partioned into sub-bins across the loader. The conveyor that loads the ship has as extension that moves along the ship. Each bin is emptied into the ships cargo bins.

Coal ship has numerous hoppers to hold coal that is conveyored out at the port. Great Lakes Bulk Freighter Waterline Plastic Model Kit (1/87 scale) 71" X 6" $389. Neato but not what ended up being used and done.

Video of a real conveyor ship loader loading coal at Superior Midwest Energy Terminal.

Ship unloads using its built in conveyor system into flood loader into train cars.

Coal Ship Loader

"Conveyors" move the coal from the rotary dumper into the ship loader...

Conveyors... 2 Tomy ERTL conveyors 1 from rotary dumper, second on up and into the ship loader

1510..1540 is stop, 1800..1900 is go forwards, Never go back. The servo is on the output dumping end , so is Visible and needs 'camoflage'.

As of April 2015 they FAILED MISERABLY... the conveyors and auger DO NOT WORK for my use.

If i ever make a ship loader that works - until then will probably just manually dump the coal into the bins... Unless a mechanism for moving coal against gravity is found. Possibly use a conveyor like on the ship that has brass bins... it would be a massive mechanical monster to move the coal from beneath the rotary dumpers up and above the ship loader so the coal could fall out and into the loader bins.

2017 November 2: Ordered a bunch of VEX parts to build the loader from the rotary dumper UP to dump into the ship loader. So now called the Coal Ship Loader Loader and is documented after the Coal ship loader.

Coal ship loader moves the coal into the ships hoppers... this part seems possible and is what is described below.

Coal Ship loader... bashed printer mechanism or similar to move along the ship with loading conveyors to move the coal out and dump into the ship. Printer mechanisms would not be long enough to travel the length of the ship. So this is what is actually planned. There are many parts from printers and scanners and floppy drives sitting in boxes under the train table...

Ship loader has devolved into most of what makes up the ship

Bins to hold the coal are similar to the ships bins in size yet made more like the flood loader with a chute that raises and lowers. A box on wheels is moved along the dock by a VEX track similar to the ships main conveyor - without the tire - attached to the box instead - it goes back and forth - not around and around. The track will have rails along the dock to keep the box aligned and have areas at the ends for the bottom half of the track to go beneath the dock. [Conveyors mounted on the box move the coal from the dockside bins into the ship bins. One conveyor moves the coal from the bins onto another conveyor beneath it. Sliding drawer brackets allow sliding the bottom conveyor across the ship bins while loading coal.] Simplified to just one sliding conveyor. Adjustable slanting chute on the bottom conveyor directs the coal as needed [changed to a chute that raises and lowers].

Parts are listed on the ...ships conveyor page as they are very similar. Construction of the bins is directed there.

Big bad brass bins, VEX track, servos stuff, GT2 belts, pulleys, inner tubes, wood, and ... all that stuff plus drawer slides and a slanting chute.

Parts...

2 6x100" rolls of brass shim stock 0.010" thick (100/16 = 6 So use about one and a half and use the rest for ...

3 6x12x0.025 brass sheet (each 6x12 makes 3 gates)

Bins will be made more like the flood loader rather than the ships bins - thus No ball links. 9 ball links (6 per package So 2 packs ?what happened to the ones that should be left over from the ship?) .. really only use the ball

9 servos for the gates ... and 9 more to raise/lower the gate keeper to direct the coal onto the conveyor.

2 VEX track kits,large motor and servo link; small motor and link and the gears and stuff from rotary dumper positioner - to move the conveyor on slide.

2 GT2 timing belt 2mm pitch-6mm wide ... 1 1140mm long [and the other __ long-deleted]

GT2 timing pulley 20 tooth 8mm bore, 8mm shaft, 8mm converter, and 8mm inner id bearings (Flanged for the ends and 'skate' bearings to maintain center and conveyor flatness when it goes around the bend) from EBay...

9V 1 Amp power for the Arduino and a 6V 2 Amp power for the servos and this was greatly increased ... see electronic stuff below

A lot of wood...

5 lbs of sheet lead stacked and wrapped in the front of the box to offset the conveyor out the rear.

Use the wheels from the ERTL conveyors to move the 'box' - make rails to keep the wheels rolling along. Just a deviant use of something from them worthless things.

Tried a 6" drawer slide and it did not actually extend 6", so tried a 9" and it only extends about 7"... it is built now so that is what is used. Sounds like a fisherman tale about fish size, I suppose that is where advertising people get their ideas ... lies lies lies.

Mega Arduino and electronic stuff

4 unit 74HC595 pin expander that controls 32 LEDs using only 3 pins

3 Adafruit 16 channel servo drivers that control 16 servos each and daisy chain using only 2 pins no mtter how many boards, well limit is 64 or something.

2 5V 10 Amp, 1 5V 4 Amp power supplies for the servo boards; 1 5V 2 Amp, 1 9V 1 Amp power supplies for the Mega and shield

Using 3 shields 48 servo capacity for 23 servos leaves a lot of space - but they are easy to hook up - this was done to allow moar powr to be sent to the servos... and they only use 2 pins for up to ?64x16? servos.

Improvements

Make side covers the full length of the conveyors - the inner tube outer edger is supported beneath by wood shims and the edge is covered by styrene.

Use double sided foam sponge tape - servo tape to attach the tube to the GT2 belt so it does not develop that ridge where the tube is pulled down into the gear area.

Figure out how to make the slides and servo arms on the bins work smoothly without binding. Maybe file the top edge so the coal is shoved up when the gate is closed rather than grinding the coal between it and the gate. Smooth the gate keepers so the servo arms move them easily. Use slightly bigger than standard size servos rather than nano size servos which will probably be what is really the solution. ... and it was not ... binding parts bind. Still working on smooth sailing.

Construction

Due to the ship and loader being bashed together with no planning - there is a dam wall to keep the water from drowning the dock... and the rest of the world. Same situation will be at the ship unloading into the flood loader. [Removed the dam wall on the ship loader as it is sitting above the 'water' level and will pretend it is a 'dock' that moves up and down with the ship as it sinks into the water as it is loaded (yeah really removed it so the chute that moves up and down from the conveyor can be there) (The dam is in the top photos and gone in the bottom photos that have the brass chute)] Do not really know if it would be possible to build the ship and loader to a scale that would have the loader ..O No, the real world would have the coal flowing down chutes and stuff and at unloading site the real conveyor could lift the coal up at about 45 degrees. O Well. and so it goes.

Dock made and painted cement gray ... the conveyor will stick out the back over a foot when in the retracted position.

Track mounted conveyor mover has quite an umbilical cord of wires trailing along behind it. They will be mostly hidden by the coal bins.

There will be an open area under all the bins for the conveyor to move in and around... the support will be at the ends only .. i foresee angle iron bolt holddowns:)

The ship weighs 60 lbs and each part of the dock weighs 40, so bolted together the loading dock weighs just over 80 lbs.

Coal bins being made as of 2016 July

First version will have coal dumped into the loading bins by the giant hand (until a working conveyor is invented). The ships hold covers will be removed by that device also (until Nano bots develop a working one).

Bins made similar to ships - with a tall surround that holds more coal... are removable to be adjusted and 'fixed'. Making them hold the same amount of coal as the ship would make loading much simpler as it would just be dump it all from each, rather than having to pay attention to the levels. So when loaded they will be measured per bin.

September 2016... final assembly

Control code

A row of LEDs and 2 rows of buttons (Open/Close) to control the bin gates.

A row of LEDs and buttons to move the 'box' to positions.

Buttons and their LEDs to control the conveyor (On/Off), direct the slanting chute (3 positions)(as of 2016July27 - changed the slanting swivel to a coal chute that moves up/down), and the sliding conveyor (4 positions).

Looks like another Mega Arduino... even then, having LEDs made for having to make a 4 unit 74HC595 pin expander that controls 32 LEDs using only 3 pins, (as of 2016July - only 1 Mega pin unused)... thank the internet for physical build examples and a library so it is actually even simpler than turning on LEDs... once it is built and debugged. (as of 2016July27 - used that last pin to run the robodroid at startup until anything needs to be done - and that got frustrating to start anything so I moved the code to spin its head when the conveyor is moved from place to place)

as of 2016 August have had major problems getting the 18 servos to work. [First test and they slammed to full extent and blew the chutes off - really. They draw a LOT of power on startup - before the code gets hold of them and that makes the servos go wild, and then they continually flutter and do strasnge things due to not enough power to keep them under control] After two weeks of failure I ordered a couple Adafruit 16 channel servo drivers, so hopefully they and their individual power supplies can get the servos working. The servos work individually using a HPP-21 and 4.8V battery, so dunno what the actual problem is. The 2 Vex servos and the other two (3 now) servos work fine, Nothing works more than 1 servo at a time except the conveyor chute or slider while the conveyor is running.

Driving 18 servos using only 2 pins frees up a lot of them. - so 16 free pins now. Internet seaching discovered that Uno Analog pins 6 and 7 are analog read only- no digital I/O or write anything. Not really sure if that is true on a Mega or not.

The Adafruit board seems to interfere with servo code, So i ordered another one to drive the rest of the servos. Had major problems getting them to work, Adafruit tried to help, however it seems the problems was my wiring or somethin so they really cannot help with stupidity:) Even with enough power the servos slammed to full open on startup using the Arduino servo code, the Adafruit board controls them - the servo moving on startup is a common and terrible problem that is solved using the Lady Ada boards!
If you decide to use these great boards make sure you also order that green connection to a power supply that is in one of the tutorial images so you can have big solidly connected wires connecting the power to the board. Many more pins freed up from the totally used Mega. What to do with all those pins now??? hmm.

Coal Ship Loader Loader

Coal Ship Loader Loader and this is similar to the brass bucket conveyor in the ship that moves the coal up and dumps into conveyors that move the coal out and off the ship to be dumped into a flood loader on the pier.

If the brass buckets on the conveyor were deeper they might allow the coal to fall out at the top rather than sticking around until nearly halfway back down - thus causing the major problems... SO that is the plan as of 2017 November 2.

Coal Conveyor and the brass buckets...

Coal Conveyor... most of two Vex tracks

Brass buckets... more brass soldering

A 16" long full extension drawer slide is to be used to go back and forth on top of the loader to distribute the coal into the bins.

Drawer slide...

Conveyor belt...

Building the beast... The distribution system will sit on top of the ship loader and dump the coal into the loaders bins. Previous plan was to simulate loading and just dump the coal into the bins manually. The top is a plywood lid, which will become the lid for the distribution system. For fun have a look at what was my 'plan' : Ship loader loader plan PDF.

Parts

Vex track, motor and controller... and parts

Drawer slide and its servo, bicycle tube conveyor and its servo and parts...

Vex track Conveyor and brass buckets

Make it... see Ship loader loader bins plan PDF.

Break it... The Vex track is 106" long and will hold 93 bins... this is all for naught as the double deck train track is not made and the exact dimensions to go from the bottom of the rotary dumper and up above the ship loader enough to allow the coal to fall in cleanly are not available. There was an 8' 1 1/2" x 1 1/2" aluminum angle that was used for the tire tube conveyor and its sundry bearing mounts. It is now too short so another one will provide enough extra to make braces...

Go to step 1... all done and lit, waiting for the coal lifting conveyor to dump coal.

In a holding pattern, soldering and glueing the buckets to the track, until this is built into-onto a layout the actual track length and bracing and funnel dimensions are all too vague to continue.

Drawer slide distribution system... Assembly will be complicated due to having to screw things together inside of other parts. That and the straight boards I selected became warped when cut and side supports glued on. So I redid the side boards and they still warped a little, but glue and clamps fixed them mostly.

Assemble the aluminum conveyor base to allow making the bicycle tire tube conveyor. Then disassemble.

Mount the drawer slide onto support wood, separately, as they will be put together at a later step.

Mount the aluminum halves onto each half of the drawer slide.

Assemble the rear gears and tube into the aluminum WHILE bolting the halves together, leaving the front gear and servo unattached so the halves can be bolted together.

At this point the two halves are together, assemble the front gear and servo. Test to make sure there are no glitches hidden inside. There were. The belt was very tight until sometime and then it got too loose to turn. So for my Christmas I ordered some bigger gears to try to fix it else take it apart and redrill for a bigger bearing, hoping I can get it right. I always used 20 tooth gears, so I ordered a 25 and a 30 tooth gear - as that was all I could find made. The 30 tooth gear was too big so I am waiting for a slow boat from China to deliver the 25 tooth gear and hope it works. Never had this problem in the other tire tube conveyors so I do not know what went wrong - other than drilling the hole in the wrong place. Real solution would be to have a movable end to adjust the belt tension. The 25 tooth gear woked well enough to glue on styrene angles to help keep the coal on the bicycle tube.

Mount the servo and test again. skipped for a while.

Glue and screw the wood supports to their end pieces to make the box.

Mount wood supports inside to hold the drawer slide moving servo and at the other end the gear rod

Mount the servo and gear rod pulley holder to the wooden supports

Attach the GT2 belt around the gears and fasten to the aluminum conveyor... somehow.

Figure out where and how to mount the Arduino and run the wires to where they have to be.

The left one is partially assembled and the right one is ready to place atop the ship loader.

Make some kind of funnel box so the brass buckets can dump coal and have it get onto the conveyor without getting everywhere else.

Attach the brass bucket motor wire to the arduino and test the whole shebang.

Fix whatever fouls up. FUBAR.

Control code for the Coal Ship Loader Loader

Loading the loader is a separate task and will be done with its own Arduino.

Pin Count {LEDs} [wires] potentiometers are used so there are no sudden start - stops.

4 {2} [4+3G]:[Vex motor servo] Coal Conveyor brass buckets ... On, Off buttons and LEDs

3 {2} [3+3G]:[servo] Slide ... potentiometer to Go left, Turn off, Go Right and LEDs

3 {2} [3+3G]:[servo] Conveyor belt ... potentiometer to Go left, Turn off, Go Right and LEDs

1 {1} [2+2G]: Reset and Power LED

The Coal conveyor motor will be at the top so its wires can go to the Arduino at the top of the loader loader controlling it and the other two servos

Code Glommed from other projects

Press the black button to start and little red button to stop the bucket loader. Red LED is stopped and green LED is go.

Rotate the blue knob to move the slide left or right

Press the Big Red button in the lower left to halt everything - reset - if anything goes wrong.

Videos

Operational HO Great Lakes Bulk Freighter (self unloader) [Coal Ship loader] Build 2016-7-4

Operational HO Great Lakes Bulk Freighter (coal_ship_loader) 2016-08-31

ship loader loader 2018-1-8

ship loader loader 2018-1-8 lit