Apparatus for monitoring the performance of a press or like machine

Abstract

An apparatus for monitoring the operation of a press provides outputs indicating the total number of hits and the operating speed of the press as well as the total amount of product produced by the press. Specifically, an N-Pulser is driven by a proximity switch coupled to the press so as to fill an accumulator that maintains a running total of the amount of product produced. The N-Pulser includes a gate that has an enabling input coupled to the proximity switch and a signal input coupled to a clock. When the gate is enabled the output of the clock is permitted to pass through the gate to the input of a counter, the counter having been preset to a state determined by the amount of product produced during each cycle of the press. The gate is disabled when the counter has counted to a predetermined, ZERO, state. The output of the gate is in a parallel fashion coupled to the accumulator, so that a specified number of pulses are dumped into the accumulator as a result of each cycle of the press. In this manner a running total of product is maintained.