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The Conveyor's Flow Object Panel

The Flow Object panel is shown for most FloWorks objects and allows you to control basic settings such as the product type and inflow or outflow rates.

For the (mass) flow conveyor this panel is slightly different from the generic Flow Object panel.

The following properties are on the conveyor-specific Flow Object panel:

Control​

The flow control dropdown allows you to select which flow control in the model this object is attached to, or to disconnect it from its current flow control. Each FloWorks object that needs to have its flow rates calculated as part of a FloWorks network needs to be attached to the flow control as all the other objects in the network. For more information, please refer to the Flow Control Reference Page.

Input ports and associated input ranges​

For the flow conveyor, the Input section shows a table of all the connected input objects. For each input object, enter a length, measured along the conveyor belt, at which the input object will enter. For the mass flow conveyor, this option is not available: all material has to enter at the start of the conveyor.

Rows are linked to port numbers, not input objects!​

If you later change the order of the input ports or remove an input port from the middle of the range, you need to review this table.

Inputs at the end of the conveyor?​

The entered values are relative to the x = 0 coordinate of the conveyor object, so whereas 0 is usually the starting point, when you reverse the conveyor it will be the end. Although inputs at the end of the conveyor are allowed and any material will "fall straight through" to the next object, the conveyor will still enforce the maximum flow capacity at that point.

Max. Outflow​

In contrast to most other FloWorks objects, you are not able to set the maximum outflow rate for conveyor objects. This field is therefore grayed out. The preferred outflow rate will be determined by the object itself based on the height of the product and the conveyor speed. If the actual flow rate assigned by the flow control is less than the preferred rate, a non-accumulating conveyor will stop, while an accumulating mass flow conveyor will start to build up material up to a specified maximum density.

Outflow rule​

The dropdown allows you to select the flow distribution rule to be applied to the output flow of the object. When "Balanced Flow on Rate %" is selected, a table showing all output objects and the ratio to be maintained between those ports will be shown.

For more information, please see the Flow Distribution Reference Page.