Design and construction of a sensor analytic system for the monitoring of the parameters of a plastic injection mould

Abstract

PurposeValues of parameters such as temperature, humidity, number of plastic products and the location of plastic injection moulds are required to determine the efficiency of plastic injection moulds with a view to improving the quality of the outputs. This article determined the appropriate sensors for the measurement of these essential parameters in the most suitable form of representation of the data to aid a proficient analysis of the data.Design/methodology/approachThe outputs of these sensors were obtained by connecting the sensors to the general-purpose input/output (GPIO) pins of a Raspberry Pi and writing a Python programme for the connected GPIO pins. The values of the outputs of these sensors were represented in a graphical form. The connection of the Raspberry Pi and the sensors were done with a full-sized breadboard and jumper wires. A computer-aided design (CAD) of the connections was produced using Fritzing software.FindingsThe appropriate sensors determined are MLX90614 infrared thermometer sensor, DHT11 humidity sensor, pixy2 vision sensor and Neo-6m GPS sensor. This study proposed that the sensors analytic system be applied on an industrial plastic injection mould to measure and display the various parameters of the injection moulds for the purpose of understanding and improving the performance of the injection mouldOriginality/valueAn electronic system that provides the continuous values of essential parameters of a plastic injection mould in operation.