As always, you can contact us by phone at 614-851-1100, and we’ll be happy to tell you how LED Counters are used and how ours operate.

counter_animation

What is an LED Counter?

LED The beginning term “LED” (as in Light Emitting Diode) is simply the method of conveying the message upon the electronic display. LEDs are commonly used in the industrial environment due to its proven long-term lifespan, low cost, low power consumption, and high-intensity capabilities.
Counter The second term “Counter” is a generic term used to describe a numeric device that changes the displayed value due to a change in a specific quantity. This change in quantitative data is gathered in a variety of fashions.
LED Counter Therefore, an “LED Counter” is a device that changes its LED numeric displayed state with each and every change in quantity.

How is an LED Counter used?

Production counting allows people to know how they are doing with respect to other people and to company goals. This helps to improve production flow and helps to spot production bottlenecks.

Counting production is useful to increasing production by keeping the plant and shift goals in mind. Establishment of goals allows people to know how they stand, and to invent new ways to do the same job, better.

Digital LED counters are often used to display the quantity of units produced by a machine or by a production line. Examples include stamping machines, milling machines, sewing, transmission assemblies, bottling or packing operations, scanning and sorting, and among other variations, fluid use.

Common alternate names for Production Counters

Counters in general have a wide variety of names that may be useful as terms to search by. Counter devices are commonly referred to as totalizers, piece counters, led counters, electronic counters, accumulators, digital counters, production counters, industrial counters, and an array of other names. Regardless of what they are called, they are a valuable source of information to assembly personnel and plant managers.

How are LED Counters Controlled?

LED Counters display changes the displayed value whenever the “Count up” input is applied. This input can come from various devices, such as a PLC outputs, photo eyes, palm switches, etc. All American LED-gible 2600 series and Trimline series come standard with 120VAC inputs but can easily be set to take 24VDC from a PLC output (source or sink) with a simple customer jumper change.

Most often, the customer uses the simple 120VAC inputs. Simply connect the AC Neutral wire to a screw terminal in the display, and run the 120VAC Hot wire through the normally open contact of a sensor or a switch. Every time the sensor or the limit/palm switch activates, the display value changes state.

Control Inputs

AF/TL
series
Count Up As described above, the “Count Up” input is simply the contact which is necessary to actuate in order for the counter value to increment.
AF/TL
series
Reset When the “Reset” input is actuated, the Counter display value resets to the value of zero.
AF
only
Preset The “Preset” input changes the displayed state to a pre-programmed numeric value. This value is chosen via an internal dip switch setting.
TL
series
Up/Down The last input, “Up/Down” is used most often when the “Preset” option is activated. When this input is activated, the LED Counter will decrement instead of increment, thus allowing the shift to work down from a preset batch goal.