Hi, i am very new in the Arduino world, i have a great little project i would like to try out, and one of my coworkers told me it should be possible but i wanna just hear out the specialist before buying all the stuff.
About the project, I run a little warehouse where we ship a lot of orders with different shippers, we have a conveyour to finished parcels, where it go out to sorting area. But here we get a lot of errors due to people not reading the labels correct. So i was thinking of making a small parcel sorting machine. It should scan the label on the parcel, either via the barcode or recognition of the label. After scan it should determin which ramp the parcel is ment for, and the activate the transporter belt and turn an pneumatic arm to push it down the correct ramp.
Is something like this possible to do with Arduino, and maybe some other components.? If any have links to similar projects it would be much appreciated.
This is just an observation - If you want a reliable, standard system, hire someone who does this professionally. They may use a small controller or even some brand of PLC and off the shelf components which will connect to each other easily. You'll pay more up front but you'll get the dividends down the road.
To do this in-house and select dozens of types of components, decide on a design philosophy, build a control cabinet, deal with vendors, yada, yada, yada. It could be a real rabbit hole/time sink.
They'll also be able to size the system to possible future needs, select correct components for compatibility with the power source and required output, and - important for insurance reasons - comply with fire codes.
Another thing, your application is an everyday one in the material handling world. A contractor may even have a boilerplate solution on hand which would cut the development cost greatly.
A lot of these types hang out at plcs.net. You could ask around there to find out if there's anyone in your area who could do such a job.