Bob, thank you for this explanation. Not having a clear understanding of all the requirements has proven to be a costly mistake on my part. That being said, I am still motivated to get it right, and will do so. I've come up with a solution using my existing setup and will post those modifications.

The toughest part of my current setup has been the rollers, getting them balanced correctly. The solution, I've come up I believe will be better.

as for sampling in 50hz, this is something I haven't looked at. Would the code used for your setup work on Arduino? I have an Uno, and use an interrupt with a 10k resistor.