if you put a worm gear you get breaking when trying to back drive it, so you don’t need to worry about the holding torque of the stepper or it unloading when powered down. you also might be able to make it more compact and mount the stepper 90°.
If anything I would say 3D printing has turned out only to be useful if you already have a hobby that involves building things - drones, rc cars, guns, crossbows, telescope mounting, etc. So far it seems that when 3D printing itself is the hobby, the only thing they ever print that's useful is more printers.
@@smorrow it can be a starting point to get into those interests. Although I do feel like it's hard to find something actually productive to do with 3d printing. I bought mine and set it up and did a few essential projects and it sat for a year lol.
Maybe mounting an optical gate below the dispenser to count the number of dispensed screws. Basically, a tight feedback loop to cross-check reliability.
This channel is reminiscent of Stuff Made Here, seemingly appearing overnight with really impressive content. I predict it will experience similarly rapid growth once the videos start reaching their target audience. Great job, I will be following closely!
@@andycrask3531 I checked SMH, and it seems to be mostly crazy, semi-dangerous projects that while the boy in me loves, the adult in me sees no little practical value. I don't see egotism in SMH, just his own style.
Man, respect to you from Russia, Chelyabinsk. There are few of us on the planet) Sawed-off engineers (I can see it in your eyes) If you suddenly become sad and lonely, know that somewhere in the heart of Morder is an oasis of adequacy and you will always be welcomed with love) Really good for you, just know it.
I have a couple suggestions. First, include an optical sensor for detecting the rotation of the final gear. This could be tied into calibration logic to detect the rotation ratio between the stepper and the output without hardcoding (more modular). Second, install the middle gear in a spring-loaded sliding carriage with the spring pushing the B gear into both the A and C gears. This will allow for the gear to pop out of place should a jamb occur (sensing this condition would then rely on the first suggestion). Third, offset the gear contact planes, so that the B and C gears can be readily swapped for different gearing ratios. (The 2nd suggestion will aid in this process, particularly if the rotational axis is positioned above that of both the A and C gears.) Fourth, secure the stepper to the mounting frame from both the back and front in at least two opposite holes on each side. This will minimize rotational movement of the stepper body in all three axis. Fifth, include an optical sensor under the output to detect when no screw/part has been dispensed despite dispense gear rotation.
I like this method better than the solenoid one, seems to be a better way of doing this. You asked for suggestions, the only one I can think of is possibly using a DC motor, and a light sensor after the the sprocket 🤔 you could turn the sprocket on until a specific number of triggers of the light sensor has been completed, and then turn off the sprocket.
If you can manage to fit a worm great gear in, that would really help with holding strength I have no idea if the mechanism would become slower as a result though
Why count them when you can weigh them? Decant straight from main supply into your smaller box or zip bag? Don't have to build/load/run machine? Faster with bigger amounts but it is a cool machine my friend 😉. 🇺🇦
Glad I stumbled across your channel. Very intresting project and from an engineering perspective a project which has lots of potential. i look forward seeing more of your brilliant ideas.
With a future weight sensor, you could add a small scale inside of the counting module where you just add one of the item you'll be counting. That way, you can have the calibrated weight ready for any item you want to count without having to adjust anything. Just add one of whatever you want to count, and set the count number to calculate weight and count # with whatever mechanism you want to use, and have a solenoid to just drop everything at once. Also, why are you not counting the items as they come off of the orienting plate?
Hello Christopher, amazing content you are producing! I build a screw counting machine but with a drum feeder, step feeder and vibratory feeder. I just wanted to try out the different mechanisms. Low cost automation is 100% my hobby and if you like we could chat or have a call together (I am German 😊). I am currently working an a low cost bag sealing and cutting machine for packaging the screws if you are interested 😃.
Another person working on this! One of my long term projects is a “Universal Parts Vending Machine” of sorts, so I’m excited to see not only others thinking alike, but actual *documented* projects too! I’ll check out your channel, after finishing watching this video i guess.
Really excellent videos! Have you consider using a worm gear from the stepper motor. Those are completely interlocking if power fails. Furthermore, I noticed that your magazine has a length that’s scales to the screws shaft length. Is that necessary? Just a suggestion but you could use the same magazine for eg all m4 with different shaft lengths as it’s the head that makes the magazine work? But again excellent work! 😃
If your MCU is fast enough it can output many many sets of dir and step signals to quite some steppers, especially if they are only driven in one direction (so they can share a dir pin). At that point it is just a piece of software and still way less complicated than doing distributed controllers and networking. Also I'd be interested to see if you could add some IR sensor at the end to count and verify a cross say 1000 times 4 screws and stuff like that to see if it ever misses and what the total percentage would be. And in production you could use that optical counter to dispense one more screw if under counted just to be sure and to save in customer support fees and shipping extra screws later. (Tip: use external counter ICs for the pulses so you don't need to run say a 10 channel counter on the main MCU, which will speed up verification testing by a ton if you don't want to deal with that many interrupts)
Thanks for the idea! I'm not sure if they don't have too much friction at higher speeds when using printed gear parts, operating temperature needs to stay low because of that, additionally worm gears do tend to have higher reduction ratios, would like to keep the dispenser speed though..
Interesting stuff, subscribed! Small tip, make sure to keep the same overall audio levels within and between you videos (the previous video had a little different levels in the different the clips)
Christopher you did an excellent job on this video. Your presentation was superb and the amount of thought that went into this project is admirable. Sometimes when we (I am guilty of it too) start to solve a problem we tend to turn a simple problem into a complex one. I don't know how many screws you have to count out per day but simply buying a cheap electronic scale and weighing one screw and setting the multiplier on the the scale and then dump your screws or washers or whatever you are trying to count on the scale until the scale zeros out for the predetermined number of items. I bought my scale at Harbor Freight that will carry out this operation for about $14.00. I like to use the KISS principle. Far less things to go wrong when you need to make a dead line. But I have to say your way is wayyyy cooler.
Also at the Microfactory / Makerspace level i could see something like this being useful. Essentially you can make Vending Machines but for these / even full Bill of Materials (BOM). And manually counting would negate the need for a scale i guess
Glad you like it, and i totally get your point! Unnecessary complexity is in my opinion the killer of very many automation attempts. One of the advantages of doing it "the hard way" is that the screws are supplied fully constrained and oriented. This is necessary for a variety of other automations. Robotic bolting of assembly's, embedding nuts in 3d prints automatically. etc. - This is more of a screw/ nuts/ washers feeder than a counter, and the counter is supposed to be just one of many modules that can be connected to the feeder. I think the title is a bit misleading here. You're absolutely right, just for counting - it's unnecessarily hard (but cooler ;) ).
awesome video ♥ i am using blender for 3d modeling , my question is did your software make gears interact with each other or you just animate it with keyframes and what did u use for such project like that for mechanical engineering thank you so much
sorry but i'm still convinced that through a combination of very smart software, plus some very cheap ICs sensors and DC motors, it's possible to build a reliable screw counter/dispenser with similar speeds under 30€ for the entire thing
0:23 why did you use a lifting wiper mechanism instead of just using sink screws to prevent the collision? do i miss something? seems overengineered to me, but very cool, that you put your time in stuff like that instead of printing pointless stuff :-) cheers
There are 3 such screws distributed on the pick up wheel. Without them/ using flatheads the whole thing would not work for long.. I will explain it in a later video :) Thanks glad you liked it :)
Well done. Do you have a method of sensing whether the feedtube is empty (or ensuring you are dispensing screws)? As far as controlling the multiple dispensers (you mentioned 10), you can combine three 3D printer controllers ( X axis, Y axis, 2 Z axis stepper motor drivers per each board), and a small computer with 3-USB ports - 1 for each "dispenser".
Isso é muito legal vender parafusos automaticamente, montar uma loja onde a separação é feita automaticamente é um show a parte! Estou pensando em fazer isso para oferecer a lojas de produtos, is it possible to get the complete project
I have not decided on that yet. For me it depends on how this channel develops and if people even want the files at all. At this stage I'm focusing on getting it completed and functional. After it is finished we will see
Remove all of this downstream and just replace the hopper motor with a stepper, turn it when triggered then stop once the desired quantity is dispensed.
Я наверное тебя разочарую) Берешь весы>взвешиваешь>получаешь количество... Для рассыпухи типа метизов городить такой огород... Это на сколько надо быть мелочным. Хотя с другой стороны, если один винт в стране проживания автора на вес золота, то...
I've been following a handful more robotics and automation design channels over the past few years, but this is different. This is explaining concepts and ideas I could only get in my Mechatronics engineering courses at uni. I hope to see a lot more videos from you, and I know I'll make use of some of these concepts in my career designing and implementing automation processes.
Just found your channel and binged all three videos. Loving what you have so far. These screw packaging videos feel like I have joined you in the middle of a project and missing the larger context. Are you planning on a video explaining the idea for the complete system? Or maybe just a short description at the beginning of the next video?
CAN bus is likely what you want to use if each module will have its own MCU. However, you could just as easily use stepper motor drivers with a I2C interfaces and just use one MCU
Key takeaways: * Pressing a timing belt pulley onto 3d printed parts is a great way to transmit torque. Thanks! * Standoff and through bolts is a great way to assemble parts that interface with other assemblies. No need for precision, it self adjusts as it clamps. In order to simplify programming you could add an optical or mechanical sensor on the individual tines of your counting sprocket. That way the stepper angle and gear ratio get factored out and don't have to be considered. No encoder, no calibration, all you need is a number of "pulses" to count. Very clean presentation, thanks for spending your time putting this together, I look forward to your future videos!
Great idea on utilizing the exiting sprocket tines for flags. I have used "u-shaped through beam photoelectric sensors " for a very similar position encoding project. How would you decellerate the load before stopping with your design?
@@aaronholwick8659 In this use case I would assume that the mass of the load is small compared to the power of the motor, and thus it is capable of decelerating well within the required positioning accuracy. Dispensing 10 SHCS took 17 frames (~.5s) with no perceptible acceleration/deceleration
@christopherhelmke I am working on stepper driver system as a school project and it might just be the perfect solution for your "many steppers" ishue, would you what to collab? It would help me to prove the usefulnells of my invention ;)
My PLA spline sprockets pretty reliably last 500k M6 bolts when directly connected or 4+m when using a radial spring shock absorber (basically a fancy flexible spring coupling designed to deal with radial shocks instead of vibration) I have no idea where yours will end up but i feel like i've gotten some ideas on how to improve my own
@@bamboo9840 not externally, i am a consultant and some parts of it are my IP to ensure that my clients pay He has however updated his design and i believe copying it should more than suffice for any needs you may have
This is awesome! This feels like the same type of channel that the founder of Opulo started before his company went public. Really cool mid-scale manufacturing type of machines!
in this prototype your trusting that the magazine will be always full i suggest you add a TCRT5000 Infrared Reflective Sensor or something similar to count the screws !! you cant really be sure that the sprocket mechanism really grabbed a screw , maybe the motor skipped or the magazine is empty for some reason !! it should be mounted as close to the sprocket as possible , it will also act as a magazine empty signal i think that will be cool
Pretty clever Chris. Keep working for yourself if you can, you'll pollute your love for this work by subjugating yourself. I speak from personal experience.
Geneva Drive has a downside of a non-linear acceleration, which would be very loud if you didn't use a stepper to curb that fact if you had ended up using that design too.
I like your project. From an engineering point of view the project has some ingenious solutions, but if we're talking about efficiency, I think it would be more efficient to find solutions whereby you weigh them or measure the length. I think your solution is more accurate. I really like what you've done.
Excellent stuff. I would also brace that stepper with a bracket from the rear. Having a moving mass (servo) on an arm can cause trouble down the line with play in the gears and fatigue of that arm.
You can use a esp32 that uses WIFI to control a stepper TMC2208/ or DRV8825 to control the stepper motor, really simple and cheap (a pair of $ if you get the wroom) and you need low complexity to wire it. Then controll each esp32 by a raspbery pi or anycomputer with wifi by sending json to them with how many bolts you want (this is cool because you can have a response after the filling too). All boxes will have the same code and same schematics, so no complexity, just a different ID for each esp32. This also can be made by wire by controlling them with the i2c protocol or others but having wifi makes them much more modularity. Cheers! And if you want accuraccy, i suggest adding a light sensor to count the bolts as they fall if you want a second measure security, so you can count the bolts with this system and dont worry about the gear not having bolts in the buffer or the stepper lossing steps. Cheers! also a weight calculator in a hopper with all the bolts as final check will be great, a tensor sensor measure them in miligrams, very precise. And final tip, if you are scared for the stepper motor to fail during offpower, there are some motors with autobreaking feature with no power, and also there are other simple ways like blocking the gears with the actuator or a servo during offline and probably your first approach so you can run this with batteries instead of maingrid. And because I edited this message several times, I can give you my last solution to the problem, instead of having a machine box for each type of bolt, will be better to have just 1 machine with several buffers in pararell (and focus on making the magazine with bigger capacity, for example by zigzagin the bolts inside side to side) and feed the different bolts to the machine manually as the magazines gets lower or with a robotic arm that can grab them from the cartonbox reading a qr code for example. So you can save space and just build 1 machine and relay on the magazines instead of boxes like a pick and place machine.
You can also look at the ESP8266 boards which can be a little cheaper for the modules and an esp32 should have enough resources to be the server and interface depending on how fancy you choose to get. Also note, using the ESP processors gives you access to their own ESP-Now protocols for sending data between the boards significantly faster and less overhead than sending TCP/UDP packets. There is the option of wiring the boards together as serial devices which eliminate a lot of issues regarding stability/hackability, however requires additional thought on how to pass the wires/signal through modules. Wired would give you the advantage of letting the boards go into deep sleep, waking up to a pulse/message from the server as opposed to having to keep the radios on constantly waiting for a command.
if you wanted to use the weight of the screws, you could replace the stepper motor and gear assembly with a brake disk connected to an encoder. PID control could slow and stop the disk and so the sprocket pretty accurately either with force from a servo motor or a 'variable voltage'/pwm driven solenoid to pinch the disk. A separate solenoid could rest with a pin through a hole in the brake disk, and turn on to pull the disk out, so its 'off state' holds the system still. It might be overly complicated for the task but could work. As someone else said, it could be good (in any system), to have a light gate or optical sensor to validate the number of screws. Also really cool video! Just found your channel.
Thanks for the specific shout-out; wasn't expecting that. XD If this prototype is anything to go by, the sprocket method works even better than I thought it would! I agree with avoiding a Geneva drive. Even before tolerance and speed concerns, I worry that a 3D printed version of that mechanism would have a pretty short service life.
Came here from HackaDay, and subbed. Really great engineering, and to the point without ego-massaging intro or lots of hemming and hawing. This seems to be a niche space at first glance, however in reality its the underpinning for almost all future manufacturing processes going forward.
damn this is really cool. Nice work. Reminds me of the marble machine, perhaps you can take some of the designs Wintergatan made for that machine as he had to make the timing extremely accurate and stable
Use single MCU and single stepper driver for as many steppers as you want. Just connect them in parallel and use relays to connect specific stepper to the driver. Just do not forget to disable driver before switching relay or inductive currents gonna destroy relay very quickly. Use solenoids to stop unpowered motor from moving. Or there are rather cheap normal-closed NEMA17 electromagnetic brakes.
I’m also curious about the vertical stack design, and how universal it will be. I’m picturing that it works uniquely because you’re modeling with hex cap screws and hex nuts. Other screw types like a countersink head would not keep the screw shafts horizontal and lead to a different feed solution. What I’ve seen along these lines tends to be a mostly horizontal + sloped design that’s still gravity fed but uses a vibrator to overcome stiction and keep the parts flowing. Is this something you eliminated in your design decisioning, perhaps because you don’t have this requirement?
Hi. Is there a reason splitting bracket for the two solenoids was not considered? The top solenoid could then be positioned on a rack attached to the magazine, with incremental fix points for every fastener count. Position top solenoid at "10" for a drop of 10 fasteners. Downside is different racks/fixture brackets for every fastener type -> but already an inherited design choice from the fully constrained magazine itself.
Super wild this was posted a singular day before Nikodem Bartnik posted his screw counting machine. No way he copied it all in a day obviously, it's just pretty wild you both did this.
if you're concerned about dumping the magazine if the stepper loses power, do a ratchet system with the pawl on a continuous duty solenoid that is actively being held open so if power is lost it automatically snaps forward and locks the dispenser, dropping hopefully only one or zero screws if it's fast enough. or you can have a separately powered circuit that the detects a failure on the main system and snaps the solenoid out, there's a couple ways to achieve that sort of thing. another way is also a worm drive, but that's not conducive to 3D printing due to the high contact and wear plus it'll greatly reduce the max dispensing speed, but it is 100% mechanical and you can find fairly cheap small brass gear sets online.
Very cool design! Maybe I missed it, but why do you need to singulate the screws in the dispenser? Couldn't the screws be counted before they enter the dispenser using a light gate? Then you'd run the pickup wheel until the right number of screws has been picked.
I think it's a good idea to have som sort of optical sensosr to detect when it runs out of screws. In case the mag runs out of screw, nuts or whatever, it won't know
Use a serial servo in stepper mode. They are small, have good torque and many can be stringed together. Waveshare sell a 30kg/cm one for $22ish usd. I use them for a lot of projects.
Actually, you don't need a step motor. Just use free spinning wheel, solenoid, diode and optical sensor. Place a reflecting tape on a free spinning wheel for each tooth to count the amount of bolts falls off. Inside the wheel add some voids for solenoid rod to fall in to block a wheel for each tooth.
If you have multiple dispensers that do not need operate simultaneously, you could make a single stepper motor run all of them via a switching transmission.
A worm on the stepper will also not allow the parts dispenser gear to run in reverse because all of the force would be axial on the stepper. Very nice work.
One problem I faced with stepper motors and printed parts is the heat of the motor. Steppers can easily exceed the glassing point of plastic, softening the gear and the holder.
"Have you ever wondered which 3d printing mechanism would be the best for counting screws?" Yes actually, I have. In fact I toss and turn at night sometimes thinking about that very question
Love your engineering! I had a similar problem once: portioning plastic granules. I had a leadscrew prototype and thought about doing it by weight. But in the end everything was too complex and I wanted an easy ans fast solution. I just did it by volume. I measured four cylinders from drainage pipe to the approximate size, attached them under a board with holes the diameter of the pipe. They were closed by flaps on the bottom. To these flaps I added dead volume to fine tune the amount but left enough slack/over-volume for inconsistencies due to compacting variability etc. We would slide a bag over each tube, close the flap, dump in the product, take a ruler to wipe off excess granules (think sintering 3d printers). Then open each flap take out the bag filled with a good approximation of the target weight.
just one thing to add to your future plans, make sure the rotation sensor is absolute, or has some way of homing, or restating the system could ba a real pain
This is incredible content and I can't wait to see where this goes! I have several uses for this concept, I run a business that sells kits that involve a lot of hardware. It is by far the most tedious part of the job. Each kit gets arond 16 different pieces of hardware, with roughly 10 of each. I'm really happy to see the flexibility you're building into your system. However, it looks like this will require sets of equipment for each distinct item. With so many different items, and them being larger (M8-M12) it would require a lot of equipment! What would be the most reasonable path to explore for a system that would count out units, but could handle more than one size? One that handles everything would be unreasonable, but do you think the machine could be used in a way that could handle variable lengths of bolts that are the same diameter? I realise this probably complicates sorting more than is reasonable, but if it's possible, I'd love to explore the idea!
Another way to do it would be to install a thing that weight the screws in real time and trigger the solenoid to stop them from falling when the weight is enough.
Im watching all your videos in one go, just discovered the channel, I wondered why you aren't using something continuously spinning in the last vid, and now this one starts with it, amazing.
Off the shelf stepper with a planetary gearbox on its face attached to a larger wheel would simplify things a lot. I think the binary solenoid approach might be advantageous for certain hardware types, especially larger items.
*Just use a ATTiny441 they cost like 1.20$* You could set the dispense amount via BUS (for example USART or I²C). Also add a IR Photoelectric sensor (barrier or reflective) to count the dispensed amount, they are also very cheap like 1-2$, to make sure it doesn't error stack. You could add even a routine to dispense the missing ones automatically, one screw to much here and there shouldn't be the problem but if so add a beeper to alert if the amount was to much. This should cost you in sum like 3-4$ per dispenser, so basically nothing.
if you put a worm gear you get breaking when trying to back drive it, so you don’t need to worry about the holding torque of the stepper or it unloading when powered down. you also might be able to make it more compact and mount the stepper 90°.
I was about to say the same!
Same
3d printing is such a great hobby - so many ideas and not enough time!
If anything I would say 3D printing has turned out only to be useful if you already have a hobby that involves building things - drones, rc cars, guns, crossbows, telescope mounting, etc. So far it seems that when 3D printing itself is the hobby, the only thing they ever print that's useful is more printers.
@@smorrow it can be a starting point to get into those interests. Although I do feel like it's hard to find something actually productive to do with 3d printing. I bought mine and set it up and did a few essential projects and it sat for a year lol.
This is exactly the kind of diy industrial engineering I enjoy. Keep it up!
Maybe mounting an optical gate below the dispenser to count the number of dispensed screws. Basically, a tight feedback loop to cross-check reliability.
This is seriously impressive. A lot of "out of the box" thinking which is very hard
This channel is reminiscent of Stuff Made Here, seemingly appearing overnight with really impressive content. I predict it will experience similarly rapid growth once the videos start reaching their target audience. Great job, I will be following closely!
Yes I agree but not with the same arrogance.
@@andycrask3531 Hard to not be arrogant when you're a genius - I don't think he's arrogant either, more confident than arrogant
@@andycrask3531 I checked SMH, and it seems to be mostly crazy, semi-dangerous projects that while the boy in me loves, the adult in me sees no little practical value. I don't see egotism in SMH, just his own style.
Have never seen one of this channels videos before, but this comments is probably one of the best advertisements for a channel I’ve ever seen
Ooooh, I’m intrigued now 😊
Very enjoyable to watch. Would love to see more about the sorting and orienting of the screws and nuts.
Modulsystem out of Euroboxes. Very clever. Nice work with the gear and the stepper. 👍🏻
Wow, I’ve never subbed so fast to a channel. Seriously, this is awesome. Keep it up man!
Super cool project, and really well explained. Also great use of 3D printing! Keep it up :)
Jeez i love the use of those shoulder screws for fitment! :)
As a part counting goes, nothing beats camera and computer vision. It is fast and modular. Counting the parts one by one will take an eternity.
First time watching, very impressed by your engineering and your video creating skills!
Man, respect to you from Russia, Chelyabinsk.
There are few of us on the planet) Sawed-off engineers (I can see it in your eyes)
If you suddenly become sad and lonely, know that somewhere in the heart of Morder is an oasis of adequacy and you will always be welcomed with love)
Really good for you, just know it.
I have a couple suggestions.
First, include an optical sensor for detecting the rotation of the final gear. This could be tied into calibration logic to detect the rotation ratio between the stepper and the output without hardcoding (more modular).
Second, install the middle gear in a spring-loaded sliding carriage with the spring pushing the B gear into both the A and C gears. This will allow for the gear to pop out of place should a jamb occur (sensing this condition would then rely on the first suggestion).
Third, offset the gear contact planes, so that the B and C gears can be readily swapped for different gearing ratios. (The 2nd suggestion will aid in this process, particularly if the rotational axis is positioned above that of both the A and C gears.)
Fourth, secure the stepper to the mounting frame from both the back and front in at least two opposite holes on each side. This will minimize rotational movement of the stepper body in all three axis.
Fifth, include an optical sensor under the output to detect when no screw/part has been dispensed despite dispense gear rotation.
Looks smooth, I like it
I like this method better than the solenoid one, seems to be a better way of doing this.
You asked for suggestions, the only one I can think of is possibly using a DC motor, and a light sensor after the the sprocket 🤔 you could turn the sprocket on until a specific number of triggers of the light sensor has been completed, and then turn off the sprocket.
You only need to mount the sensor at the end of the track to solve the screw counting,but your design is still great!
this is amazing and is worthy of a sub can't wait to see your future vids 👍👍
If you can manage to fit a worm great gear in, that would really help with holding strength
I have no idea if the mechanism would become slower as a result though
Amazing video. Can not wait for the next video
Why count them when you can weigh them? Decant straight from main supply into your smaller box or zip bag? Don't have to build/load/run machine? Faster with bigger amounts but it is a cool machine my friend 😉. 🇺🇦
Glad I stumbled across your channel. Very intresting project and from an engineering perspective a project which has lots of potential. i look forward seeing more of your brilliant ideas.
With a future weight sensor, you could add a small scale inside of the counting module where you just add one of the item you'll be counting. That way, you can have the calibrated weight ready for any item you want to count without having to adjust anything. Just add one of whatever you want to count, and set the count number to calculate weight and count # with whatever mechanism you want to use, and have a solenoid to just drop everything at once. Also, why are you not counting the items as they come off of the orienting plate?
Very cool! Thank you!!
Amazing content, i subscribed!
Hello Christopher, amazing content you are producing! I build a screw counting machine but with a drum feeder, step feeder and vibratory feeder. I just wanted to try out the different mechanisms. Low cost automation is 100% my hobby and if you like we could chat or have a call together (I am German 😊). I am currently working an a low cost bag sealing and cutting machine for packaging the screws if you are interested 😃.
I'm interested to see your design. I package screws like self drillers and 3/8 diameter bolts.
Another person working on this!
One of my long term projects is a “Universal Parts Vending Machine” of sorts, so I’m excited to see not only others thinking alike, but actual *documented* projects too!
I’ll check out your channel, after finishing watching this video i guess.
Sure! You can message me via mail or instagram, both are linked under "about this channel“.
Can you tell us more about your online 3d-printing business? What type of products du you sell?
Really excellent videos! Have you consider using a worm gear from the stepper motor. Those are completely interlocking if power fails. Furthermore, I noticed that your magazine has a length that’s scales to the screws shaft length. Is that necessary? Just a suggestion but you could use the same magazine for eg all m4 with different shaft lengths as it’s the head that makes the magazine work? But again excellent work! 😃
If your MCU is fast enough it can output many many sets of dir and step signals to quite some steppers, especially if they are only driven in one direction (so they can share a dir pin). At that point it is just a piece of software and still way less complicated than doing distributed controllers and networking. Also I'd be interested to see if you could add some IR sensor at the end to count and verify a cross say 1000 times 4 screws and stuff like that to see if it ever misses and what the total percentage would be. And in production you could use that optical counter to dispense one more screw if under counted just to be sure and to save in customer support fees and shipping extra screws later. (Tip: use external counter ICs for the pulses so you don't need to run say a 10 channel counter on the main MCU, which will speed up verification testing by a ton if you don't want to deal with that many interrupts)
Cool project! Maybe a worm gear would also work.
Thanks for the idea! I'm not sure if they don't have too much friction at higher speeds when using printed gear parts, operating temperature needs to stay low because of that, additionally worm gears do tend to have higher reduction ratios, would like to keep the dispenser speed though..
Отличный инжениринг. У вас потрясающие способности к моделированию.
Interesting stuff, subscribed! Small tip, make sure to keep the same overall audio levels within and between you videos (the previous video had a little different levels in the different the clips)
very interesting videos!
Christopher you did an excellent job on this video. Your presentation was superb and the amount of thought that went into this project is admirable. Sometimes when we (I am guilty of it too) start to solve a problem we tend to turn a simple problem into a complex one. I don't know how many screws you have to count out per day but simply buying a cheap electronic scale and weighing one screw and setting the multiplier on the the scale and then dump your screws or washers or whatever you are trying to count on the scale until the scale zeros out for the predetermined number of items. I bought my scale at Harbor Freight that will carry out this operation for about $14.00. I like to use the KISS principle. Far less things to go wrong when you need to make a dead line.
But I have to say your way is wayyyy cooler.
Also at the Microfactory / Makerspace level i could see something like this being useful. Essentially you can make Vending Machines but for these / even full Bill of Materials (BOM).
And manually counting would negate the need for a scale i guess
Glad you like it, and i totally get your point! Unnecessary complexity is in my opinion the killer of very many automation attempts.
One of the advantages of doing it "the hard way" is that the screws are supplied fully constrained and oriented. This is necessary for a variety of other automations. Robotic bolting of assembly's, embedding nuts in 3d prints automatically. etc. - This is more of a screw/ nuts/ washers feeder than a counter, and the counter is supposed to be just one of many modules that can be connected to the feeder. I think the title is a bit misleading here.
You're absolutely right, just for counting - it's unnecessarily hard (but cooler ;) ).
awesome video ♥
i am using blender for 3d modeling , my question is did your software make gears interact with each other or you just animate it with keyframes and what did u use for such project like that
for mechanical engineering
thank you so much
sorry but i'm still convinced that through a combination of very smart software, plus some very cheap ICs sensors and DC motors, it's possible to build a reliable screw counter/dispenser with similar speeds under 30€ for the entire thing
0:23 why did you use a lifting wiper mechanism instead of just using sink screws to prevent the collision? do i miss something? seems overengineered to me, but very cool, that you put your time in stuff like that instead of printing pointless stuff :-) cheers
There are 3 such screws distributed on the pick up wheel. Without them/ using flatheads the whole thing would not work for long.. I will explain it in a later video :) Thanks glad you liked it :)
Well done. Do you have a method of sensing whether the feedtube is empty (or ensuring you are dispensing screws)? As far as controlling the multiple dispensers (you mentioned 10), you can combine three 3D printer controllers ( X axis, Y axis, 2 Z axis stepper motor drivers per each board), and a small computer with 3-USB ports - 1 for each "dispenser".
i was here at 16k. do not forget me
Isso é muito legal vender parafusos automaticamente, montar uma loja onde a separação é feita automaticamente é um show a parte! Estou pensando em fazer isso para oferecer a lojas de produtos, is it possible to get the complete project
I have not decided on that yet. For me it depends on how this channel develops and if people even want the files at all. At this stage I'm focusing on getting it completed and functional. After it is finished we will see
Remove all of this downstream and just replace the hopper motor with a stepper, turn it when triggered then stop once the desired quantity is dispensed.
This is the answer for the question kids asks in ground school: Why I need math :)
Я наверное тебя разочарую) Берешь весы>взвешиваешь>получаешь количество... Для рассыпухи типа метизов городить такой огород... Это на сколько надо быть мелочным.
Хотя с другой стороны, если один винт в стране проживания автора на вес золота, то...
I've been following a handful more robotics and automation design channels over the past few years, but this is different. This is explaining concepts and ideas I could only get in my Mechatronics engineering courses at uni. I hope to see a lot more videos from you, and I know I'll make use of some of these concepts in my career designing and implementing automation processes.
Thank you.
Just found your channel and binged all three videos. Loving what you have so far. These screw packaging videos feel like I have joined you in the middle of a project and missing the larger context. Are you planning on a video explaining the idea for the complete system? Or maybe just a short description at the beginning of the next video?
Glad you like it and great idea! I think I will make a separate video about the hole system.
CAN bus is likely what you want to use if each module will have its own MCU. However, you could just as easily use stepper motor drivers with a I2C interfaces and just use one MCU
Only 178 subscribers?? Wtf??? You are a genius!
Key takeaways:
* Pressing a timing belt pulley onto 3d printed parts is a great way to transmit torque. Thanks!
* Standoff and through bolts is a great way to assemble parts that interface with other assemblies. No need for precision, it self adjusts as it clamps.
In order to simplify programming you could add an optical or mechanical sensor on the individual tines of your counting sprocket. That way the stepper angle and gear ratio get factored out and don't have to be considered. No encoder, no calibration, all you need is a number of "pulses" to count.
Very clean presentation, thanks for spending your time putting this together, I look forward to your future videos!
Great idea on utilizing the exiting sprocket tines for flags. I have used "u-shaped through beam photoelectric sensors " for a very similar position encoding project. How would you decellerate the load before stopping with your design?
@@aaronholwick8659 In this use case I would assume that the mass of the load is small compared to the power of the motor, and thus it is capable of decelerating well within the required positioning accuracy. Dispensing 10 SHCS took 17 frames (~.5s) with no perceptible acceleration/deceleration
@christopherhelmke I am working on stepper driver system as a school project and it might just be the perfect solution for your "many steppers" ishue, would you what to collab? It would help me to prove the usefulnells of my invention ;)
When the module fitted into the crate ... ♥
My PLA spline sprockets pretty reliably last 500k M6 bolts when directly connected or 4+m when using a radial spring shock absorber (basically a fancy flexible spring coupling designed to deal with radial shocks instead of vibration)
I have no idea where yours will end up but i feel like i've gotten some ideas on how to improve my own
Did you share your design somewhere?
@@bamboo9840 not externally, i am a consultant and some parts of it are my IP to ensure that my clients pay
He has however updated his design and i believe copying it should more than suffice for any needs you may have
This is awesome! This feels like the same type of channel that the founder of Opulo started before his company went public. Really cool mid-scale manufacturing type of machines!
in this prototype your trusting that the magazine will be always full
i suggest you add a TCRT5000 Infrared Reflective Sensor or something similar to count the screws !! you cant really be sure that the sprocket mechanism really grabbed a screw , maybe the motor skipped or the magazine is empty for some reason !!
it should be mounted as close to the sprocket as possible , it will also act as a magazine empty signal
i think that will be cool
in fact, that is exactly my plan. :) Infrared reflective sensor also spot on.
Pretty clever Chris. Keep working for yourself if you can, you'll pollute your love for this work by subjugating yourself. I speak from personal experience.
This is excellent! Glad to see the 20T pulley hub idea is spreading into other applications.
Thank you! I just love your work!!!
Geneva Drive has a downside of a non-linear acceleration, which would be very loud if you didn't use a stepper to curb that fact if you had ended up using that design too.
I like your project. From an engineering point of view the project has some ingenious solutions, but if we're talking about efficiency, I think it would be more efficient to find solutions whereby you weigh them or measure the length. I think your solution is more accurate. I really like what you've done.
glad you like it!
After I watched the first video my first thought was that a servo driven wheel would be more appropriate :)
Wirklich sehr gut, und Ihr Englisch ist perfekt!
Excellent stuff.
I would also brace that stepper with a bracket from the rear. Having a moving mass (servo) on an arm can cause trouble down the line with play in the gears and fatigue of that arm.
You can use a esp32 that uses WIFI to control a stepper TMC2208/ or DRV8825 to control the stepper motor, really simple and cheap (a pair of $ if you get the wroom) and you need low complexity to wire it. Then controll each esp32 by a raspbery pi or anycomputer with wifi by sending json to them with how many bolts you want (this is cool because you can have a response after the filling too). All boxes will have the same code and same schematics, so no complexity, just a different ID for each esp32. This also can be made by wire by controlling them with the i2c protocol or others but having wifi makes them much more modularity. Cheers! And if you want accuraccy, i suggest adding a light sensor to count the bolts as they fall if you want a second measure security, so you can count the bolts with this system and dont worry about the gear not having bolts in the buffer or the stepper lossing steps. Cheers! also a weight calculator in a hopper with all the bolts as final check will be great, a tensor sensor measure them in miligrams, very precise. And final tip, if you are scared for the stepper motor to fail during offpower, there are some motors with autobreaking feature with no power, and also there are other simple ways like blocking the gears with the actuator or a servo during offline and probably your first approach so you can run this with batteries instead of maingrid. And because I edited this message several times, I can give you my last solution to the problem, instead of having a machine box for each type of bolt, will be better to have just 1 machine with several buffers in pararell (and focus on making the magazine with bigger capacity, for example by zigzagin the bolts inside side to side) and feed the different bolts to the machine manually as the magazines gets lower or with a robotic arm that can grab them from the cartonbox reading a qr code for example. So you can save space and just build 1 machine and relay on the magazines instead of boxes like a pick and place machine.
You can also look at the ESP8266 boards which can be a little cheaper for the modules and an esp32 should have enough resources to be the server and interface depending on how fancy you choose to get. Also note, using the ESP processors gives you access to their own ESP-Now protocols for sending data between the boards significantly faster and less overhead than sending TCP/UDP packets. There is the option of wiring the boards together as serial devices which eliminate a lot of issues regarding stability/hackability, however requires additional thought on how to pass the wires/signal through modules. Wired would give you the advantage of letting the boards go into deep sleep, waking up to a pulse/message from the server as opposed to having to keep the radios on constantly waiting for a command.
if you wanted to use the weight of the screws, you could replace the stepper motor and gear assembly with a brake disk connected to an encoder. PID control could slow and stop the disk and so the sprocket pretty accurately either with force from a servo motor or a 'variable voltage'/pwm driven solenoid to pinch the disk. A separate solenoid could rest with a pin through a hole in the brake disk, and turn on to pull the disk out, so its 'off state' holds the system still. It might be overly complicated for the task but could work. As someone else said, it could be good (in any system), to have a light gate or optical sensor to validate the number of screws.
Also really cool video! Just found your channel.
Nice to see that at least someone is still working successfully on Wintergatan Marble Machine X.
Thanks for the specific shout-out; wasn't expecting that. XD
If this prototype is anything to go by, the sprocket method works even better than I thought it would!
I agree with avoiding a Geneva drive. Even before tolerance and speed concerns, I worry that a 3D printed version of that mechanism would have a pretty short service life.
Wow. Great work. I see you become big in the 3D printing community. Keep it up mate!
Smart, using toothed pulleys as spline adapters. I shall steal this idea :)
Came here from HackaDay, and subbed. Really great engineering, and to the point without ego-massaging intro or lots of hemming and hawing.
This seems to be a niche space at first glance, however in reality its the underpinning for almost all future manufacturing processes going forward.
damn this is really cool. Nice work. Reminds me of the marble machine, perhaps you can take some of the designs Wintergatan made for that machine as he had to make the timing extremely accurate and stable
Excellent video, looking forward to the next one!
Use single MCU and single stepper driver for as many steppers as you want. Just connect them in parallel and use relays to connect specific stepper to the driver. Just do not forget to disable driver before switching relay or inductive currents gonna destroy relay very quickly.
Use solenoids to stop unpowered motor from moving. Or there are rather cheap normal-closed NEMA17 electromagnetic brakes.
I’m also curious about the vertical stack design, and how universal it will be. I’m picturing that it works uniquely because you’re modeling with hex cap screws and hex nuts. Other screw types like a countersink head would not keep the screw shafts horizontal and lead to a different feed solution.
What I’ve seen along these lines tends to be a mostly horizontal + sloped design that’s still gravity fed but uses a vibrator to overcome stiction and keep the parts flowing. Is this something you eliminated in your design decisioning, perhaps because you don’t have this requirement?
Hi. Is there a reason splitting bracket for the two solenoids was not considered? The top solenoid could then be positioned on a rack attached to the magazine, with incremental fix points for every fastener count. Position top solenoid at "10" for a drop of 10 fasteners.
Downside is different racks/fixture brackets for every fastener type -> but already an inherited design choice from the fully constrained magazine itself.
Super wild this was posted a singular day before Nikodem Bartnik posted his screw counting machine. No way he copied it all in a day obviously, it's just pretty wild you both did this.
if you're concerned about dumping the magazine if the stepper loses power, do a ratchet system with the pawl on a continuous duty solenoid that is actively being held open so if power is lost it automatically snaps forward and locks the dispenser, dropping hopefully only one or zero screws if it's fast enough. or you can have a separately powered circuit that the detects a failure on the main system and snaps the solenoid out, there's a couple ways to achieve that sort of thing. another way is also a worm drive, but that's not conducive to 3D printing due to the high contact and wear plus it'll greatly reduce the max dispensing speed, but it is 100% mechanical and you can find fairly cheap small brass gear sets online.
Bravo. I don't need one. But somehow I want one:-)
Very cool design! Maybe I missed it, but why do you need to singulate the screws in the dispenser? Couldn't the screws be counted before they enter the dispenser using a light gate? Then you'd run the pickup wheel until the right number of screws has been picked.
I think it's a good idea to have som sort of optical sensosr to detect when it runs out of screws. In case the mag runs out of screw, nuts or whatever, it won't know
Use a serial servo in stepper mode. They are small, have good torque and many can be stringed together. Waveshare sell a 30kg/cm one for $22ish usd. I use them for a lot of projects.
Actually, you don't need a step motor. Just use free spinning wheel, solenoid, diode and optical sensor. Place a reflecting tape on a free spinning wheel for each tooth to count the amount of bolts falls off. Inside the wheel add some voids for solenoid rod to fall in to block a wheel for each tooth.
Damn, I've worked at places where their finished product looked like a dumpster fire compared to your prototypes.
If you have multiple dispensers that do not need operate simultaneously, you could make a single stepper motor run all of them via a switching transmission.
A worm on the stepper will also not allow the parts dispenser gear to run in reverse because all of the force would be axial on the stepper. Very nice work.
Please keep making videos!!! This is great. I'm so glad I found this channel. Thank you!
One problem I faced with stepper motors and printed parts is the heat of the motor. Steppers can easily exceed the glassing point of plastic, softening the gear and the holder.
Awesome!
You are genius. Nice job dude ❤
This is very reminiscent of stuff made here crossed over with wintergatan and then a little bit of tom Stanton, perfect combo
"Have you ever wondered which 3d printing mechanism would be the best for counting screws?"
Yes actually, I have. In fact I toss and turn at night sometimes thinking about that very question
how did you mount the middle gear? great video and project by the way. did you study engineering?😊
Love your engineering! I had a similar problem once: portioning plastic granules. I had a leadscrew prototype and thought about doing it by weight. But in the end everything was too complex and I wanted an easy ans fast solution. I just did it by volume. I measured four cylinders from drainage pipe to the approximate size, attached them under a board with holes the diameter of the pipe. They were closed by flaps on the bottom. To these flaps I added dead volume to fine tune the amount but left enough slack/over-volume for inconsistencies due to compacting variability etc. We would slide a bag over each tube, close the flap, dump in the product, take a ruler to wipe off excess granules (think sintering 3d printers). Then open each flap take out the bag filled with a good approximation of the target weight.
just one thing to add to your future plans, make sure the rotation sensor is absolute, or has some way of homing, or restating the system could ba a real pain
Instant happiness when the screws are so precisely dispent🎉❤ my autism craves just that!😅
Got my sub 💪
This is incredible content and I can't wait to see where this goes! I have several uses for this concept, I run a business that sells kits that involve a lot of hardware. It is by far the most tedious part of the job. Each kit gets arond 16 different pieces of hardware, with roughly 10 of each.
I'm really happy to see the flexibility you're building into your system. However, it looks like this will require sets of equipment for each distinct item. With so many different items, and them being larger (M8-M12) it would require a lot of equipment!
What would be the most reasonable path to explore for a system that would count out units, but could handle more than one size? One that handles everything would be unreasonable, but do you think the machine could be used in a way that could handle variable lengths of bolts that are the same diameter? I realise this probably complicates sorting more than is reasonable, but if it's possible, I'd love to explore the idea!
Another way to do it would be to install a thing that weight the screws in real time and trigger the solenoid to stop them from falling when the weight is enough.
A timing belt pulley as an insert for a plastic part is very clever indeed.
Im watching all your videos in one go, just discovered the channel, I wondered why you aren't using something continuously spinning in the last vid, and now this one starts with it, amazing.
Why not use a worm gear to both hold and prevent the screws from destroying the bearings by falling?
Off the shelf stepper with a planetary gearbox on its face attached to a larger wheel would simplify things a lot.
I think the binary solenoid approach might be advantageous for certain hardware types, especially larger items.
*Just use a ATTiny441 they cost like 1.20$*
You could set the dispense amount via BUS (for example USART or I²C). Also add a IR Photoelectric sensor (barrier or reflective) to count the dispensed amount, they are also very cheap like 1-2$, to make sure it doesn't error stack. You could add even a routine to dispense the missing ones automatically, one screw to much here and there shouldn't be the problem but if so add a beeper to alert if the amount was to much. This should cost you in sum like 3-4$ per dispenser, so basically nothing.