Meter coins with a DIY conveyor hopper instead of a stock coin hopper

[pkrush]

This is important for a number of reasons: 1.) It greatly lowers the cost of the system 2.) Coin hoppers are loud! A conveyor hopper 3.) Coin hoppers are range limited for coin diameter and thickness. Building a multi-conveyor hopper will allow the system to sort mixed coins (loose change). 4.) It greatly expands use of the system beyond just one size of coin, and to all small parts in general, such as:

• Parts: metal, plastic, glass, wood, pellets, electronic components, ball bearings
• Fasteners: screws, nuts, bolts, washers, spacers, pins, buttons
• Ammo: bullets, fired brass casings, primers
• Scrap: Small, Shredded, or broken, metal, electronic waste, glass, plastic
• Craft: Pebbles, gems, stones, beads, mosaic tiles, mine concentrate
• Pharmaceutical: capsules, tablets, pills
• Food: seeds, beans, grain, dry fruit, Fruit Loops, candy, Jelly Bellies
• Small toys: Legos, blocks & tiny connector toys, puzzle pieces

For coins this not a hard task to design. You need:

• The right conveyor speeds
• Conveyor combinations.
• Fingers on the sides and top getting coins in a single file line.
• Maybe abruptly stopping or reversing the belt.
• Maybe vibration in places.
• Maybe vibratory slides.
• You need to handle the possibility that coins are stacked or stuck.

I think this could be just as, if not more, long lasting then a purchased coin hopper.

I think a kit would have a number of stock fingers and parts to help with metering any parts.

[pkrush]

Semi-auto DIY Hopper area: An area/open container that the coins can be poured into. It should hold 1-3 liters of pennies. Maybe at some point above can be a 5 gallon buck with a 3” hole in it that coins would flow out of. The input belt would pull the coins from out of this.

Off the self vs DIY hopper vs hand feeding: This is very low cost replacement for hand feeding the belt and not meant to be an unattended high volume system. Still I think this can be tweaked to feed a huge number of coins an hour, say 10000 plus. This is 60 plus pounds an hour; A level that requires occasional handcart usage!

[pkrush]

This is the same as the input conveyer.