search

GemHunt / CoinSorter

Sorts coins by solenoid on a conveyor by classifying images with Caffe & DIGETS
MIT License
46 stars 2 forks source link

Add Slide Accumulator after DIY Hopper #55

Closed pkrush closed 8 years ago

pkrush commented 8 years ago

Slide Accumulator: A slide to buffer the varying output from the input feed. I think the material is an open question. Delran? Acrylic? Waxed wood? Sheet metal? Even a stock hopper would be benefit from an accumulator. Put an IR sensor near the top of the slide. If it’s blocked slow or stop the feel belt.

Why an Accumulator? This system has higher throughput when the coins are more uniformly spaced. For a given camera & lighting setup there is a max speed of the imaging conveyor before the images get blurry. The camera images the coins better with a slower belt. A lower cost camera can be used with lower belt speeds.

pkrush commented 8 years ago

Inline Conveyors at different speeds works great for a small amount of buffering. Putting an LED strip under the conveyors for backlighting looks like it would work great for adjusting speeds for metering. Also it looks cool! There are so many great accumulator systems on youtube with vibration or belts that move in opposite directions, but they are so big.

pkrush commented 8 years ago

I did try a 100mm long delren flat slide, but it was too long. It was just an empty conveyor body. Try mini slides like this based on extending the guides past the end of the conveyors?

For now the angled vibrating belt be good enough.

pkrush commented 8 years ago

Going up hill and pulsing the conveyor motor causes the coins to slide. Tracking this with the backlight camera(or not...) gives the system enough accumulator effect for now.