Pocket Hardness Tester PROTOTYPE | IT WERKS!

Tossing around ideas for the next workshop gadget. An electronic hardness tester that fits in your pocket. 👉C**T HAIR RULER www.etsy.com/ca/shop/AvEwerkz

[@SMITHII_]

Generally I just use the ol ladies hand to check for hardness. Unfortunately on a count of calling her old, I havent been able to check for quite a while.

[@TimothyMichaels]

Smithii lol

[@MrBruce-np9rj]

I know my head is harder than the new frying pan I got the wife as an anniversary present....it friggin hurt and now there's a dent in it

[@microbuilder]

I am my own hardness tester. ...and now I'm sad...

[@Egi5.9]

😂😂😂😂😂

[@ToiPede]

🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@TinyWorkshop]

You are a fuckin genius :) For measuring shore or other "difficult " materials consider an interchangeable mass oscillator ;) (a different mass ball)

[@doughall1794]

Use 2 size ball measurements to correlate and factor out the mass issue.

[@RabidBadger_]

A springloaded striker would allow testing on non-horizontal surfaces and minimize the effects of air pressure, etc.

[@bjornSE]

What if you glue a tiny diamond to a piezo, mount it a tiny bit away from the material, put a signal to the piezo and measure the resonance "bounce" frequency?

[@rhamph]

Cut out all the bouncing crap: replace the ball with a tiny electromagnetically actuated hammer, measure the speed as it goes down and as it comes back up.

[@TinyWorkshop]

Adam Olsen good idea but is much more expensive... and less accurate IMHO

[@christurley391]

You have reinvented the Shore Scleroscope. Hardness readings are skewed by a matierials elasticity. It still is useful in testing EDM carbon grades but essentially obsolete for metals testing.

[@mikeselectricstuff]

You could sense the ball inductively pretty easily, to avoid all acoustics issues. Use a small unshielded ferrite inductor, measure the drop in Q as the ball passes near it. Easy way to measure Q is to have a cap in parallel, ping the coil with a ~1uS pulse and count the ring-down pulses - more pulses = higher Q = ball further away. Look at Q over time and fit a curve to establish the actual time it passed the reference position. You could do this with just a small MCU and a few passives - use a comparator peripheral to detect a near-zero crossing of the ringing signal. As the ringing waveform will swing both ways ( +ve and -ve), it needs to be under the 0.6V MCU input protection diode threshold, so you need to be sensing at maybe 50-100mV to see the zero crossings.

[@samuelrosen137]

@AvE An easier method: use a ball ended pendulum and an optical rotary encoder. Use velocity loss rather than position to get higher precision. Use interrupts on the 2 encoder pins for maximum precision. That way, you have no dependence on material coupling to a microphone. When I checked the patent after thinking of it, I found its no longer under patent protection as of around 2000. For small part testing, use a solid fixture to add effective sample mass.

[@SilentGloves]

This is legit brilliant. Gravity varies by about 0.5% around the earth, and air density varies as well, those combined would probably have a measurable effect on calibration, I'd guess, but very small.

[@matman7546]

It’s nothing new. It’s called a scleroscope, and it’s been around forever

[@rlund3]

WOW!!! I can not believe the genius I am watching. This is why I love watching you.

[@HeathHunnicutt]

So that was pretty brilliant. Two ideas for ya. Mayhap a photonic breakable beam at the bottom might be easier than a sound processor. Maybe put a shroud around it to block outside light. The freefall of the ball could pressurize a pillow of air, giving it some early terminal velocity that could complicate the curve fitting between time of bounce and hardness. Maybe vent it with little holes all along the side.

[@billcodey1430]

I am sure distance above sea level is going to come into play in just a minute..

[@glenecollins]

Bill Codey ... he is going to need a sealed tube and an electromagnet if he wants to get that accurate ;-)

[@Codysdab]

That was my first thought air pressure and temperature as well would throw it off potentially

[@EscapeMCP]

Pressure/temp sensors on AliBangWishBay for a few quid. Why not add it into the MC's code and you can eliminate any height/pressure issues?

[@Ender240sxS13]

Mmmmm.. I kind of doubt it, depends on what level of accuracy we are hoping to achieve here, as this seams like a good enough approach for hardness measuring, likely get you within say 5% or so, which would be plenty accurate for enthusiast/anything-other-than-building-the-space-shuttle purposes, the +-.1% error that temp/pressure would introduce is hardly going to be an issue

[@ubsmoker]

Dylan- Yea if what you're working on needs it to be within +-.1% error, you can probably afford the more accurate ones.

[@mikeoliver3254]

This is fucking brilliant.

[@ihaveriffs8261]

This is why I watch this channel. And it's not even something I would ever find useful personally, just damn entertaining. Thank you!

[@digitaIgorilla]

You need to take this to Kickstarter. Hell, WE need you to take this to kickstarter. You are about to revolutionise a multi-penny industry.

[@Mikidy303]

what if you want to test the hardness of a magnet?

[@mikesavage8793]

Use a ceramic BB.

[@johncase1112]

Tungsten carbide ball or ceramic from skate board bearings maybe?

[@johncase1112]

Mike Savage beat me to it

[@rosstemple8452]

Use stainless

[@SomeGuyFromCrowd]

Punch it and rate the resulting pain on a scale from 1 to 100!

[@fredflintstone2621]

Sounds to me like the perfect job for the universal measuring tool we all have in our pants. a phone app, enter ball size , drop height , microphone picks up bounces , bingo bongo mathematics happen, you get a answer on how hard it is and an advert for little blue pills.we could have some common reference materials - granite , glass, lead, ect.now bring in the cloud and the more people that use it the more accurate it gets.Pr

[@ZONIAN955]

"a vain and petty man", laughing my ass off !! and I totally love this idea too !! I am definitely going to make one of these to go along with my surplus durometer ! as part of our "citizen science" ! This is too cool !! Waaayyy too cool !! Totally love it

[@jimbobtheimpaler8403]

I second that. You are "Off the chain" as the youth of yesteryear once said. this is one HELL of an idea. Mighty fine good sir.

[@CarsSimplified]

Pretty clever stuff! I suspect the surface has to be pretty level for it to have reliable results, though.

[@Garganzuul]

Unless you use a bendy tube.

[@jonhare392]

Awesome

[@68MalKontent]

And the ball would have to be always harder than the sample, otherwise there will be anomalies when the ball gets fucked up out of shape. A carbide ball should do the trick :)

[@alchemisthere]

When he goes metric for the first time

[@C-NoteMac]

Assuming you use a good clean borosilicate glass tube, you shouldn't have any issues with inconsistent readings. Easy to maintain, and easy to a calibrate, its perfect; simple ideas are always the best ideas. 👏 My favorite KZbin channel hands down. ✌

[@rosennachev9864]

Thas focking genius man. You got the proof of concept done. Now only thing left is a proper study. Difference in mass and type of test balls, working temperature and humidity. ...and magnetism. Glass ball anyone?

[@Zizzily]

What about a photo interrupter to see what when the ball went past and again for the rebound? If knowin' the width o' tha ball, can even figg'r th' speed of th' thing!

[@AF29007]

AvE, will this work in Australia too? Or will my numbers be all reversed?

[@Moraren]

Yes, you just need to mount the ruler upside down

[@merryprankstermatt]

All the bearings are made in china it'll work just fine

[@chisdalton9652]

@@Moraren keep it simple, reading taken whilst standing on your head

[@Absurd_Moose]

This is an awesome idea for some home-gamers who have little things they want to test the hardness on. If you're going to sell these things, maybe make it an attachment for the ruler. Clips on to it so you don't have to dedicate the ruler to only hardness testing. Love your vids, keep up the good work!

[@dj_paultuk7052]

When i did my HNC in Mechanical Engineering that was exactly how we were taught to do hardness testing. Ball bearing bounce method.

[@Alex-nx5wi]

Someone came already around with that idea. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leeb_rebound_hardness_test U can get them from your trusty chinesium supplier for under 300$.

[@carlcorey1456]

The whole idea seems to be old enough so no worry of weird patents.. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scleroscope archive.is/20120718022923/www.articlestree.com/science/a-guide-to-rebound-hardness-and-scleroscope-test-tx301428.html

[@maikeydii]

If you want to be splitting hairs neither of those is really prior art regarding the solution suggested by Ave as Leeb method uses velocity change and scaleroscope distance. This method uses time between impacts. All three methods do fall into the same category as rebound hardness testers.

[@bigredinfinity3126]

What about using a inferred light to count the bounces

[@radarmusen]

Yes. Use a photo transistor and a led in the bottom.

[@ahgerande]

You can use two a certain distance apart and measure the difference in speed on the way down and on the way up, to measure how elastic the impact was. That way the exact starting point of the ball isn't crucial either.

[@jamesg1367]

@Anders Gunnarson: Excellent idea.

[@en4rab]

An IR beam break detector might be the easiest way to get your timing, I guessed that the glass tube was about 10mm diameter and I had a quick look and turned up this jellybean module from mao's poundland www.seeedstudio.com/Motor-Speed-Sensor-Module-p-1969.html if you can fit the tube in the 10mm gap that might be a place to start for prototyping, that module seems to be available everywhere the link is just the first i found

[@rushthezeppelin]

Correct positioning of the emitter and sensor could be tricky though. I'd imagine the piezoelectric sensor would be much more accurate on the kind of time scales we are talking about and easier to setup.

[@TrojanHorse1959]

Excellent thinking AvE!

[@cameronjenkins6748]

This reminds me of something that my material science professor did some time ago. He was trying to see if a large piece of aluminum had lost its hardness, so he got a piece of pipe and a punch and dropped the punch onto the aluminum to make an indentation. It worked quite well.

[@PhonyBread]

As an embedded systems programmer, I would be more than willing to lend my time to the programming/electrical development side of something like this :)

[@Proud2bmodest]

I've done some experimenting with a PC sound card with HDA and the precision is incredible. The A/D converters are 24 bit and using the maximum sample rate of 192kHz, the input bandwidth is 80kHz. I proved this by using an Arduino to generate a precise square wave and then used an FFT to measure the bandwidth. The only problem is that the inputs aren't calibrated and the amplitude settings all over the map. For this application, the true amplitude is irrelevant and only the timing is important. The timing repeatability of the sound card is in the nanosecond or better range. The Linux ALSA utilities amixer and arecord run as subprocesses in Python is the easiest and most accurate way to capture the audio. I tried PyAudio and although it sounds correct, timing errors occur during recording and it's not as easy to use as arecord.

[@SteveisTall]

How fine do you think you can get the granularity? I make knives. Being able to test between 50-62 Rockwell accurately would be awesome.

[@charrontheboatman]

Ave you are an unrecognized GENIUS in your own time( not to mentioned your own mind ) Needless to say "we're not worthy"!!!!

[@lennyhester1559]

Great freakin idea, and the size really makes it handy, cause the circuit components and a small batter added to that would be nothing! Get these done partner, I would love to have one! Don't forget to include a holder for the ball bearing while not in use.

[@stevedaenginerd]

Great idea about the BB holder!

[@Luke.Holmes]

Perhaps somebody smarter that me can advise here but how would air resistance effect this, small ball in tube like a piston in a cylinder? Obviously this could be factored in but what about different altitudes and thus different air pressures, how much difference could this make?

[@Luke.Holmes]

Say you used this at sea level, higger air pressure, ball falls slower but also doesn't bounce as high / at 2000ft thinner air, ball falls faster but then bounces higher; Could this cancel out any effect caused by altitude?

[@dave_myers]

port the bottom end by < ball radius to reduce back pressure, or make sure the tube i.d. is >>ball diameter

[@CM-xr9oq]

Luke, again, not trying to get 100% accuracy. Just want to get er in the ball park.

[@Flare1107]

I have to agree here. All things considered, this is the roughest of rough estimates. And cheap too. Where do we let go of 'accuracies' to favor it just works

[@vinnykapschock1842]

Precisely identify different size balls that correlate for different altitudes!!!

[@geraldgepes]

Piezio would be prohibitively expensive at scale, KISS, put a check gate in it so the ball drops through a gate, bounces out and is caught by said gate. Then work out how to reliably mark the height (thinking one of those detented flags like on breathing tests) . Boom, repeatable result and ease of measurement.

[@NickStallman]

Really? I just found 6 for $0.93 USD Shipped on Aliexpress in 30 seconds. They are a mass produced item and are ridiculously cheap. You do get industrial varieties of course that are higher quality, but for this application we aren't looking for any kind of absolute precision or quality.

[@geraldgepes]

Nick Stallman that is much cheaper than expected but you still need the processing circuitry and software.

[@NickStallman]

Compared to a photo interrupter, you might just need an extra opamp to amplify the piezo signal a bit. The benefit over a photo interrupter would be zero offset - the piezo would get exactly when the ball hits the surface where as a photo interrupter would be a few mm above the surface.

[@blhack123]

I agree that a photo interrupter is probably a better solution than a piezo element. Still this is a fucking great idea.

[@pauljs75]

This could work. You don't need to know when it hits, just compare the speed down vs. the speed back up. If the drop height, and spring value of the ball is known, then a bit of mathemagical stuff can figure out the spring value of what the ball is hitting.

[@Donmegamuffin]

I do physics and it never I'd never considered there'd be such a wonderful relation between the hardness of the material, and the elasticity of the collision but it makes total sense. Huh, you learn something every day

[@nicholasambrosini3790]

Your videos are true science in my opinion. Down to the core, testing hypotheses through trial and error with deductive/inductive reasoning.

[@Joja915]

This smells like an arduino project

[@Brettjnash]

How much for an Ave factory'eh "calibrated" bouncy ball?

[@Styrak]

I'm sure AvE would charge a reasonable amount for his balls. Babydoll might have an issue with it though.

[@wil7719]

Boof 181?

[@Styrak]

Hunh?

[@Garganzuul]

In theory the mass of the ball doesn't matter. Think hammer vs. feather on the moon. In practice a bigger ball is better at overcoming air resistance, up to a certain size & height which causes indentation. You would probably want a small set of different size balls.

[@jasonorwell2952]

I would add that a feeder is important for this, something simple you can rig up at the top, there will be subtle variances in pinching a BB and dropping it (unintended added force, variations in height, etc). I am not aware of anything, but would be pretty cool if you could have two sensors at the top and bottom of the ruler, something that could correlate the position between the two some how to get a precise measurement. I don't think anything exists like that, hall effect sensor would be cool if you could somehow magnetize the ball but that would affect the rate of bounce and all that. Motion detection at the bottom would be too difficult as far as I know, but would be pretty accurate as well. This is a really really cool idea!

[@hodsgod]

Very nice concept, it is definitely a goer.

[@gromett]

Brilliant... Notification came in while I was watching Tesla Truck launch. what a night..

[@MerpSquirrel]

Also, sir please, even if you dont patent these gadgets, you should look at getting a company to actually produce these and give you a decent cut, I would pay good money for tools that you make with your name on them, and yes I know you do it for the good of all of us, but really, just maybe take less of a cut and make them low cost CA or USA made and I would buy multiple in a second and not mind paying you for your mind. Food for thought.

[@mrb692]

> Low cost > CA/US made Pick one

[@MMMabachMusic]

This is amazing. Nice thinking.

[@ethelryan257]

I can't be the only one who saw AvE: Pocket Hardness Tester on his feed and came to a somewhat different conclusion as to exactly which hardness was going to be tested. Saw the ruler at the start of the video and, well. Yes, I've got a dirty mind. Biggest reason I watch his videos!

[@guinevereteef]

heres that applied science video he mentioned kzbin.info/www/bejne/bpipoq2Yo7qCY7s

[@AndrewBrowner]

forgeting rule #1 - if it were easy someone would of done it already

[@vizionthing]

Your rule fails for every invention ever made .....

[@AndrewBrowner]

not my rule his.. it certainly has its holes though

[@GlennHamblin]

So easy to be the nay-sayer. Using that logic is saying that every thing has already been invented so don't bother. Famous folks were saying that over 100 years ago. Then we sent men to the moon, and made things called confusers!

[@duanebrown3877]

Rule applies to getting rich off of simple ideas. Although selling sex is the exception.

[@Stereomoo]

The hard part's finding the market for the invention, plenty of inventors who went broke because they couldn't market like their competition

[@ThePaulius]

I don't hand these out often, but here you go : Genius.

[@roadrash1981]

That is a bloody great idea 💡

[@anchorbait6662]

How about instead of trying to eyeball how high she boings. You just time how long she boings for. Like a stopwatch... From the time of drop till it settles at the bottom of er. Eh? Eh?? Brilliant!

[@anchorbait6662]

David yeah I did thanks

[@sasjadevries]

Some other ideas for a purely mechanical DIY hardness detector: You just need 3 affordable parts: 1 A small rvd/cvd diamond, some (even chinese) suppliers tell what shape the diamonds are. CBN or Carbide would work too. 2.1 Either a cheapo automatic center punch. This will hit with the same kinetic energy every time. 2.2 Or a spring and some metal stock scrap pieces. 3.1: Either a micrometer that will be sacrifised and modified. (part of body cut off, flat base welded to it, the turning bit ground to a point) 3.2: Or a proper depth micrometer or a homemade jig with a dial indicator. --- The first idea is obvious: unless your center punch already has a carbide insert, you fabricate your own. Because that automatic centerpunch hits when a certain spring pressure is overcome, it will hit with the same speed, kin-energy and so on. I don't have to explain what the depthgauge is for right? You dent it with the center punch, you measure the dent. Boom! --- The second idea should be faster in use, and it's awesome: you take a piece of flat stock, add a (leaf)spring to it, attach a carbide/CBN/diamond incert to the end of the spring. And you have a constant-pressure scratching jig. The depth of the scratch is to be measured. A scratch is easier to find than a dent with a depth gauge. Now the really fun part: you could add a dial indicator to that jig to measure the depth WHILE it's scratching.

[@decgforce]

Same principle is used to test surface hardness/compaction in civil engineering, look up "Clegg hammers" tester. Instead of measuring sound or movement it measues rebound acceleration.

[@ThunderDog]

This is freaking AWESOME!!! Good to hear those red rulers are shippin' out.

[@MindToMatter]

More like this pls,, creativity is the bomb

[@cwtoyota]

Neat! Capacitive or hall effect sensing of the ball was where my mind went immediately. The microphone is an excellent idea.

[@cuttingtooldesigner]

This just reminded me of a similar device that was sold back in the late 90's early 2000's. Just can't remember who sold it. Same setup, hardened steel ball in glass tube with a scale on it. It had a release mechanism at the top to hold the ball then you could release it. Just want to mention that you can make your own just as AVE is doing if you have known materials with measured hardness specs. Of important note, the drop height has to be consistent for each drop. Cool video, as I know a lot of home machine shop guy's would like to have something to check materials before they machine them. Great subject Sir.

[@mmartin5459]

What a fucking great idea!! And so logically thought out who wouldnt fucking want one!!

[@ChemicalChrisOttawa]

Great idea, wish I'd thought of it. It does remind me of how a glass or steel marble will bunch higher than an elastic 'super ball', but, I didn't put it all together. Hats off sir.

[@EngineHeadCW]

Great ideas! I dig it.

[@JordyValentine]

My wife ordered one of your rulers for my christmas present, must be a keeper haha

[@alechawrysh4373]

Genius. Well done.

[@benspeedschannel888]

Bloody brilliant!!!

[@eutectics]

Now this is a Kickstarter I could get behind! It would work on a large range of harnesses too so it would be perfect for all industries

[@richardeadon6396]

Not what I expected from the title. Very interesting and very clever!

[@ShadowOfADaemon]

You sir are a mad scientist. Hear is an idea you might want to think about rather than a relying on Piezio device you could use simple photo detectors on the tub with a micro processer. The ball has a known mass which falling down the tube through the first beam. This starts the timer in the micro processer. When it hits the next beam you get a second time with a known distance between the beams. This allows you to figure out velocity and energy. With a fixed know distance between the last beam and the sample you can then time the rebound on the first and second beams. If you build in a chart/table that takes into account all the variables and measurement into a micro processer you would have fairly accurate result without needing on a mark 1 eye ball.

[@RaivoltG]

You've got some kick ass ideas!!

[@GroverStovepipe]

Homebrew Scleroscope! Well damn done, sir. An inspired move!

[@heathhinkle3833]

Been watching your videos for a long time but I don't ever comment. But I have to say that's the coolest thing ever

[@gnarkill5814]

maybe put an IR interrupter at each height corresponding to a hardness or a reed sensor or something

[@marccrocker1908]

Ya clever Canuck. Ya done learned me again.

[@milkyfishh]

Effin Brilliant! Glad I have standards at work I can "borrow".

[@jamest.5001]

I do most of my thinking in my head too! that does sound like a good idea.

[@zweg1321]

Wow what a great idea

[@5tr41ghtGuy]

Great video! Even though others have beat you to this idea, this video shows a quick, dirty and cheap way to approximate hardness for DIY'ers. I use a lot of salvage metal, and it would be very useful to have something like this when choosing which pieces to purchase.

[@GlennHamblin]

Dude! I love it! You are a thinker my friend, always finding an alternate way to do stuff. I'm waiting for the finished product. My first thought was a linear photo-sensor, but the sonar approach is much cheaper.

[@TheRabidfan]

That's friggin awesome.

[@misterwizard3483]

A gentleman and a scholar.

[@dalmatiangirl61]

Years ago I worked at a shop where we had these little pen sized hardness testers that worked on roughly the same principle. But instead of just a ball, the ball was on the end of a rod. You lifted rod out of main body and it locked in place at the top, hold the pen vertically to the part being tested and pushed a button to release the rod, on the first bounce it would lock at the top of bounce, and you took reading off of the scale on the side of the pen body.

[@MM-cr7dq]

Great idea, the AvE ruler gets better and better. I used a have rule of Sines, handy for measuring angles without a protractor, could be an easy add-on...

[@spiritas5372]

As a learning knife maker, this would be a godsend to test proper heat treating in my small, underfunded shed shop!

[@DanielSchaller]

Like this alot! Great masterbraining!

[@christaylor4086]

Ferkin AWESOME, definitely have some kinks and quirks to work out but the concept is definitely there

[@handymanheroes6463]

Great idea 👍

[@heronguarezi6501]

The sound was what i think at first, but a light barrier sensor close to de material would work perfectly.

[@andrewkennedy9704]

Love the power fister sticker.😃

[@MBroam]

Cool AF. This is brilliant.

[@skezus]

This is very cool. I know blacksmiths will always test an anvil by dropping a large ball bearing (called steelies where I'm from) to see how hard/how well an anvil will perform. This would be a great tool to measure the exact quality of an anvil.

[@andystreets4660]

I used to use that Detroit hardness tester when grinding crankshafts. The more you grind, the thinner the case hardening would be. And because of the importance of surface finish, destructive testing methods would not work. The little ball dropper was quick and easy to use.

[@magilla8026]

Trigger release for the ballbearing to ensure accurate and consistent ball drop heights.. me likey

[@omarquintero1283]

Really Nice, great that is just what I need for mi small Work shop Thank you for all your Videos with Big sense of Humor, I have seen all.

[@pnjunction5689]

Brilliant idea! I think a light-barrier at the end of the tube would be an easier solution for measuring the time of flight after the ball rebounces.

[@DataToTheZero]

I like the piezo idea. I think with the right math you could also count how long the piece under test vibrates and have a correction factor for smaller mass testing.

[@TulseLuper92]

Genius pure and simple.

[@ITpanda]

Would love to see you explorer this idea more.

[@poison_lembas]

That's feckin' clever mate. In the interest of keeping things cheap and simple... perhaps increasing the mass of the ball a bit and having a one way check gauge needle that allows the ball through going down and gets pushed up on the rebound.

[@ragmachiningruffazguts1834]

Brilliant! just brilliant!!

[@Khawzak]

This method is the same principal used in Leeb hardness testers. They measure the velocity of a dropped ball before and after rebounding on a surface to calculate hardness.

[@theslimeylimey]

This is a clever idea.

[@kalleguld]

Very clever. With the microphone + stopwatch you no longer need the ruler, but a level might be useful as you don't want the ball to scrape against the inside of the tube.

[@Thecanadiancarguy]

Love the spoofed power fister sticker

[@WildmanTech]

Great work man!