The sprocket - 3D printed automatic screw packaging

This is the beginning of a video series about a machine I built using 3d printing to count and package screws.
In each video we will go through the development.
The design files will be released at some point. I have not yet decided in what form, at the moment i am focusing on finishing the machine. But my goal is to develop things that people will use, so if you want one yourself - be patient, it will come soon.
00:00 Start
00:14 Intro
00:58 recap last video
02:02 sprocket design
03:53 geneva drive
04:57 geared stepper theory
05:56 prototype build
07:45 TESTING
08:34 thoughts

[@lucassalas1572]

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]

Yes I agree but not with the same arrogance.

[@thenamelessone123]

​@@andycrask3531 Hard to not be arrogant when you're a genius - I don't think he's arrogant either, more confident than arrogant

[@boots7859]

@@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.

[@enzoruberto]

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

[@almostanengineer]

Ooooh, I’m intrigued now 😊

[@ianjensen3890]

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.

[@christopherhelmke]

Thank you.

[@victornpb]

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°.

[@arabiccola]

I was about to say the same!

[@i_think_2_much277]

Same

[@unitedbolts8053]

Only 178 subscribers?? Wtf??? You are a genius!

[@markm49]

3d printing is such a great hobby - so many ideas and not enough time!

[@smorrow]

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.

[@davidnunez3523]

@@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.

[@specific-solutions]

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!

[@aaronholwick8659]

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?

[@specific-solutions]

@@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

[@mr_voron]

This is excellent! Glad to see the 20T pulley hub idea is spreading into other applications.

[@christopherhelmke]

Thank you! I just love your work!!!

[@calebpeterson5719]

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!

[@Oesterbrohammocks]

Instant happiness when the screws are so precisely dispent🎉❤ my autism craves just that!😅 Got my sub 💪

[@Gnat-Swarm]

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.

[@fredpinczuk7352]

Your skill level and attention to details will take you far. Thanks for sharing.

[@midnightng]

Fascinating concept and content. Amazing what can be accomplished and your explanations are excellent. Excited to see what comes next.... brilliant!!

[@jaydenthatcher5243]

Excellent video, looking forward to the next one!

[@charlierobson]

When the module fitted into the crate ... ♥

[@J_CtheEngineer]

This is exactly the kind of diy industrial engineering I enjoy. Keep it up!

[@wildpixelphotography6600]

Please keep making videos!!! This is great. I'm so glad I found this channel. Thank you!

[@jannsander]

I like your way of bringing your design decisions and the respective thought process across a lot! Especially if you hint at a cool feature or point out how much you like a part - I feel that...

[@SteeveBjornson]

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

[@boots7859]

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.

[@deplorablesecuritydevices]

This is some really amazing work, well thought out and very professional!

[@jakubmierzejewski961]

Wow. Great work. I see you become big in the 3D printing community. Keep it up mate!

[@SmashingBricksAU]

Interesting build and design. Looking forward to seeing more and what you will actually use it for

[@hardwareful]

Smart, using toothed pulleys as spline adapters. I shall steal this idea :)

[@timbo1525]

einfach cool wie du das umsetzt. Sobald ich mal ein paar schrauben verpacken oder sortieren muss kaufe ich deine Produkte !! Super stark bitte weiterhin so geilen Content

[@ActionBOX]

Super cool project, and really well explained. Also great use of 3D printing! Keep it up :)

[@BureauSpicy]

This is genuinely so impressive, really brilliant system idea 👌🏻

[@SamCropper]

Really impressive stuff, great work man!

[@Jakob127]

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.

[@zartes_pflaenzchen]

Looks smooth, I like it

[@balisticsrooster]

Wow, I’ve never subbed so fast to a channel. Seriously, this is awesome. Keep it up man!

[@RCake]

Excellent content, great design and really good and crystal clear explanation. Thank you!

[@viktor4236]

Nice to see that at least someone is still working successfully on Wintergatan Marble Machine X.

[@3DPrismaPrint]

You are genius. Nice job dude ❤

[@ThePhilbox]

Very enjoyable to watch. Would love to see more about the sorting and orienting of the screws and nuts.

[@changer1403]

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.

[@jovaraszigmantas]

Amazing video. Can not wait for the next video

[@grantweaver7572]

I love your approach to this! A beautiful mix of uniqueness, wintegartan(current version) and stuff made here

[@BariumCobaltNitrog3n]

Wintergatan is brilliant. Plus he gets all the most talented YT'ers to make stuff for him, like This Old Tony.

[@ahap_studio]

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.

[@Citizen5000]

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.

[@jaydekaytv]

Great work!

[@msmith2961]

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.

[@scottwilliams895]

First time watching, very impressed by your engineering and your video creating skills!

[@jbergene]

This is seriously impressive. A lot of "out of the box" thinking which is very hard

[@ravikharb]

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?

[@christopherhelmke]

Glad you like it and great idea! I think I will make a separate video about the hole system.

[@howiem]

Fascinating. Thanks for this :)

[@fouzaialaa7962]

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

[@christopherhelmke]

in fact, that is exactly my plan. :) Infrared reflective sensor also spot on.

[@yulesh5726]

very cool concept and execution!

[@Fritos_Wood_Working]

Great stuff!👍👍

[@akshayd211]

Jeez i love the use of those shoulder screws for fitment! :)

[@cidadaoPPT]

This is awesome!!

[@srdjan361306]

Impresive ! Great material very good video

[@TheMixmastamike1000]

this is amazing and is worthy of a sub can't wait to see your future vids 👍👍

[@wxfield]

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.

[@phy6geniuxYTcreations]

Gem Channel! Please keep on producing videos!

[@andycrask3531]

New subscriber here, I work in automation and manufacturing and believe your onto a great thing here, keep up the brilliant work.

[@fabiandempewolf2820]

Modulsystem out of Euroboxes. Very clever. Nice work with the gear and the stepper. 👍🏻

[@bendernakamoto]

wow, really impressive mechanisms. This is similar to what I do at work so I'm subscribed to get ideas. Thanks!

[@thomashoffmann4504]

Nice work!

[@akshayd211]

I subbed because I think you know what you are doing, excellent work my friend.

[@emek1101]

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.

[@JohnSmith-gm4fj]

Very cool! Thank you!!

[@marwanbeaino5377]

Wirklich sehr gut, und Ihr Englisch ist perfekt!

[@christiansrensen3810]

Great analysis and project.. very well performed... Now i just need a project of counting screws...

[@misterdeedeedee]

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.

[@stefanguiton]

Awesome!

[@giftowercom]

Good stuff!

[@RayBellis]

After I watched the first video my first thought was that a servo driven wheel would be more appropriate :)

[@RomanBartocci]

wow, great video! just subscribed and hope to see much more from you!

[@cncrouterinfo]

Amazing content, i subscribed!

[@Cryptocannnon]

BRO I LOVE THIS

[@AntoninKral]

Maybe mounting an optical gate below the dispenser to count the number of dispensed screws. Basically, a tight feedback loop to cross-check reliability.

[@papalevies]

Amazing content 🤯

[@hornbaker]

Love the project, and sharing your progression of ideas! Yet another armchair designer here… I see there are two mechanical problems to solve: a mechanism to stop the screws from falling out, and another to overcome that mechanism for one piece. Solution could be as simple as a leaf spring to stop the flow of parts and then an actuator (say, a wedge on a solenoid, or a flap on a motor) to push one piece past that passive barrier. Something more complex like a toothed gear seems prone to getting jammed because it depends on the precise spacing of multiple parts when really you only need to engage the one part being fed. Consider that even a one-piece actuator will need its position adjusted to accommodate different parts.

[@nidhu595]

This is very reminiscent of stuff made here crossed over with wintergatan and then a little bit of tom Stanton, perfect combo

[@jimsvideos7201]

A timing belt pulley as an insert for a plastic part is very clever indeed.

[@GP3D_Designs]

Another way to reduce the load on the motor from the falling screws would be to add a small offset in the path of the screws, a bit like a sloped cartoonish lightning bolt.

[@aarshdhingra528]

1) you can use a line of sight sensor between the sprocket teeth to count the no of screws dispensed 2) or you can calculate what degree of rotation does one sprocket rotation needs from the DC motor and just multiply it with the number of screws you wanna get (You also need a digital pad or a screen to input the number of screws you need) You can also add an automatic packaging mechanism at the end and add a feature to make n packets of m screws and bolts

[@AdrianRosca]

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.

[@christopherhelmke]

glad you like it!

[@llOvercraftll]

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.

[@ClintKraushaar]

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.

[@Bianchi77]

Nice video, thanks :)

[@almostanengineer]

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.

[@DudleyToolwright]

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.

[@tehsimo]

very interesting videos!

[@IFICANDOITYOUCANDOIT1979]

You are a great man

[@FilmFactry]

Bravo. I don't need one. But somehow I want one:-)

[@pflagerquist3071]

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

[@BlaseAnDerHand]

great vid

[@womacko]

If you go with TMC stepper drivers you could use stallguard for detecting the load on the stepper. It's also being used on 3D-printers for sensorless endstops / homing.

[@MWeetzel]

I would look into an escapement mechanism, so you don’t need to set the stepper to a specific rotation, but you can something like a solonoid again to send seperate pulses for each part ( no matter the amount of teeth the gear has). Cool project!

[@FuzeHC]

Klasse Film. Ich lass gleich mal ein Abo da und freue mich auf das was noch kommt.

[@Ziraya0]

The square teeth on the sprocket are going to wear early, specifically the last edge holding back the screw (and specifically screws with their sharp threads), but this is actually good and I think you should do it on purpose in the design. If you round over the trailing edge of the sprocket then the point in rotation where the screw is released will happen earlier, decreasing the latency between command and delivery, letting you move the rest position of the next screws back to potentially put them in a stronger position to bear the force of stopping the stack after dispensing, or a combination of these. It will also reduce filament use a marginal amount and eliminate almost all of the shift in latency you'd expect over the lifetime of the square tip as it rounds over. An alternate way to think about this is the two form a rack and pinion, with the screws being the rack and the pinion being the pinion. The ideal shape of the trailing edge is the involute shape for a pinion, not perfectly circular but with the point of contact lying on an approximate line (of engagement) rather than the circle of the pinion.

[@barebaric]

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.

[@theycallme_nightmaster]

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

[@1975ma3x]

Awesome :)

[@doobybrother21]

Very nice project and I really like the drawing board. I wonder if you could connect all the stacked boxes to one vertical feeder and combine this with the solenoid approach to do the mixing right there. There would be a buffering issue there which could be solved by having the geared counter turn backwards and eject the unneeded buffer. Which brings me to my second thought. Place the geared counter directly below the feeder and you can have two horizontal exits and feed two different packaging lines. detail and bulk for example. Have fun!

[@thomasbonse]

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.

[@AmixLiark]

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.

[@zer001]

Best Drawingboard ever.

[@Eduardog1975]

AMAZING!!!! Suscribed!!!!

[@lucien7904]

That's impressive