109 replies to this topic

[hereticorp]

I imagine though, you put the walls on the track at the right spacing, and you won't have many problems in two of the dimensions. The problem is keeping them from falling left or right. This would be solved by keeping tension from the left side, which also gives the benefit of pushing the darts into the tube.

I think I have a solution to this. I'll work on it in my head until I'm sure it'll work and post up details a little later.

I'd love to see it, the setup I'm designing is going to be hopelessly complex and have timing issues out the ass I think.

[Split]

The purple is the rest of the idea to complete the entire system. When the tube moves down, the springed purple piece (wedge shape) moves down, and the pusher to the left of the dart pushes the row of darts. When the tube and the wedge move back up, the wedge maintains the force on the darts and the pusher moves back. The weight and hot glue are free to move through their processes, and the cutter drops another cut piece of foam into the slot between the pusher and the wedge.

[hereticorp]

The purple is the rest of the idea to complete the entire system. When the tube moves down, the springed purple piece (wedge shape) moves down, and the pusher to the left of the dart pushes the row of darts. When the tube and the wedge move back up, the wedge maintains the force on the darts and the pusher moves back. The weight and hot glue are free to move through their processes, and the cutter drops another cut piece of foam into the slot between the pusher and the wedge.

Hmmm... That's good, you'd need something over the top of the darts to keep them in line there though.

Could make a nice hallway out of 1/8" polycarbonate for the darts to move through... You'd have to start with a full row of darts or they'd just fall over forward though.

I like that design, I'll still post up my goofy-ass hand drawn design later when I can take a picture, but I think I'll try and work off of that design idea and maybe integrate the heated-BB idea into it, have a chute that drops the BB onto the dart and then the hot glue gun doesn't ever need to move, just expel the glue onto the already hot BB.

Edited by hereticorp, 19 September 2008 - 01:43 PM.

[hereticorp]

In my experience, hot glue always forms a "string" so perhaps some sort of arm could swing past to break it off?

I suspect that something like that will be needed, but it shouldn't be difficult to integrate into the design. Have the arm rotate at the same time the trap door slides open.

Edited by hereticorp, 19 September 2008 - 02:07 PM.

[Split]

I doubt it will need a "roof" over the darts at all. And I forgot to mention that point that it needs to be full when it starts, but I had realized that as well. In reality, if you make the dart train only one dart long, this wouldn't be the case. I figured that would require a lot more precision in the building stage though, so I deemed it worthwhile to just let the cutter run and setup a few darts before hand.

Also, it really won't need an arm to break off the string of hot glue unless you have a gun that's drastically different then mine. And if it is, I'm sure your dad can design something that slowly cuts off the glue as the weight increases. Time it somewhere in the area that the excess will put the platform scale just over the top to release. If nothing else, the platform moving back into place could stop the flow of glue onto the dart.

The reason you won't need the arm though isn't that the gun won't put out excess glue, but that the dart will be falling vertically. This means that the glue will have a perfect dome, excess or not. It's not moving to the side where it would leave a tail putting the dart off balance. If the excess does end up being too much on the dart, just trim down the scale point that determines when the platform moves.

Edited by Splitlip, 19 September 2008 - 02:23 PM.

[hereticorp]

I doubt it will need a "roof" over the darts at all. And I forgot to mention that point that it needs to be full when it starts, but I had realized that as well. In reality, if you make the dart train only one dart long, this wouldn't be the case. I figured that would require a lot more precision in the building stage though, so I deemed it worthwhile to just let the cutter run and setup a few darts before hand.

Also, it really won't need an arm to break off the string of hot glue unless you have a gun that's drastically different then mine. And if it is, I'm sure your dad can design something that slowly cuts off the glue as the weight increases. Time it somewhere in the area that the excess will put the platform scale just over the top to release. If nothing else, the platform moving back into place could stop the flow of glue onto the dart.

The reason you won't need the arm though isn't that the gun won't put out excess glue, but that the dart will be falling vertically. This means that the glue will have a perfect dome, excess or not. It's not moving to the side where it would leave a tail putting the dart off balance. If the excess does end up being too much on the dart, just trim down the scale point that determines when the platform moves.

Having the angled piece rising up to push the dart forward will require some sort of top piece to prevent the dart just being pushed up instead of being forced forward.

Having a one dart long train really wouldn't be particularly difficult, in fact it would probably solve a good deal of the problem if the mechanism to push the dart forward would advance it straight into the glue mech and not back off until after the dart drops, allowing the next blank to fall into the mechanism. That would keep the cutter inactive until the dart is dropped and then the push piece slides back, the blank drops and is pushed into the glue/BB area and the next one is cut and dropped into place ready to go.

That actually makes a lot more sense than having a lineup of darts really.

You know, I could actually build this, and do an actuating arm as the glue release so that it both cuts off the glue pot and the glue tail. The trapdoor drop would take care of the rest like you said and then it could cool on the drop before hitting the hopper. Very nice.

[Split]

Well, now that we've settled on a build, I can't wait!

[Captain]

Is your family name Goldberg?

Like, Whoopi Goldberg?

[zaphodB]

I like where this has gone so far. It looks to me that the easiest thing to do is make the cylindrical mold for the hotglue out of aluminum. That negates the problem of trying to be super precise with the gluegun, as well as the issue of forming the dome. You'd have to figure out a way to make sure it doesn't get hot though... a cooling element? Have it rotate through water? That could help with making sure the glue doesn't stick to the mold too.

Edited by zaphodB, 20 September 2008 - 02:24 AM.

[aamiller321]

Is your family name Goldberg?

Like, Whoopi Goldberg?

I hope you're kidding... Just the concept of this thing is cool, let alone the machine itself.

Edited by aamiller321, 20 September 2008 - 08:38 AM.

[BustaNinja]

Reloading the hot glue gun. Will this be done manually or not?

[hereticorp]

Reloading the hot glue gun. Will this be done manually or not?

The gun would have to be slightly modified so that the glue could fall right into the back instead of being held by that rubber ring, but I see no reason why a loader-tube couldn't be added to the back so that a whole bunch of sticks could be stacked up so that you'd only have to reload it every 50-100 darts.

By the way, here's the sketch I was making before Splitlip decided to be smarter than me and make it all sorts of simple.



Click on the picture for a larger version.

I'll see what I can do with a hot-glue pot and a heated BB setup, this shouldn't be particularly difficult to make, but the timings on the components are going to be critical.

Edited by hereticorp, 20 September 2008 - 10:07 AM.

[Split]

I'm sorry bob, but your ideas keep getting increasingly more absurd. Occam's Razor: The simplest solution is always the best.

[Dayko]

I'm in awe. That is incredible.

[hereticorp]

This is easily done by gutting a second glue gun for only its advancing mechanism, putting that in series with the whole one and actuated out of phase.

Also, is there any reason the "conveyor belt" has to flip over vertically? I'm thinking that a handful of Vulcan belts (from the refill packs) would make a terrific starting point.

New suggestion: on the straightening tube, thinking in terms of the vortex made popular by the Dyson folks. I'd start experimenting with the hair dryer (on low), feeding in off-axis and upward, so that the hot air swirls around the FBR and mostly upward. Probably inside a large (4" or 6") diameter DWV pipe. Black ABS most likely. There would probably have to be a lot of experimenting with how big to make the end cap holes where the foam goes in/out, and whether to have vent holes along the whole thing or just reduce the input heat.

Nope, wouldn't work without deliberately spacing the gluesticks. And is completely negated by my glue-pot/screw-drive design, which I forgot about when discussing the gun.

No, but I'm abandoning the conveyor belt idea anyway, splitlip came up with a better idea.

Actually, I think I'll just put a tube of 3" PVC up above and have the hair dryer on low blowing through it to straighten the foam. It should have enough time in the pipe with the heated air before it goes into the cutter.

There's really no need for any caps, the foam can just feed out of the pipe into the existing input on the cutter.

[Shrub]

Well I think you could melt the glue sticks together or get 8" sticks. Also this has become a topic that could come to reality and you could probably sell darts cheap and perfectly uniform to get your money back out of that machine.

[hereticorp]

New design:



Click the picture for a larger version.

I think this should take care of everything, except maybe stabilizing the blank while the BB and glue are coming down. I think that could be accomplished with a piece of PETG cut in half and attached to two actuating rods that would slide the PETG out and capture the blank while it's being worked on and then release when it needs to drop.

[zaphodB]

The completed dart will only be in the cooling tube for half a second, at best. I'd suggest just dropping the dart into a bucket of water. if you wanted, you could make it tank with a current, so the dart gets cooled and then floats out of the way.

[boisie]

Not if the fan blows against the dart hard enough. It will end up slowing down, and taking a very long time.

[Shrub]

This will probably be the start of mass producing darts. How hot will the glue be when it hits the dart if it is high temp I would do what zaphodB said into a current of water to cool and not get glued to the bag.

[mrcrouse1]

If you are going to have it do the gluing itself, why not use something like plastic dip or something? Just an idea, let me know if it's not a good one, but don't flame.

[hereticorp]

Not if the fan blows against the dart hard enough. It will end up slowing down, and taking a very long time.

Considering how light the darts are, the air current from the fan will be plenty to keep it in the tube long enough to cool.

If you are going to have it do the gluing itself, why not use something like plastic dip or something? Just an idea, let me know if it's not a good one, but don't flame.

Maybe if you link to what you're talking about we'd have more of an idea if it's a good thought or not.

I've personally never heard of "Plastic Dip" and would be interested in hearing more.

And telling people not to flame is just an invitation for people to pick on you, it's not a good idea.

This will probably be the start of mass producing darts. How hot will the glue be when it hits the dart if it is high temp I would do what zaphodB said into a current of water to cool and not get glued to the bag.

I can only imagine how much trouble THAT would be.

It would be easier to setup a refrigeration unit that cools the output tube itself than to setup a flowing water cooling system. Not to mention the idea of wet darts just makes me twitch.

I'd be using the equivalent of a 10w hot glue gun in the form of a glue-pot, so the glue would be just about at its flow point and not much higher. My goal would be to get the glue just hot enough to form the dome but not hot enough to require excessive cool time. That's part of why I'd like to use a pot instead of a gun, easier to control heat levels and much easier for flow control.

That's also why I want the pause before the dart drops. I want the tip to have a little time to harden before the drop.

[hereticorp]

Plasti-dip on amazon

http://www.plastidip.com/

Perhaps also a small fan blowing air (maybe warmed air) from above, to help form the dome, just as soon as the glue application stops.

I don't think plastidip would be appropriate for this application, but it was a good thought.

I wouldn't want a fan at that point, especially since I'd have to turn it off automatically while the hot glue was flowing and back on after it was cut off, just more complexity to an already complex system.

[aetherguy881]

Well, I said I'd think about it, and write something up. Unfortunately I don't have any mechanical drawings or schematics drawn up yet. However I would like to share with you the flow chart that I came up with today.

It's just my vision of the fully automated dart maker on paper. I have ideas in my head as to expand the flow chart, but I'd like to have you guys give it a looksie.

Automated stefan cutter flow chart PDF

[zaphodB]

I guarantee you that the hotglue won't cool by the time it falls out of the tube.