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Boring solutions are usually good engineering decisions. Quote of the day

this is absolutely incredible, what a series

I am very glad to hear that you are being paid to do this by several interested parties, especially since it ensures more content like this!

I think the roller should have a smooth groove as it is not critical that it engage with the belt. It will make the coveyor more reliable as a bearing fail will not result to a total failure but a degraded state

I enjoy your commitment to real life Factorio.

that image at 6:11 is very clean. You can how much effort this dude put to make to a good video, really nice datail. Thanks for the content, man

I think the belt you chose was a good cost effective choice. If a full size conveyor belt would have doubled the build cost your justification totally makes sense. Your work is very inspiring!

Your designs are an amazing inspiration of what you can do with 3d printing, great job!

My favorite engineering series on the internet

Any project can be made on FlexiSpot's desk as there is enough stability!

Neat project! Appreciate this and your other videos. Appreciate your honest take that there's more cost effective options, but personally think projects like this are cool way to explore ideas, potentially discover something better, or at least help lead you to better future ideas (assuming R&D is your goal, vs max execution). Cheers!

+1 for FlexiSpot. I use a small FlexiSpot desk frame as the base for a welding table. It's amazing to adjust the height of the workpiece and be perfectly comfortable whilst welding. The table is so versatile I use it for other workshop jobs, infeed/outfeed table, chopsaw stand etc...

massively underrated, remember us when you blow up dude. you're so damn good at all of this!

Another great video! Been looking forward to seeing this, and I can’t wait for the next one!

right decision on your part, to not get one of those belts. I'm working in the conveyor belt field. they don't got completely closed chambers, like you got now with separate boxes. would make it a hassle to get the screws, and nuts of 2 adjacent spaces on a belt, to not mix. Good job your doing!

Great build series! Keep up the great work man

Brilliant job as always mate, Cheers

Awesome video as usual. I work on automation projects at work, and would love to have the toolset to be able to make projects like this. Must keep learning :) Thank you for the video!

I am very intrigued with this project. Please continue sharing. A+

this is a good example for excellent engineering. love to watch your videos :)

Brilliant, as always!

Ah, your own little Factorio. Brilliant!

wow you're a very impressive creator, I love your videos! so glad I came across your channel!

Great work, I love the iterative way you approach the design. I also get a bit of a sci-fi vibe when I see the way all the parts are ID'd and numbered. I'm curious to see how the restocking of the stock / part boxes will be achieved without the need to restack them.

I love this channel. I'm a mechanical engineer and I love uniformity, repeatability, and simplicity. I'd love to work with you, but looks like you've got it covered. I wish we could get euro containers in Australia. There are no real standardised crates here that don't cost the world. One of my favourite crates just changed their design recently and now it doesn't fit in any of my systems anymore. I think someone in Australia needs to import the equipment to make these containers locally.

Wieder KZfaq-Gold. Weiter so !

One of the best project! Good luck

Excellent work

I love to see the work of a genius

Amazing video, I have loved watching your progress! I have a few questions for your next video: -What was the path you took to find testing companies? -What is the time put into each of these designs? I would love to have a frame of reference to aspire to as I work on my own projects!

Love your Videos so much ❤

Sublime as always.

Babe, wake up! New Christopher Helmke video just dropped!

Next video - Moon base. Awesome work!

How does this video only have 132 likes? Insane. What are people on KZfaq watching?

Love your videos Christopher - keep on going friend :)

Here I am using my printers for trinkets. Amazing work man!

Part Commonality / Parts Reduction (whatever you want to call it!) is good though, so despite the PVC Belt potentially being “better”, from my perspective at least, using standard Belts (used as Timing Belts, and in many FDM 3D Printers etc thus readily available to most people) and the Boxes one will already need to make this device is quite neat!

Great job on the innovation! I'd love to learn more about the speed specifications, such as the output capacity during a standardized work cycle. I believe that information would be crucial for organizations. Keep up the good work!

Great ingenuity!

Love this series and can't wait for more. Would love to know what you sell that necessitated all of this

I love this series. Great job! My only thought about this as I watched it is that it’s not scalable. Those little boxes having to be placed in a CNC and a human placing two screws to hold it down and then unscrew it to remove the box, then feed the belt through the holes and place the cap on it is just not scalable if you were hoping to provide this solution to many companies. I know you’ll find a way around that so I’m enjoying seeing this proof of concept in action!

Absolutely excellent project. I really need a slightly smaller desktop version of something like this for my Etsy business, I put together kits of 3D printed parts that need to be sorted in the correct quantity per color.

impressive engineering skills great job

You're welcome, it looks great. 👍

This is just great

Thank you for another great video! Questions - What kinds of business models are you exploring? I'd like to launch an open hardware business, like the LumenPnP, but think you need the "celebrity" side of youtube to make it viable. What do you think? Q - What is your process for selecting parts? I.e., i select electronic parts from JLCPCB's basic parts service as it guarantees they are "jellybean", so cheap and widely available. Is there a mechanical equivalent? Maybe a European McMaster-Carr? I'm in the UK so sourcing parts for prototypes is not straightforward like in the US. Q - How would you see this growing to a company? I.e. who would you hire first? Dedicated admin/another engineer, and how would you like to see your role changing? Q - Nobody ends up building what they wanted originally, they always build something along the way. What is your original end goal and how has it changed?

Nice !

i admire neat working style and hope can learn from you more...

Cool, looking forward to the next video

Klasse Video. Mach weiter so. Du machst KZfaq zu einem besseren Ort. Bin mir nicht sicher ob YT das verdient hat. Aber was soll’s… klasse content.

Hi Chris. I'm Richie from HERTZ, we're building a 5 heads tool changer with automatic part ejector.

Hi Christopher, If you use a countersunk bolt head, the nut's head in the rotating plastic circle will not stay out. You don't need a moving arm to skip the head.

6:53 - You've done it a hundred time already so I expect you are already thinking of a quicker way to mount bins and other parts to your CNC table. For each operation you plan to do more than 5 times, just make a fixture. I am not advocating for a universal system that will work for every possible shape. I would just make a design and attach it to a piece of plywood. When you're done. Store it for later use. For those boxes there, a plywood board with snap-in/snap-out 3D printed detents can improve your productivity. It can have a cam on the side if you want something extra. Now that you've designed it, next time a slightly bigger box shows up, re-print the detents and cam and get another piece of plywood.

Boring solutions usually don't teach you as much as building your own solution. I usually take the learning part as a great positive over just buying something already made, even if it's cheaper and faster.

This guy is playing factorio IRL

You should research ammo manufacturing. People have been counting, sorting, flipping, collating etc non-magnetic parts for well over a century. Seems like you have done a great job so far, you might get some good ideas on adapting very mature tech to your current goals.

Another truly amazing video Christopher, your attention to detail is unlike anything that I've seen before. For the next video addressing the questions, I'd really like to know more about your overall workflow, like how you come up with solutions to technical problems such as how you've come to design the locking magazines for the feeders, It seems really well refined which results in well thought out designs. Is that drawing board in the background a part of your design process and if it is, how and why do you use manual drawing techniques in combination with CAD? Thank you.

Time to get into CnC 😄- great video!

great stuff! i have an idea for you.. you can add some quality control on the output of the conveyer belt with a precision scale. For a particular kit contents, knowing the exact number of each component and the per component weight, you can quickly weight a kit and verify it is within some tolerance to know the part counts are correct with some amount of probability. And if it doesn't pass that QC check, the parts can be diverted to be checked later. Looking forward to the rest of this project!

Instead of tons of small rollers, consider using plastic guide rails (or wear strips) for the belt. it will generate more friction, but it would ease the assembly and reduce time wasted on 3D printing the parts. Or, use the same Teflon tubes under the boxes which can slide on them. Print simple guide bearings that slide over the tubes to centre the crate.

I still don't know how to find those types of boxes. What key word to look for ? What are the main European suppliers ?

Great!

Will all positions of an order be fed into the same box to then be packaged by the packaging unit? Or will each position be fed into the packaging machine separately? ...it seems a bit counterintuitive to firstly sort and count the parts, then add different types into one container in contrast to counting and packaging each type separately. E.g. for my Voron build it helped tremendously that each type of fastener was separately packaged.

as someone who has worked on automated warehouses, you’re going to want to put an angled cover on the inside of your buckets. things will get stuck in there for 100% sure.

I have an interesting question. Why did you delete the video where you talked about Prusa and how Prusa missed out on innovations when Bambu Lab launched their printers? Because I think you are right, so I am just interested why you deleted this video. (Because my printers from Prusa are just not as good as expected)

if you used (well lubricated) chains in place of the belts, you'd potentially be able to print those as well and wouldn't have to replace an entire PVC belt every time it tore. you could also use the same type of chain as bike chains, and you'd be able to use the same motor setup you already have with the inclusion of a gear.

First I dont think having the rollers conforming to the shape of the belt teeth is necessary, I also agree with the latter statement that using pvc belt would be better mostly because (if it aint broken....etc) But i do understand the attraction of making it myself. another point would be serviceability. I would belive that it took quite along time to assemble all the containers in the current solution. Anyway i love it !!!!

Great series. Very good job. May I ask what is the type and brand of the filamen? I like the metal finish very much :) Thans

Nice to see the conveyor moving so well, the Teflon tubes were an excellent decision! My question: I have been recently fascinated with printed vibratory bowls and was wondering if this could be added to serve as a feeding method for non magnetic components? - They have their downsides in how to mount/dissipate the vibration but might be interesting! Keep up to good work as always!

Would love to take a class from you on this. So if you ever think about doing a class I would sign up.

Großartig! Aber die Hände immer am Fuchteln, das lenkt wirklich ab. Freue mich auf weiteren Content!

du machst so geile videos

hay, please make a playlist for this project, btw nice video

What brand of boxes are these. I like the way they look

I'm loving this series but I just have one question. Why are there bolt heads hanging out on the rotating magnetic bolt pickup? Watching that bumper jump over the bolt heads is stressing me out but there has to be a reason.

Looking forward to when it will be possible to buy files

What cad program are you using And great videos I really love them!!!

I'd say having the boxes tied to the belt by their centre would eliminate the need for the teflon tubes altogether, and require less torque from the motors.

When will something regarding this project be available for purchase? Print files or the machinery itself?

What Software do you use for the mechanical design of the parts? If someone wants to replicate your CNC machine, do you have any advice? Thanks, great videos!

Am I the only one to think that a packing machine, at the base of each stack would be really helpful : The idea is that the machine put a bag between the end of the chute and the conveyor, as soon as one type of screws/nut/washer was counted and dropped into the bag, the bag is closed either by sealing or ziplock and put down into the conveyor's case. It might not be that difficult to close the zip type bag, with two rollers pressing the sides together, but I have no idea about the reliability of such a design

I hope this wasn't obvious in your other videos or else I missed it, but why on the screw counting machine do you have that arm that moves up and down to avoid the cap head screws that mounts it? Does it move up and down just to allow the cap head screw by?

Why aren't you using your rotating CNC attachment for the smaller boxes? And where do you source your nice printed labels on the side of the box?

Nice content and very precise CAD skills! Which type of pulley system (GT2 or a diffrent shape) whould you recommend for 3D printing? GT2 could somehow a be a bit too detailed to print well?

Do you have any advice for version and part tracking? I see you have part numbers but where do you track this information and how do you keep track of design iterations? Do you know of any resources to help learn this aspect of engineering?

Im sure just by looking at the way you are *gestures vaguely at complex electro mechanical system*, that you have some engineering in your educational background. This project is really multifaceted though so it has me wondering how you learned the bits that weren't covered directly in your post secondary education focus of choice.

I'd like to see a video on the feeder unit!

This is awesome man - yeah, I would like to know your background also from a family perspective: did you have any engineers in the family that you played with from a young age?

Another great video :) For the next video, I'd be curious to know your thoughts on open-source hardware!

What filament are you using for these parts?

This conveyor system has a major advantage over the fancy belt, in that you can change every detail about it. The belt may be a lot less work, but it's more complicated to deal with during prototyping, and probably scales worse with smaller setups. If someone has half the length you do, does the belt only double their upfront investment?

Hey mate! I would like to know where did you get that drafting table please. Thank you in advance!

This absolutely like the guy who wanted to manufacture lots of digital shirt flies. And ended up building a company for a fully automated cnc pick and place device.

Would the other belt be double the cost with or without your labor? That's something that's often overlooked

What if the entire assembly gets bumped into? Do all the stacked units just fall off or have you accounted for that and braced the assembly?

I`m very curious about what material you're using to print your parts. I assume its PETG but I might be wrong...

I love your modular design. Which cad tool do you use Fusion360?

How does the machine in the beginning of each vid sense if it is a bolt or nut