Re: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] Sorting Steel Balls

> I see you want 281 different sizes. That would be 23 feet long to do it

all

> in one pass. But, it would only be 6 feet long to do in 4 passes.

I was amazed how fast this idea was suggested and it's a great one. As to
the length of the sorter, you could always layer the sorting and make it
like one of those kid's helter skelter toys where you make tracks for the
metal ball bearings. That way it'd just be taller instead of very long. It'd
also look incredibly cool and make a wicked sound.

You could perhaps make sorting easier if you wanted to do it in packets with
rough sizes by putting the ball bearings into a vibrating bin so as to shake
all the bigger ones to the bottom. There is a team of researchers doing
serious work into why brazil nuts float to the top of your cereal box when
you shake it, because they should be at the bottom. Sounds like UFO's to me.

I can only think of one other idea but it's not very good. That'd be to have
a downward spiralling conical shaped slope with the bins at the sides and as
the bearings speed increased the bigger ones would move out slower than the
fast ones. You could rough sort them because the smaller ones would pull out
to the side of the shape faster than the bigger ones.

John Heritage