Rolling Table for Sorting Pellets

[OldCrow]

Every time I brought this up on AGN I got push back from some of the "old" hands who seemed to know all there was to know about anything there was to know about...
I am **NOT** interested in debating the efficacy of this method of sorting pellets.  My opinion of the technique is informed by my own experiments.  There is also this: https://grok.com/share/bGVnYWN5_475e0347-abe1-4f8c-b4a8-814402ab35c9 which may or may not be helpful.

I designed this little rolling table which can be built with a small pane of glass or plexi-glass 5.5mm thick and a little superglue or epoxy.

I am interested in ideas which might enable me to further automate this process.  In particular I would like to come up with a feeding mechanism that would allow the user to speed up the process.

Here is the link at thingiverse: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:7044518

[triggertreat]

The nicest sorting table I have seen to date, and I'm one of those "old hands".  What would be neat is to have the pellets of a certain diameter drop into a container through slots created on the edge where they passed through.  This probably could never be perfect but a lot of them would cooperate.  I think there could be at least two slots and containers worked in.  This surely would cut down some on time and pellet handling.

[splitbeing]

Wow, that seems more efficient than using one of those sizer plates with holes.

[OldCrow]

The nicest sorting table I have seen to date, and I'm one of those "old hands".  What would be neat is to have the pellets of a certain diameter drop into a container through slots created on the edge where they passed through.  This probably could never be perfect but a lot of them would cooperate.  I think there could be at least two slots and containers worked in.  This surely would cut down some on time and pellet handling.

There are catch boxes.  They are just not shown in this image.  If you look at the files you'll see them.  It is a complete system and works well after you master the release of the pellet, which really does take some practice.  Start by rolling the same pellet till you can get it to drop in the same cell over and over.  Then start sorting pellets, otherwise your sorting in a lot of randomness due to human error.  I am still working on the release system.  It will get better.

[triggertreat]

The nicest sorting table I have seen to date, and I'm one of those "old hands".  What would be neat is to have the pellets of a certain diameter drop into a container through slots created on the edge where they passed through.  This probably could never be perfect but a lot of them would cooperate.  I think there could be at least two slots and containers worked in.  This surely would cut down some on time and pellet handling.

There are catch boxes.  They are just not shown in this image.  If you look at the files you'll see them.  It is a complete system and works well after you master the release of the pellet, which really does take some practice.  Start by rolling the same pellet till you can get it to drop in the same cell over and over.  Then start sorting pellets, otherwise your sorting in a lot of randomness due to human error.  I am still working on the release system.  It will get better.

My mistake.  I didn't scroll down to see the other pictures or the video which really explains this well.

So, what if the release was made in line with the glass at the same slope angle so you could stack a number of pellets before releasing them all instead of doing a singular release each time.  Of course, the release would be moveable for different starting points.  Just a thought I had after seeing and experiencing this time-consuming release part myself.

[OldCrow]

The nicest sorting table I have seen to date, and I'm one of those "old hands".  What would be neat is to have the pellets of a certain diameter drop into a container through slots created on the edge where they passed through.  This probably could never be perfect but a lot of them would cooperate.  I think there could be at least two slots and containers worked in.  This surely would cut down some on time and pellet handling.

There are catch boxes.  They are just not shown in this image.  If you look at the files you'll see them.  It is a complete system and works well after you master the release of the pellet, which really does take some practice.  Start by rolling the same pellet till you can get it to drop in the same cell over and over.  Then start sorting pellets, otherwise your sorting in a lot of randomness due to human error.  I am still working on the release system.  It will get better.

My mistake.  I didn't scroll down to see the other pictures or the video which really explains this well.

So, what if the release was made in line with the glass at the same slope angle so you could stack a number of pellets before releasing them all instead of doing a singular release each time.  Of course, the release would be moveable for different starting points.  Just a thought I had after seeing and experiencing this time-consuming release part myself.

I'm pretty close to an upgraded release.  It will still require handling each pellet but should be considerably faster while maintaining/improving accuracy over the earlier release design.  Testing this afternoon.  If it is good, I'll put it up on Thingiverse and remove the old release design.