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I know this is a Kerosene Cat[1], so I am not going to ask my dad.
I don't really want our state of the art nut plant featured as a Lego
sorting station.
The big problem with the sorting equipment is that it is used for sorting
walnuts. Walnuts leave a fine residue of walnut meal and walnut oil that
would get on the bricks. So fine that nobody would even notice. Except for
me, of course, because I am allergic to walnuts (yeah, nice biz to be in!)
and I don't want to become allergic to my train layout.
I checked and don't have portable screens with large enough holes for
sorting anything out larger than a 1x1 plate or a 1x1 round brick. (24/64"
round hole screen is the largest pan I have). I can't really take the big
ones home, as they are too large to use by hand.
TLC won't reconsider packaging their goods because of little old me. They
do what is easiest for them, not what is easiest for me.
Mike Poindexter
[1] Kerosene Cat: Something with virtually no chance. Short for a kerosene
cat with gasoline pants in hell. Much less than a snowball's chance in
hell.
Mark Benz <Mark.Benz@BroadVision.com> wrote in message
news:FB90BFF591F3D311A232000629383E661F4B76@rw-msg-01.broadvision.com...
> Hi,
> Wow, I say, it never hurts to ask your dad. He might get a kick out of it.
> Worst he could say is NO, are you nuts! Would make a nice newspaper • article
> w/ color photo, etc. though. What does the company usually use the • equipment
> for when not sorting lego? I think any simple solution that saves time is
> worthwhile. Might also get TLG to reconsider how they package their • goods...
> Mark
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Mike Poindexter [mailto:mike@poindexter.cc]
> > Sent: Wednesday, April 05, 2000 11:12 AM
> > To: Mark Benz
> > Subject: RE: FOTW on Blue Tubs from TRU!
> >
> >
> > I have round hole screens at work that I could use, but I
> > still have the
> > problem that they mix 2 different colors of 1x1 bricks in
> > each of the 3 bags
> > they are in. Plus, the smaller bricks don't really get in the way of
> > picking out the bigger ones.
> >
> > I suppose that if I was going to go really crazy with this
> > (i.e. was going
> > to do 5,000 tubs or so) I could completely go crazy with our sorting
> > equipment at work. We have an Elbiscan Laser Sorter that
> > could sort the
> > bricks by color with 99% accuracy. I could set that up for
> > colors and then
> > just use a scale for weights of lots, but that entails
> > bringing in a bunch
> > of Lego bricks in to work and I don't really want to do that.
> > Still, it
> > would be pretty crazy to see that operation and the Lugnet
> > crew would die to
> > see a $400,000 computer controlled laser Lego sorter in
> > action. If you did
> > copies of just one bag, you could get the first pass with the
> > shaker table
> > to get the sizes right and then the laser sorter to do color.
> > Finally, I
> > have sorting tables that would work for the final visual sort.
> >
> > If I owned the company, I suppose I could look into this, but
> > I don't think
> > my father would approve of using the company equipment for
> > such endeavors.
> >
> > I think that our laser sorter could do about a 100,000 bricks
> > per hour. It
> > could go much faster, except that almost half of the product
> > going through
> > would be considered a "reject" as it kicks out colors
> > lighter/darker than X
> > and the air ejectors would get overloaded.
> >
> > I think the easiest way is to just sort them on the floor
> > while listening to
> > music, although a couple of the baggies would be very much easier with
> > shaker screens. Mostly the red/blue, blue/white and
> > red/yellow, as they
> > have 2x4, 2x2, 1x2 and 1x3 all together. Pulling out the 2x4
> > makes the rest
> > easier to sort and dropping the 1x2 out also makes it go a
> > little quicker.
> > Of course, these are the easiest ones to sort anyway. I will
> > take home a
> > couple of screens and see if it helps. If so, I won't need
> > any made up, as
> > I already have them at work, but I could probably get some
> > idea on whether
> > or not it is useful enough to warrant others to go out of
> > their way and get
> > them.
> >
> > I still have 230 tubs to sort in my garage besides the 160 I
> > have to pick
> > up, so even saving 10% of my time is a lot. I figure it
> > takes 4 hours to
> > sort 16 tubs. That puts me at having about 100 hours to sort
> > these. 5
> > hours a night for 3 straight weeks would drive me insane.
> >
> > Luckily, I will be at 773 tubs when I get finished, which is almost
> > two-thirds of my initial goal of 1,200 blue tubs.
> >
> > Mike
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Mark Benz [mailto:Mark.Benz@BroadVision.com]
> > Sent: Wednesday, April 05, 2000 10:43 AM
> > To: 'Mike Poindexter'; lugnet.market.shopping@lugnet.com
> > Subject: RE: FOTW on Blue Tubs from TRU!
> >
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > How do you sort them? by both color and size I assume.
> >
> > Any thoughts about making a shake grate, or whatever they
> > call the wood
> > frames with wire mesh or screen stretched across to sift
> > dirt, fossils, etc.
> > This would at least sort FAST by size, particularly with the
> > volume you are
> > talking about. It would be easy to do a coarse division this
> > way if you
> > could get even just one or two frames with the right size mesh. Might
> > scratch'em a bit though.
> >
> > I have some 1" chicken wire around, may have to overlap two
> > layers to adjust
> > the spacing and test it... Could probably get a frame pretty quick to
> > separate the 2x2s and larger from everything smaller. If the
> > mesh is the
> > right size, you may not even need a frame, just hold it over
> > an empty blue
> > tub and shake/pour. You might check a hardware or garden shop
> > for mesh.
> >
> > I you want real fancy you could make a frame with two or
> > three levels, or
> > sections on one level with different mesh spacing and slope
> > the frame over 3
> > tubs. Depends on how much work it is to sort vs. building the
> > frames. Sounds
> > like a good BAYLUG club infrastructure activity... Color
> > sorting is another
> > matter.
> > Just a wild idea.
> > Mark
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: Mike Poindexter [mailto:lego@poindexter.cc]
> > > Sent: Wednesday, April 05, 2000 10:15 AM
> > > To: lugnet.market.shopping@lugnet.com
> > > Subject: FOTW on Blue Tubs from TRU!
> > >
> > >
> > > I had purchased as many of the <set:3033> from a $5 off sale
> > > about a month ago
> > > and ended up with as many as I thought I could afford, but
> > > still wanting more.
> > >
> > > Last night, I got a call from the manager of one of the local
> > > Toys 'R' Us
> > > stores and he had been shipped 160 of the blue tubs, even
> > > though he didn't
> > > need any. Since he just got Kids 'R' Us put into his store,
> > > he has no room,
> > > so he offered me all 160 at the $5 off price! Normally, I
> > > don't go crazy
> > > about 25% off, but I have never seen these available for any
> > > less and even so,
> > > it would be unlikely that I could ever get this kind of
> > > quantity if I did.
> > >
> > > If your local TRU is getting a Kids 'R' Us put in, the
> > > management might be
> > > willing to cut some deals to move stock, but your mileage may vary.
> > >
> > > Now, does anybody want to help sort 160 tubs?
> > >
> > > Mike Poindexter
> >
> >
>
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