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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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