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On Fri, October 28, 2005 9:17 am, Philippe Hurbain wrote:
> Hi Steve,
>
> > One of the guys in our club made a counter, with a 4 digit display...
> >
> > http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=1443018
> >
> > The problem is the display looks like clocks from different time zones, so many
> > people did not realize it was actually counting the balls. In the future, he's
> > planning on making a display like a car odometer. That should be cool.
>
> Wow! very nice display! How is it actuated? How are the balls detected and how
> fast can the module count them?
>
> Philo
The module was made by Greg Dykstal, but I can tell you a bit about it. I don't
mean to say anything bad about it, but it was a "young" module, without a great deal
of testing time. Of course, it was also one of the most complex. So, it ended up
being the slowest module and it needed the most maintenance. But Greg did a good
job of keeping it running.
The dials were driven by a chain of 20:40 & 8:40 gears to get the 10 to 1 gear
reduction on each dial.
On the first day, it used a rotation sensor to move the dials. The input shaft
would turn one full rotation for each ball. Before the second day, the rotation
sensor was replaced with a touch sensor and the program was changed.
The actual counting was done with a rotating lift arm. The lift arm would rotate
vertically above the balls. When a ball would come in, the lift arm would press
down the first ball down against another lift arm, held in place, against a touch
sensor by a rubber band. The ball would move the lower lift arm, releasing the
touch sensor, and roll away.
Here's another shot of Greg's module, as he works on it:
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=1456464
It was the slow link in our GBC chain, and it ran about .55 b/s
Steve
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