I call this idea the "inverted cheese grater" concept. Basically, electronic components are on a conveyor. You then dump them unto a gently inclined (5 degree or less from horizontal) table. The first foot or two of table has no holes. Then, you have a series of holes that get progressively larger as you move toward the end of the long table. These holes are made to sort components based on their package outline. You are primarily going to sort SMTs at the begginning, and towards the end you'll sort larger discretes, relays, and power Ic's/transistors/diodes, etc.
Now, the whole works is supported by a carrier frame, and the carrier frame is essentially a linear or elliptical motion "classifier", except instead of using a screen, you're using custom perforated sheet (steel) metal panels. Each perforated panel corresponds to one sorting line, and parts fall through down to a soft catch system, or a soft conveyor to take to the next sort station. There will likely be 20-30 panels per sorter table. Each panel has anywhere from 20 (big) holes to possibly hundreds of holes for the smaller stuff. The holes can be circular, but most of them will be rectangular and sized just big enough to pass the component in question.
The panels I envision are about 2 foot long and 4 foot wide, but they can be smaller. thus the table is quite large, about 40-60 foot long and just a little over 4 foot wide.
The ellipitical motion is probably going at 1-1.5 Hertz, and has a maximum excursion of maybe 1-2 inches, but possibly more.
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These holes will quickly block. The proper way to do this is by machine recognition and blowing the parts of the conveyor belt with an air jet.
ReplyDeleteThat said, an initial sorting of 1206/805/603/402 SMD components through a grating would be advisable. With a price of $0.02, these would not be worth recycling