BradG
Member
Not exactly arts & crafts, but nevertheless it's other things I make
I was commissioned to make a bottle filling machine for a chemical company.
The accurate way of doing this, is to use a pneumatic cylinder which acts as a syringe in effect, or a peristaltic pump for smaller volumes, but this would be overkill for the company as measurements are approximate. Instead, I opted for a scale system.
A full bottle is placed on the bed and the blue button is pushed which records the weight of the bottle. now empty bottles can be placed onto the bed and with each push of the green button liquid is dispensed until the weight is exactly matched. This alone makes it very accurate in terms of repeatability and I have a very happy customer.
I machined all pieces from aluminium, and used aluminium extrusion profile for the framework.
The filling head slides from left to right to accommodate the hole positions on larger bottles such as 5L. The filling head bar slides up and down to accommodate different height bottle.
The circuit board inside the controller I designed in CAD and etched myself as I have a PCB line at home. the PCB acts as an expansion shield for an Arduino, which contains the firmware I've written in C++.
The LCD display on the controller reports the current status
I was commissioned to make a bottle filling machine for a chemical company.
The accurate way of doing this, is to use a pneumatic cylinder which acts as a syringe in effect, or a peristaltic pump for smaller volumes, but this would be overkill for the company as measurements are approximate. Instead, I opted for a scale system.
A full bottle is placed on the bed and the blue button is pushed which records the weight of the bottle. now empty bottles can be placed onto the bed and with each push of the green button liquid is dispensed until the weight is exactly matched. This alone makes it very accurate in terms of repeatability and I have a very happy customer.
I machined all pieces from aluminium, and used aluminium extrusion profile for the framework.
The filling head slides from left to right to accommodate the hole positions on larger bottles such as 5L. The filling head bar slides up and down to accommodate different height bottle.
The circuit board inside the controller I designed in CAD and etched myself as I have a PCB line at home. the PCB acts as an expansion shield for an Arduino, which contains the firmware I've written in C++.
The LCD display on the controller reports the current status
