Homemade powered powder trickler

Being one who likes to build stuff I thought I'd make a homemade powered trickler. After looking at the Dandy two speed($90) and a few other home brews I settled on this design.
http://oi63.tinypic.com/16apely.jpg
The pvc table cap for the reservoir and the cell phone vibration motor ideas I copied from another guy's design. One issue with the Dandy and a few others home builds, the powder quantity and it's weight affect the feed rate(s). To rectify this problem I fashioned a copper baffle set on a angle to control the weight and make it flow more consistently into the discharge tube. The reservoir sets level, the tube at an eight degree downward angle.

If you look close just under the feed tube you can see the cell motor offset weight, the itself motor glued to the bottom on the cap. Tube length is 4". The three "Legs" are 3/8" fuel line hose used to set both the height and to help reduce the mass of the base from dampening the vibrations. The base is a piece of 2x4 w/ four coats of acrylic enamel.

http://oi67.tinypic.com/2j1wjs5.jpg

The 4" x 2.5" x 2" project box contains the breadboard, wiring, battery holder(2x AAs), pots (slow-fast feed) and etc. Power to the vibration motor via a cable plug-socket.
http://oi66.tinypic.com/2hnnio3.jpg

When testing-tuning I tried using Varget, H4350, 4166, 4451, H4831(non SC),H4064, IMR 4064 and H4895 With some practice tapping the slow feed button with slow feed pot set for 1.8v I was able drop one kernel 99% of the time.

Cost? $38 and change.:p

Bill

Nice American ingenuity. Smart people still are at work in the USA !

Never heard of a pvc table cap, where'd you get that?

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Originally Posted by 243LPR

Never heard of a pvc table cap, where'd you get that?

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I got that one off Amazon $4.92, $1.24+ $3.68 shipping. :p Lowes sells the 1-1/2" size for 13 bucks. I used the 1-1/4".
I knew of and saw them before but didn't know what they were called until I saw the guy using one to make his trickler on Youtube.

I bought the rest of the parts from Ebay vendors.

Bill

cool.

Bear with me guys, I ain't too good at making move'n pictures....
First the fast feed @3v then the slow tapping the button at 1.8v with Varget.
http://tinypic.com/m/jr894n/3

Bill

looks good there Mr. Bill

I like it!

Very cool

Bill, did you epoxy the tube? What kind of tubing did you use? Source?

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Originally Posted by Robinhood

Bill, did you epoxy the tube? What kind of tubing did you use? Source?

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I used K&S 1/4" OD brass tube I bought on Ebay. Its a press fit in the cup but I used a dab of Weldwood contact on it just make sure it stays put. If I were to build another I might opt for 3/16" instead of the 1/4. The smaller tube may align and feed the kernels a little better although the 1/4 has been working OK.
Bill

It's guts.....
http://oi63.tinypic.com/fyon6e.jpg http://oi68.tinypic.com/9ulq4y.jpg
Pretty simple.
I wasn't happy with the original PBs I bought so I changed them to the Radio Shack P/N 275-0609.
Although the batteries should last I might add another jack to power it using a 3v wall wart so I can plug it in or use the batteries.

Bill

LOL... Great use of your skill set!!! That's pretty slick...

Bill, your contribution to this forum as a user member has been much appreciated. I look up old posts and often the most accurate and informative post are yours. This has encouraged me and I'm sure other readers to expand their reloading arsenal and to achieve better accuracy faster and easier.

Now if I can put a prox on my beam scale, my time at the R-Bench will be cut dramatically. Has anybody done an ball bearing upgrade to their beam? No, Im not buying a Sartorius.


The level of your input and feedback has few peers. Thanks Bill!

Nice job on building it. I purchased a omega powder trickler a couple years ago. Works pretty slick.
https://dandyproductsllc.com/

OK you smart guys out there. Who's gonna' make a powered trickler like this one coupled to an optical sensor able to read the arm of an inexpensive beam balance to make the thing fully automatic?

I use my 120i scale and Auto Trickler and it works great, but it's quite a large investment in order to do something pretty simple. The whole thing is very nice and works very well, but in fact the mechanics of the trickler isn't rocket science and the circuitry isn't either. The interface with the scale is clever and I'm happy ................... except for the price. Not that it's not worth it. The sad fact is that a precision electronic scale is just plain expensive.

However, a good balance beam scale is plenty accurate for a lot of reloaders and the cost is relatively low; fifty to a hundred bucks instead of seven hundred.

It seems to me that someone familiar with the readily available hobby electronics we have these days could put together an automatic trickler which would use a couple of sensors which would react to the movement of the arm of a balance beam scale. It would trickle at high speed to begin with, slow down as the arm starts to move off the stop, and then slowly trickle up to the desired weight.

Perhaps someone would build one for himself and then publish the recipe for everyone else sort of like the famous Skip Design case annealing machine.

Comments?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JvF3bA1U7s

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Originally Posted by Mozella

OK you smart guys out there. Who's gonna' make a powered trickler like this one coupled to an optical sensor able to read the arm of an inexpensive beam balance to make the thing fully automatic?
It would trickle at high speed to begin with, slow down as the arm starts to move off the stop, and then slowly trickle up to the desired weight.

Perhaps someone would build one for himself and then publish the recipe for everyone else sort of like the famous Skip Design case annealing machine.

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Earlier this week the USPS nag delivered my Ardunio Uno starter kit. In a previous life I've programmed in Fortran and MS-Visual Basic for PLC logic I/O control, data I/O and user GUIs but nothing using C/C++ so I'll have a slight(?) cabin fever learning curve. So far I've managed to make a few LEDs light and used a 1K pot for an analog input but that's about it. The good, I haven't noticed any smoke curling off the board!:p

"Fully automatic" may be an issue since there wouldn't be any way of knowing when it should start or even if a pan was on it's support. Dumping powder on a empty support wastes powder and makes a heck of a mess!

I actually bought the Uno for my auto annealer project but as I get time I may play with it on my home brew trickler just to see but I doubt it would be any faster or accurate than two hard wired PBs, my ding'n finger and my four eyeballs.:p

Bill

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Originally Posted by Mozella

OK you smart guys out there. Who's gonna' make a powered trickler like this one coupled to an optical sensor able to read the arm of an inexpensive beam balance to make the thing fully automatic?

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Well, I'm not too sure I'm one of the "Schmart" guys but I been work'n on it.
First of all fully automatic is out of the question simply because we would need to tell the trickler when to start otherwise you may dump powder on a empty pan support or who knows where else!:p

With that said what I came up with so far is using two TCRT5000 PEs( PE-0, PE-1), one push button and the Arduino UNO for the "Brains".
The sequence...
1. The PB i starts the trickle in high feed mode.
2. When the PE-0 detects the scale's beam the feed rate is automatically set to low mode.
3 When PE-1 detects the scale's bean at or before zero the low feed stops.

I attached a coin VB motor to the output to show how the PB and two PEs operate in sequence using my ding'n finger to simulate the scale's beam. Again, bear with me, I ain't too swift at make'n/post'n moving pictures sooooo.....

https://storage04.dropshots.com/phot...217/122833.mp4


Bill