Hansimania

Hey Guys, Sorry again for not responding for such a long time. Just too much going on besides reloading. My brother updated the Code-files and once we have time to finally run a test in my workshop, he will upload the newest versions as well as instructions. The twist ramp, I designed, only works for 223. I also talked to AndrewC63, once he had time to work on the design of the Modular feeder and twist rail, he will send the files so I can upload them to the drive. I don't want to promise anything, but if all goes well, the final working code could be uploaded in the coming week Thank you Andrew, for keeping the thread alive and making awesome updates to the 3d designs!!!! Yes, Image recognition is the heart of it all, and seems to be the part that causes the most headaches. The Position of the case can't vary too much. The focus of the microscope will to get a good picture, if the case is closer or further away. The fewer variables there are, the easier it should be to recognize the headstamp and make the correct decision.

Hello Sorry that I never responded anymore, really a lot going on here and I found someone to partner up with to start a ammunition production. As Andrew said, there are systems out there, ready to buy, but this one is for DIY guys who want to save time on handsorting. IF the system works as intended, it can easily sort 1 case per second. Maybe more. In the meantime I even saw some diffrent ways to do it, wich may be faster. Andrew, it seems you nearly got this thing as far as we did I will mock my brother again so he can finally put some more instructions on the google drive. I also hope I can find some time tomorrow to make some pictures of the contraption in whole so you guys can see how this thing is supposed to look. Keep in Mind, none of the people working on this, do something like this for a living thats why stuff might not line up perfectly or work perfectly. Thats why I put everything up for the group here to work on it and improve stuff. Best rgards guys!

Happy Easter everyone! We have a working system! It still needs some tinkering, especially on the sorting Hardware, but I think Greg has already fond a better solution than our more complicated sorting units. Here is the link to download everything you guys need to get started: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1b_nKPQIUC8nDSKsshxKCfQybk_rRgtVL?usp=sharing I will update the folder as often as it is usefull, if you have something that should go into this folder (Updated code, Better 3d designs, other stuff you find useful) let me know and I will add everything. The Instructions on how to train the NeuralNetwork will follow. I hope you guys are able to build your own sorters now and share your experiences so we can evolve this thing! Best regards!

To be haunest, I have no idea how to put so many people on this project. We are getting realy close, One system in California is already sorting brass pretty reliable in real life. I hope we can get the Swiss unit working on saturday as I will have realy limited time the next two weeks. But Guys, we are really getting there. If anyone hears something from Fingerblaster, let him know we are on it!

Is there still interest in this project? We are close, really close to getting it to work. We found flaws and made design updates to the printed parts. The only thing that still causes some issues is training the system so it gets to a level of precision that is equal to sorting by hand. For me thats somewhere close to 100%. It is a lot of work and Chris and Greg are investing hours and hours into getting the programming right. We will take more pictures and hopefully we can do a good testrun today. I'm super hyped to finally see everything working together so good! Best regards Hans

Just to let you know, we are still on it. However, Stuff keeps breaking and problems keep occuring, but one way or another. we will get this thing working, and everybody who is interested can get the infos needed to make one I hope. I Made a video Today, just before my USB cam decided to die. This is still in picture taking or data collecting mode. But Working good. Trickiest part really seems to be the Image recognition. But I am confident Chris and Greg are going to find a way to make this work. Best Regards Hans

I just got the plate yesterday and can test it tomorrow. Seeing your reviews makes me look forward to using it But I have a problem with the Dillon motor/controll board. The first Case feeder, after around 15k of brass (223 and 9mm) the stop switch stopped working. I checked the switch with a Multimeter, seemed to work as it should, but the board was not reacting anymore, even when I manually shorted the contacts on the board. The variable speed function still worked. Dillon sent me a replacement (whole Thing: Motor, board, switch, gearbox). I took the board from the new Unit and used it to replace the bad one. For a few sessions it worked just fine, then something strange started to happen. After the tube was full, and motor stopped, it would start again, but in super slow rpm, so i upped the speed. But all of a sudden, after a few stopps on super slomo, it would start up at max rpm.... It did this for many hours, and I just lived with it. But now it completely died, does not move at all. So I am using the "nonstop board" right now and contacted dillon again. Told them my problem and asked if I could just buy some motor controller from some other manufacturer to use on this unit. They replied with "we will send you another replacement unit, please replace whole unit, not just parts of it" (No words to describe their warranty service! Outstanding!). I was wondering if anyone ever had such a problem, as I couldn't find something online. Admins: If need be, I'll open a new topic to keep this one clean about the DAA Plate, but as discussion about motors is allready on, and I am a lazy B@s**rd, I thought I would just put it here.

Guys, if someone is still reading. It seems like my brother finds this a fun project. He already invested several evenings and many hours. The design for the bullet feeder and sorting assembly is basically done. It will be a modular design, allowing for diffrent diameters and lengths. The Program is already able to feed cases and take pictures automatically, and save them on a computer. Even some classification test was done with only a few thousand pictures he managed to take manually. I will let him know to share his wisdom here so all the followers of this thread never have to hand sort brass in quantities again! The design is a bit diffrent from Fingerblasters. He designed some clamps instead of using wire to hold cases in place. Diffrent sizes of clamps can hold diffrent diameters and lengths. And for the sorter he came up with a design to sort into 3 ways, using one servo instead of 2 small motors. Instead of using a Nvidia jetson, everything will basically run from a computer, so no additional cost for that. I think his Servos and some V-Slot rails I had laying around are the biggest costfactors so far. Looks verry promising to me.

Just started hand sorting about 7000 .223 Cases of range brass. There are 6 diffrent headstamps. I had to think about this immediately and realy hope that we will hear from fingerblaster again. Or one of the guys that got the Files to help developing this might share some info? This thing realy needs to come to life Best regards from Switzerland!

@FingerBlaster Please don't let this thread die! Everyone is counting on you to let us know how to help you finish this awesome project! like @quiller I hope that all is well and you are not in personal trouble. We would realy like to see this project to be successfull! Hope to here from you soon and best regards from Switzerland!

@FingerBlaster I Have Printers and someone who can help a bit with code and stuff, So I think I might be able to put this thing together and get it working. From there of yourse I can take images and send you everything you need. But be aware that we might use other brands of ammo here in Switzerland. If you let me know what to get hardware wise, I get paid on Tuesday so timing is near perfect

Why not design the doors so that they will close automatically, with a weight on one end. So if no power is aplied, the will just close themselves and the motor just needs power to open them? Something like this, but the other way around If this is no option, make the doors so that they can be swung open more than 100%? It wouldnt hurt if they have a gap on one side while they are open would it?

Hey again, Not been here a few days and everything seems to go along super fast!!! You are THE MAN! To answer your question: I plan to use this mainly for 9mm and 223. Maybe later for 7.62x39 and 308. To find any casings that are not brass, I can imagine that a inductive sensor could find them? Like the one I suggested to check if a case is in place for the next picture a few posts ago. However I can not find proof for this idea, I hope I am just too dumb to use google:) I still have not much to contibute, but I have a question. Right now you are teaching the machine some case brands. If I was to build the same machine that you have right now, couldn't I start taking pictures and send them to you so you have a much bigger dataset? Or is it even possible to teach my machine some case brands, and then just let my machine tell your machine "what to look for"? I might be dreaming, but it would be super nice to have a place to share all the data that all the machines are collecting. So each machine will be able to recognize all the brands that everyone was sorting just by downloading the most recent dataset. (But I think this would be something to set up for a later stage) By the way, If this project goes as planed, you might make the guys that sell the Sortinator sad. everyone will be able to just build their own sortinator, even a cooler version, for much less. I can even imagine that some commercial reloaders choose this instead of spending the money on a expensive machine just to have brass sortet by headstamp. Best regards and keep up the good work!

Wow I am Amazed of the progress. If you let me know how I need to take pictures I could manually take pictures of 223 Brass. I just hand-sortet 4 buckets of Frontier, S&B, GGG and small amount of other brands. To counter on double feeds, cant you just adjust the pressure on the cases by lengthening or shortening you adapter hose? This way you can play with the angle and amount of brass that can be stacked, and therfore the brass will always feed at the same speed. What you call a mess and haphazzardly put together machine is more than I could ever come up with. I have a Mark7 autodrive coming for my 1050super and hope I can get that to work without too many issues. If you want to add sensors later, why not use inductive sensors? You might even be able to separate the steel and nickel plated cases fron brass if i understand correctly?

I have no input on how to solve any of the software issues you might run into,but I'd like to help as much as I can. I wouldn't worry about speed too much, the machine can run autonomous while you do other stuff in the mean time, still a lot of hours saved. Maybe you can monkey patch the buffer issue by only requesting a picture every 0.6 seconds? Wouldnt that give the case enough time to get in position and stop moving/bouncing around? Also, what will the machine do if it takes a blurry picture or there is no case in position or cas is upside down? Will it wait for a case to arrive or just open the channel so whatever is in there will fall down to a "Human inspection container"? For taking the images I would also avoid to have anything that can get dirty between the camera and the case. I think feeding them as you plan right now is by far the easiest way of doing it. Maybe have the mechanism at a sligt angle to have the camera at 90 degrees to the case and any debris would fall down, not onto your camera. Then have the machine perform the following steps. 1. Feed case to picture station. 2.Take picture 3.Flappy door opens to redirect case to waiting station 4.Release case from Picture station, so it falls down and away from camera to "parking station" 5.Machine does magic work and figures out the brand of the case 6.Open and close flappy doors in the sorting tunnel to direct case in the correct exit 7.Release case from parking station wich lets it fall into the correct container. If there is enough processing power, maybe you can have the machine start a new cycle from 1-3 while the first case is still waiting its turn to go down the sorting tunnel. BTW: I hope to be able to make the needed changes to use the sorter for .233 brass. I dont sort 9mm as the Dillon 1050 will load mixed 9mm to my satisfaction without issues for several hundred cases. But mixed .223 brass is harder to process and load so I will have Primer seating issuse every 10-50 rounds due to inconsistent swaging (My best guess)., just sortet a bucket to see if this solves my problems. Best regards from Switzerland