I really like your videos, and am constantly amazed by the quality of the stuff you create, but I must say I'm losing view of what you're doing. There are a few things contributing to this: 1. Upload rate. There's not much you can do about that, this is what you can manage, and that's perfectly fine. However, it does result in "what was this about again?" 2. There's no real overview of what you're trying/going to do. Sure, your intro mentions what you've done in the past and what you're trying to solve, but we don't really know anything about you. AFAIK, you didn't post anything before this series, so we don't know if you're shipping thousands of packages with tens of different screws every day, or just a few packages per year. 3. You show us things like the router for cutting your boxes, and say it's been working great, indicating a high volume, and you tend to show quite a few boxes stacked on each other, but how are they gonna work when stacked? 4. Your videos feel like separate things, instead of like one continuous series. You do reference to previous videos, but things like the PCB at 1:06 made me go: where on earth did that come from? What does it do? Why is it there? 5. You focus quite a bit on small details, while glossing over the bigger things. Some examples in this video: The light channels on the print, the QR code vs data matrix, the status lights. You mention them, but then don't show what they're gonna do or how they're gonna work. An example on the other side would be the PCB: You show it but don't explain what it does or where it came from, it's just there. Personally, I would've skipped over the details like the QR code and the status lights, and maybe have a shorter video on them later when they're working. You said you were gonna test the status lights for warmth, so a video on designing, creating, testing and then implementing them would be cool. Same for the QR code, the video could start with "You may've noticed in the past that there's QR codes on my cases, here's why". If I may suggest a channel that does this quite well, it'd be Stephen Hawes. His videos are quite hectic and fast, but they focus on one part of the whole pick n place machine, which keeps everything easy to follow. All in all, I think it would be really beneficial to take a step back. So far, everything has been of the "here's what I've done" style, but I think it'd be a very good idea to step back and explain what you're doing in detail. What do you sell? How many do you sell? How many different fasteners do you use? Etc., etc., etc.. To be clear, this isn't a rant on how bad your videos are of your work is, it's awesome, but I feel like they could be better. Hopefully you can benefit from this feedback somehow. Also, on the daisy-chaining: I personally would try to daisy-chain the power and data separately. You use a panel with the C14 socket on your board, which is great, but there's also panels that have both a C13 and C14 socket. That way you could easily daisy-chain the 230V power, reducing losses, and making it much easier to scale power supplies. It'd be a massive waste if every box had a PSU able to power 5 or more other boxes, but of every 5 only one of those PSUs would be in use. And that's without taking into account that most PSUs are most effective near 80% of their rating (IIRC), so a big PSU running only 1 box would be wasting power too. Sure, doing it separately makes for 2 cables to plug/unplug instead of one, but I feel like that's worth it. If you really wanted to go crazy, you could always create something that automatically plugs together when stacking the boxes, that would be very cool and clean.

@fireheadpet2039

8 ай бұрын

Excellent feedback, very constructive and I concur 100% (re. Improving content).

@christopherhelmke

8 ай бұрын

Thank you for your feedback. I really appreciate it. Honestly, I agree with you on pretty much every point. I realize that an explanation of what the heck I'm doing here is long overdue. Things like the intro were meant to do just that, bring in some continuity and recurring explanation, but of course you're right that that only works for a while and only in a limited way. The "Q&A style video" I announced in the last video, I have planned for ages to clarify exactly that. Just to be fair to all of you I think that those who are interested should understand who I am and what I do. When I started this channel I planned to make a certain amount of technical videos before talking about myself & what I want to do. I don't like to announce things before they are something. I'm just not the type of person to make the first video about myself and what I want to do. When I noticed how crazy fast the videos are being viewed I consciously compromised a potentially confusing video style / series to stick to this rule. I did not expect this channel to gain traction so fast and I thought there would be more than enough time to make the explainer video before anyone actually watched the videos. The attention from the videos has created some activity behind the scenes and allowed me to bring forward some things that were originally planned for later. This is also the main reason for the upload frequency, I had to do a lot of other things not directly related to the videos but essential for my vision of the MPS (more about this in the "Q&A style video"). I suppose a higher upload frequency is possible now but I would be naive to promise that. Regarding the small details, I personally have always loved this kind of stuff in videos and think this is a way to add an educational aspect to a "non-tutorial style" video. (I understand you are not criticizing this but using it as a comparison). All these little details are things that I don't think are in any other video on KZread, and maybe that's the most useful thing about the videos themselves. I agree that more context would be helpful(!), though. I have a few rules that I think make for good content. So far the videos meet maybe half of them. I'm not happy with the current video quality and I think that's a good thing. That means there is a lot of potential for improvement. The most support you can give me is comments like this, telling me when you think I'm doing something wrong and as long as it's done respectfully (like here) I appreciate it! I was originally going to do another technical video before doing the "bigger picture video" but I feel the truth in what you write and I will consider switching them. I have a plan and I will share it soon.

@fireheadpet2039

8 ай бұрын

@@christopherhelmke You are an extremely astute person Christopher, and quite mature to accept the feedback. You brought several points above about your goals and guidelines for the videos that we didn't know. I think it would be an excellent time for your Q&A with a "raison d'être" of the channel, project. More so if this is a "journey" channel Vs instructional one. Personally, I love the details only if it shows how you decided to go this route ( the trials of design). Otherwise, unless I wish to replicate your design, there would be little value or, I could find the technical content in a more "pure" tech how-to channel as opposed. I hope making videos doesn't take too much away from your business goals nor sap too much energy from you as this should be #1. In any event, I for one am amazed by you and your engineering prowess.

@Andrew_Fernie

8 ай бұрын

You should pin this thread@@christopherhelmke

@srdjan361306

6 ай бұрын

This is the best comment/feedback on someones video. I agree on everything you said.

You are just the gold standard of 3d printed engineering. So inspiring!

Scanning the QR code reveals the text "next video topic: conveyor ~1week/October" - I can't wait!

Pure gold: two layer 3D print and carving the text and symbols with laser. Thank you so much for this idea, it's simple but powerful concept!

The most interesting parts (engraving white letters into black PLA / multiple PLA feeders for transparent inlays) have not been explained or shown. A great project though!

Surely a distribution module in a shallow Euro box at the bottom would be the best solution? This module could handle X boxes stacked upon it, and provide a power supply that handles that. 24VDC is a nice option to distribute amongst the boxes and a decent supply such as from Phoenix Contact would make it nice and safe. You could then use common machine builder cables like M12 to do distribution and if needed use RJ45 data cables to do your Modbus? Otherwise you are adding additional cost and complexity in each box, just to handle another box which also contains that complexity - its exponential? Looking forward to seeing what you do in the future with this! Exciting project.

@jakeaustin901

6 ай бұрын

Good idea Chris. He even thought so much so: kzread.info/dash/bejne/iYNl0dGfabe7XaQ.htmlsi=44F6rrCSmqnoVA5a&t=176

While highly admiring your sense of aesthetics, precision and utility of plastic box architecture, it seems to me that @5:05, when that box starts turning by motorized holder to cutting position for CNC operation, that is the ultimate fetish of this video. 🙂

@jonasnicolaysen8019

8 ай бұрын

he has a video of him making that cool contraption :)

Your videos have dropped from my recommendations sadly and couldnt find your channel for a while. But happily now I found you and subscribed.

I'd suggest adding connectors to the top and bottom of the case, therefore when you stack modules, they connect automatically and you can separate the power lines from the data lines

@andycrask3531

8 ай бұрын

Yes the pogo spring loaded ones would be good here

@miege90

8 ай бұрын

I don't think pogopin connectors are even necessary, the boxes align themselves upon stacking so a cheap connectir with a bunch of pins like VGA or similar should work totally fine

@TheDJRiffin

8 ай бұрын

Or just the standard IEC connector. Would keep power and data separate too.

@Ziraya0

8 ай бұрын

@@miege90 VGA is bad for power in a few ways, to begin with it uses very small wires, there's supposed to be 15 of them in there, each with some kind of coating, shielding, and liners. 3 of the wires are actually coax, they're supposed to have their own grounds so it should be that these 3 pins are the best for carrying power, since they will reliably be close to one another the whole time. Thing 2, it's very common in 2023 for VGA manufacturers to not include all the parts they're supposed to. You can't rely on having all 15 conductors. There might only be one ground instead of five, there's a pin that was literally never used for anything, there's data lines that aren't extremely required. You would have to evaluate the construction of every VGA cable, via continuity testing, to know if it will actually stand up to the power you want to put through it, and even then these are just very small wires, all of them. The normal wires in VGA are supposed to be 28AWG, which can carry 0.83A, alone, without exceeding 60C. With the 9 non-coax you could carry 7.47 amps, or about 180w @ 24v; doing so would likely melt the cable, in practice because the collected wires can't cool as well. Assuming, this company built that cable with 28AWG wire, not thinner wire, and not fewer wires. Pogo pins have an unreliable and small contact area, unless you had a zillion, it's very likely at random there would be little enough contact area that the pins would start welding to the contact patch. In Power applications, it's really best to use connectors made for handling power, and to use them as intended.

@miege90

8 ай бұрын

@@Ziraya0 yes it was just an example for the data connection, i wouldn't use it for mains power either 😆

You could daisy chain the power separately. Some old PC power supplies had a male C14 socket (kettle lead) for power input and a separate, female C13 socket to take power out again so that you could take display power off it.

@TheKdcool

8 ай бұрын

But then, why even bother with daisy chaining power. Might as well split it at the source and not worry about it

@John-gw3mj

8 ай бұрын

It keeps the cabling tidier and means that you don't need to take up multiple mains sockets for a stack. You could hand-make a split cable, but you'd be locked in to the number of feeders in the stack. Using daisy-chained C13/C14 sockets, you can still stack them arbitrarily and use off-the-shelf sockets and cables.

Ich bewundere dein Können und dein Blick für Ästhetik. Ich fang dieses Jahr mein Maschinenbaustudium an und hab schon 2 Roboterarme gebaut und auf meinem Lernweg bin ich über deine Videos gestolpert und jedes mal wenn ein neues Rauskommt bin ich erfüllt von Neid und Bewunderung. Sehr sehr bewundernswert!!! Weiter so. Ich bin gespannt was da noch kommt.

Praktiker der die Theorie beherrscht! Liebe die pragmatische Ausführung konstruktiver Details!

This is awesome! I admire your engineering skills, and your videos are a pleasure to watch! just for the sake of conversation (and Algorithm), have you considered daisy-chaining 220v line, instead of low-voltage one? There are nice male-female connectors and cables, and it has some old-timey vibe (I think there were some old pc cases that had female monitor connectors like that). This will also simplify data connection, maybe even making it magnetic / wireless

@christopherhelmke

8 ай бұрын

Thank you! I have considered it shortly but instinctively decided against it. After all the comments about it I will reconsider it now! The reason why I so quickly decided against it is that I worked on some projects for industrial customers in the past where we had nightmares complying with safety regulations around the use of extrusion profiles, mains voltage and so on. It's a long story but some aspects of the design like putting the entire machine in a plastic box is partly influenced by this time. (The main reason for the box was modularity&cost)

@RnSpion

8 ай бұрын

@@christopherhelmke as Sebastian suggested I would also use Neutrik PowerCon True 1 Top, there even is a combined 230V input / output model (Part-Nr. NAC3PX-TOP), we use it in a lot of our machines since it is super convenient and no internal cabeling is needed. There plugs and accessories are high quality and easy to asemble, never had any problems with them so far. It does also have the added benefit that the the plugs do lock into place.

You are part of the system that will automate and make the world modular!

This guy is like a little Dieter Rams.

This is really well made! I wouldn't recommend using Wi-Fi for automated equipment, it has caused me nothing but trouble in the past. You could maybe try pogo pins that interface vertically with the module on top, with data and power being on different sides of the box. You could also shield these pins from touching by putting them in a smaller diameter hole where only the pogo pin can reach in, not people's hands

@EdwinSteiner

8 ай бұрын

My thoughts exactly. Please no wireless connections for anything that needs to be reliable.

Daisy chaining top to bottom would be cool. There's a small overlap between the boxes when stacked which you could use to make a connection.

Whoa, that's a terrific design! I love your engineering.

Excellent video, excited to see the project progress

Weiter so! Dein Kanal ist eine der Perlen auf YT, wo Theorie auch Praxis findet.

I envy your brilliance. Love the content

the tone is just perfect!

I genuinely love your videos. They're super interesting.

From Brazil, congratulations Christopher for great videos!!

My advice is to not go wireless. The amount of noise in a factory is insane, and rf issues are the last thing people would want to debug when a line is down.

@Thorou

8 ай бұрын

And the module he seems to be using (ESP-01) is one I've had sporadic signal loss with in the past (In a regular home IOT environment!)

@AlainPilon

8 ай бұрын

I agree, from experience. Wireless is crap as soon as you exit your house.

Wow, impressive. Can you share technique how to laser engrave into 3D printed parts? How did you achieve such a high contrast?

@AquaeAtrae

8 ай бұрын

Yes. That fascinated me. I'm not clear what kind of material the laser was able to etch so nicely. For all I know, perhaps black plastics tend to burn white like that.

@Dandelur

8 ай бұрын

Maybe the black plastic is only one layer on top?

@nerddub

8 ай бұрын

he printed in two colors, using the white for the second layer. The already showing text and "light diffusers" showing when he put it in the laser area I believe confirm this, then the laser ablates that first black layer, leaving the white text and graphics in much higher detail than printable

@christopherhelmke

8 ай бұрын

it's an IR Laser, thats why it can engrave black surfaces with high contrast, you need a dark surface on white or gray it will not really show

@tomben9609

8 ай бұрын

You can look up "laser marking plastic" it depends on the material used and with a little trial and error with your laser you can achieve great contrast, even create debossed markings that can be transferred when making a mold of your part.

This such an awesome series of videos. I really admire your design work, engineering, and video making. Please keep making videos, these are fantastic!

Absolutely amazing - smart solutions and such a nice attention to details - well done and thank you for sharing!

Super! Echt beeindruckend, was mit den verschiedenen mittlerweile erschwinglichen Werkzeugen möglich ist! Weiter so! 😊

@christopherhelmke

6 ай бұрын

Vielen Dank!

holy cow... this is incredible work.

Great Video as always.

Re: power. You can also gang up pins to reduxe resistance. I have seen some old main frame boards where they bodged like 2x8 pins together as a power bus. Seems like you got it covered though

your work inspire me to get off gaming and on my project

As some others have already suggested i would look into linking power and data separately as this makes thinks much sinpler. For power connectors you can have a look at tha powercon series from neutrik. That is a mains power connector used widely in the event industry. The connection is locked so no accidental unplugging. (There are also other manufacturers that produce similar and compatible connectors but in my opinion neutrik has the best build quality). Due to the use in the event industry ready made cables are easily available on the internet. If you decide to go with powercon in the long run just be aware that there are two lines of powercon connectors, the original ones (blue colored for power input into devices, and grey/white for power output from devices) and there is the True1 generation which added a slightly bigger power output connector (physical size) but this allows for cable connectors that can be plugged into each other so cable extensions are possible. And there is the TOP line of the True1 connectors (those are compatible to the non TOP True1 connectors) and thise add True Outdoor Protection so basically a better IP rating. For data i would also go with standard ethernet cables as those are cheap and easy to purchase, if you want proper locking connectors neutrik also has the Ethercon connector in their lineup, basically an RJ45 Ethernet Connector in an XLR plug housing (XLR - those plugs that are used on professional audio equipment like microphones and audio mixers). Also keep in mind that you can send other signals than ethernet/IP over an Ethernet cable.

@christopherhelmke

8 ай бұрын

thank you for this comment! thats really helpful.

This is pretty impressive! Thanks for sharing👍

You should consider "Plug in terminal blocks" for the controll board connectors. Allows you to easily switch out components and controll boards. 6:40

Add powercon Cables to the boxes so you can daisy chain them. That's what we use in show lighting and sound

Good stuff. I like how neat everything looks and how well it comes together. My only comment is that, based on my experience, I would advise against using RS845. It might be fine, especially if you only transmit in one direction. But you still need to manage data corruptions and retransmissions. If you need multiple nodes to talk on the same bus, things get more complicated due to the required arbitration. Collision detection is a PITA to do in firmware and, while there are alternatives (polling, token ring) they're less flexible or less performant. When the MCU needs to do other stuff, there's the complication of interrupt latency, etc. This is a solved problem. An example is CANbus. It's simple enough and many MCUs have a built-in CAN controller, only needing an external transceiver that you'd need anyway for RS485. There are other options, though I don't have first hand experience. Using a network controller instead of raw RS485 will save you a ton of time and trouble. Apologies if I mentioned things you already know, you only briefly touched the subject.

Another excellent video! I was wondering if you've considered linking power between boxes on the AC side rather than the DC. You can buy C14 power connectors with an integrated C13 loop out online.

You can use a IEC c13+c14 panel mount adapter to chain 250VAC@10A (or NAC3PX which provides 250VAC@20A). For data you can use a protocol like 10BASE-T1S to multidrop data, which provides a robust industrially rated galvanically isolated protocol. Microchip LAN8650/1 has a built-in MAC in the PHY allowing you to use SPI with a cheap MCU to communicate over 2 wire ethernet.

Clough42 sent me here. This is an outstanding project and I subscribed to follow it.

You could put pins on bottom/top so that modules can share power or at least communicate when stacked, also there is C14 connector so you could daisy chain mains between them

sweet design

You could add some pogo pins to the top side of your feeder and some matching contacts on the bottom side. Then you can supply all feeders by just placing them on top of each other. (Similarly to how those takeaway buzzers in some restaurants are being charged)

@techko0240

8 ай бұрын

You could run power and communication via the Pogo pins, or only use them for power and use your d-sub Bus cabeling for communications. This would also give you a way of seperating power and signal wires to reduce interference. Allthough I don't think running power next to a differential communication line would result in an unmanageable ammount of EMI.

@Beef4Dinner22

8 ай бұрын

​@@techko0240 You could still keep them separated with pogo pins by putting the power on one corner of the box and the data on the other corner. That would easily give 20-30cm of separation, and you wouldn't need any extra cables.

In server room applications it is (or at least was) somewhat common to have a rack mount device with the regular IEC-C13 in socket, and then next to it an IEC-C14 socket. You would then have power cables with these same connections on it's ends and this lets you daisychain devices. You can even buy a combined in-out socket block. The ones I'm seeing have the ground pins tied together but you're responsible for how live and neutral get connected. I have found fused combination modules, but not any switched so far (maybe 5 minutes of looking). With the DC-daisychain you can potentially eliminate multiple AC-DC converters, which is pretty much always a big cost saving, but with AC-daisychaining you don't have to deal with the noise problem. Personally I think the best route for daisychaining power is to use a robust, locking DC power connector, and have dedicated power unit as the bottom. This should solve the noise problem just as well, and lets you have a single better-quality high-power PSU. If you could find something cheaper than, but like, the typical "Trolling Motor Plug Receptacle Set", that would be great. The major downside of these is they're waterproof, so they're usually like 20$. In this regard AC-daisychaining wins, it solves noise and uses commodity cabling, but if you could source an appropriate DC connector system for a reasonable price, I think there's still room to save money on consolidating power supplies

Oh my gosh! I love your videos! I would love to see a video on you designing the PCB if your up for it. An idea I had for the daisy chain, you could imbed terminals into the box itself so when you stack them you don’t need the additional step of plugging in a cable or even 2 if one cable is for signal and the other is for power. However, this would take extra time to design and may not be worth it. I was going to suggest passing AC to each of the boxes so that each can use their own power supply, but I never thought of the challenge of the power cable producing so much noise it interferes with the signal wire. If you passed the signal and power through different terminals would noise still be an issue?

Can you explain how the laser made the plastic white? Thanks.

@christopherhelmke

6 ай бұрын

Hi, it's an IR Laser

Amazing content! Your thought process, the engineering and precision is a master class. Your channel is seriously underrated. Also have you had a chance to try Prusament PETG V0 yet, for printing electronics or electrical enclosures ? looking forward to the next video after finding the hints 😉

It would seem overly costly to overrate the power supply in a single unit and then it end up being underrated for three daisy chained systems. Back in the good old days, early PC power supplies had an IEC input and a pass-through IEC output to power the monitor. Thus removing the need for an extra mains outlet to be available. Also, when you powered up the PC, you were guaranteed that the monitor would also be power up. Perhaps you can still source a solution with a pass through for mains.

I remember old computer PSU's use to have one input and one output for power connectors, to connect the monitor to the PSU, this could work here to for daisychaining the boxes

so cool!

Clough42 brought me here from the 7 segment display video. first time here and this video made me sub within less than 1 minute.....

I'd like to know more details about how you etched the plastic? I think I understand how you printed white/black dual color pla for printed in markings, but how did you get white etching with the laser on black pla? Does it just.. do that? I've never tried.. Or is it a special plastic mix that turns white under laser?

@jon_raymond

8 ай бұрын

The laser that was used has both a diode and IR laser. The IR can engrave 3d printed parts.

@christopherhelmke

8 ай бұрын

just like @Jon_raymond said. The IR can engrave darker plastics, you will need to use black to get a high contrast

@ITman496

8 ай бұрын

I will try, thank you!@@christopherhelmke

Why not use pogo pins to transfer data between boxes? or even for power also (like the graphite pogo pins found in brushed dc motors).

Unless you want to have different power suppy options for the boxes (none, capable of powering 1 box, more powerful), I believe connecting each box with a seperate mains cable is the best option. I would recommend using rs485 over standart ethernet cables like some home powerwall products do. Patchcables are easier to comeby than the dsub cables you are using here.

Daisy Chaining is not so complicated if you use a current driven physical layer and a slow enough baud rate for your serial data. Industry has been doing this kind of thing for decades, often running kilometer-long wires in simple conduits next to each other. The Bambu Lab AMS supports daisy chaining of up to 4 units, all supplied from the printer. The trick is to only actuate one unit at a time, saving the need to supply all units at once. USB is the prime example of running a power hungry hardware right next to differential signalling. In the words of Look Mom No Computer: Don't be scared to try it

Your design looks incredible as always. I think that data transfer over ethernet could work great on this project. It is pretty much the standart solution in industrial automation these days.

The "thin diffuser" was very interesting! Are you using a different clear filament in your 3d printer, or some other material?

@AquaeAtrae

8 ай бұрын

It looked like a material embedded within the outlines of the first layer. But I can't see any lines within itself, so I'm unclear if he printed them with a dual material printer or paused and simply painted the diffuser material in between the lines manually. Whatever was done, it came out very nice!

@christopherhelmke

8 ай бұрын

Hi it's just normal white filament. If you chose the right wall generator (Arachne) and have the first Layer calibration right (or a printer that does it automatically) then there should be no gaps or printing lines visible in this print orientation. With a textured Sheed it works even better, but on that "rough" surface you can't read the Laser engraving super well.

@AquaeAtrae

8 ай бұрын

​@@christopherhelmkeThanks for clarifying. Great work.

@DafyddRoche

8 ай бұрын

@@christopherhelmkevery clear! Thank you! My printer is single filament, so I think I might do the same as you but maybe use clear hot glue before I remove the print from the bed.

Really great idea of marking 3D prints with a diode laser! Just a quick thought, why not daisy chain the 230 V input and then data separately? That would solve your data integrity as well as PSU problems when daisy chaining a lot of modules.

Goldschatz!

220V daisy chain works perfectly. Google for an old ATX power supply, UPS...

Can you please explain how you do the laser engraving on a 3D printed part? This was amazing! Do you just use one outer layer in a different color and then laser that away?

@winandd8649

8 ай бұрын

Wondering the same 🙄

@DMGTID

8 ай бұрын

There’s other videos that appears to show the color change is just from the effect of the laser and not a dual-color print. I’ll have to try this out!

I can recommend the esp32 it is a powerful dual core micro-controller with WiFi on board and its cheap. I really like working with them. but get one with a external antenna U.FL, IPEX plug. The range on the ones with a PCB antennas is horrible, like 2-10m range.

I was interested in the laser used in this video till I saw the price of it. Wow. 1600$ for a 115mm square area is crazy.

Instead of transmitting power over the bus and having to beef up the individual power supplies, you could potentially do what work lights do by adding an outlet to the design. That way, AC power is being shared and each box is using its own power supply. Also, as many have mentioned before, IoT wifi connections are notoriously unreliable and it would be for the best of the design to remain wired.

would suggest to go for something like a powercon if you want to transfer 120 or 230v power to multiple units.Because mizing data and power is asking for problems imho.

Did you consider power up higher boxes by some sort of pogo pins?

@christopherhelmke

8 ай бұрын

Yes I did for a while but there are a few problems with this: 1) the boxes have quite some horizontal play, they do not center perfectly on top of each other +- 4mm is a lot for the pogo connections I am aware of. 2) this should be an MPS wide standard connecting all the modules, like the Sprocket dispenser and this needs a cable connection anyway 3) space in this direction is very limited, part count would increase There are workarounds for all of this but I wanted to get something to test it first... might come back to the pogo variant later :)

How does the laser engraving come out white when it is on black plastic?

Maybe you could integrate connectors for power and data in the top/bottom of the box itself, so they automatically connect if you stack boxes on top of another. Like these cheap electronic toys/figures from McDonalds 10 years ago that you simply connect by sliding them together without the need of any cables.

Did you think about some kind of "springy pin" connectors, so you have a connection just by stacking your feeders? Then you would need just one power supply per stack...

I have to ask, when the drum rotates, you have a small arm that lifts itself to avoid the nuts that keep the 3d print stuck to the drump, why didn't you just create a sink hole for nut that attaches to drum so it doesn't come into contact with small leaver part that knocks the screw down?

@rustybrooks

8 ай бұрын

I think this every time too - however I really have to think that Christopher has already considered this. There's no way you'd design the lifting arm mechanism without having considered this. My off the cuff guess is that it's just mechanically more robust the way it is, and that makes the additional complexity worth it

@UselessProjects

8 ай бұрын

@@rustybrooks it can't be same simple tho, at worst, he must lose about 1 cm in space moving drum part and case forward. I can't see how it makes it more robust since it's an extra servio motor been added.

@rustybrooks

8 ай бұрын

@@UselessProjects idk man, just seems a little presumptive to think the guy programmed a way for the arm to move up and over a bolt and it never occurred to him to move the bolt out of the way

@jon_raymond

8 ай бұрын

I have a feeling the protruding bolt heads are actually used to agitate the loose bolts and create space to pick one with the magnet. Otherwise the magnet might not be able to pull a bolt free from its neighbors.

@UselessProjects

8 ай бұрын

@@rustybrooks I'm not saying I'm right, why I asked in first place. Be nice to know the reason, that's all :)

Consider integrating the power and data into the chasis itself, it's a bit more complicated, but you can make those into submodules as tubes that run the height of the modules, and connect above and below, with some ingenuity, you may even be able to manage side to side as well, though with the spacing required in some of those cases, you may need to create standalone spacers as well.

@Deveyus

8 ай бұрын

Thinking more about this, separating the entire AC system into a series of posts that are through each box would be a lot safer, and you could configure them fairly easy with something like some dip-switches so that you can have a single power distribution unit for quite a number of boxes, rather than making one of the units dual-purpose. This means you could use larger, more efficient power supplies, setup monitoring both for consumption and for safety and do it all in one box. Then you can deploy those boxes throughout the matrix where they make sense, often at the bottom of the stack as power distribution gear tends to be heavy.

Please talk about the feeder, how it works and how did u build it.

i just bougth the bamboo labs printer im going to try to get your affiliate link set to my order, hopefully you can get some kickback from that . IM sure a lot of people will sign up for the patreon, your work is amazing! for now heres some $ to help you with your journey!

@christopherhelmke

7 ай бұрын

Thank you for your support! Hope you enjoy the printer!

Oh, die Beschriftung ist ja super. Ist das ein Galvo Diodenlaser, oder? Ich habe leider nur einen Galvo-Faserlaser, damit werden die Kunststoffbeschriftugen aber nicht wirklich schön. Denkst du das geht auch mit einem normalen Diodenlaser?

Maybe using esp mesh for a wireless mesh style link would be a good option

Christopher fantastic clear and concise videos. Your designs are immaculate and brilliant. Could you please provide a link to the open source cnc project, I couldn’t find that particular variant Thank you

@christopherhelmke

4 ай бұрын

hi Andy, its called "volksfräse" I think you can find it online

please show more details about your laser for marking that panel. what brand is it, how much it costs and what your experience has been with it so far

Is power and data over the same wire really such an problem? It’s common to power cameras and WiFi APs via Ethernet (Power over Ethernet (PoE), e.g. ieee 802.1af) and there it es possible to send power along 10 gigabit links. There is also the ieee 802.1bt standard wich allows for up to 100 watts via a single Ethernet cable.

What about pogo pins on the top of the crate for power delivery and data communication with a matching receiver on the bottom; just stack the crates for connectivity.

Why not just have two wires between the modules? One for power and one for data. It would also help with your power supply issue, you could have all the modules powered separately but still have the data chained together, or you could have it set up so that the data is chained through them all but the power is only chained through say 5 modules. So if you had 15 modules they would all be chained together for data but for power they are set up in 3 groups of 5 and within the group of 5 the power is chained together for power.

Fyi there is a nice uC with integrated Eth PHY (ch32v307). Together with PoE, you'd get something pretty easy to use and modular.

6:35 im suprised you didnt use the cheaper two piece screw terminal blocks? Like the one that the part you screw wire into is disconnectable?

Jesus man, everything I design and print ends up looking like a Homer Simpson BBQ… Nice work!

Ich habe den Mechanismus des Fenders noch nicht verstanden - warum hat die Scheibe drei Schraubenköpfe rausschauen? Welche Funktion hat der sich immer wieder nach oben bewegende Hebel?

curious how your laser engraver works, does it burn off the top black layer too reveal the white underneath?

what about integrating connectors to the top and bottom of the boxes that automatically connect while stacking? This way you can separate power and data in space and the cables are no longer a problem in general. Very nice video though!

Please do the PCB video!

I can not see what laser you use, how can laser burn white color into black through and through plastic?? Really strangely informative video without information.

Is the lazer making the white by cutting back a layer to white below ? I don't see how it looks like it's adding white to your work

What laser engraver are you using? And does this just mark the filament, or does it remove the black filament and is there white filament beneath it?

How much data does your system actually exchange? How about using ir photo transceivers?

Where can I buy the quarter zip pullover that you wear in this video?

Did you consider daisychaining using PowerCon?

CAN BUS could be an option too

What diode laser is that? Seems to work great

@christopherhelmke

6 ай бұрын

I added a link to the description, xtool F1

What is the product that you sell, is it the MPS itself, or are you just sorting hardware for some other unseen product? Is there a link to whatever your finished product is?

Anyone know the name of those terminals he used to quick connected wires with ferrules?

why don't you daisy chain mains voltage with cables c14 and a c13 plug

How is that laser able to make such clean white markings !? My laser engraver just burns my prints black