A day with a Chinese engineer

are ground

straight forward.

parts. I knew

looking at it

a bowl with

electro magnet

springs are

counterclockwise

de-energised the bowl

pretty darn

And the most profound and happy-making thing I'm getting out of this?

"Google-fu". I've heard it before, but this is the one time that it's really _striking_ me.

Wes fired this volley in news:xyY9p.231897$ snipped-for-privacy@en-nntp-16.dc.easynews.com:

Wes, there is yet another sort of vibratory feeder that relies on a very fast stroke under the inertia of the parts (so the deck slides under the work pieces on that stroke), followed by a slower return, whereby they are stick to the surface and are conducted uphill-downhill- alongaconveyor-whatever.

There are, in fact, mass flow conveyor systems build on that very principle.

LLoyd

=A0I have a bowl with

an electro magnet

af springs are

leaf springs are

ounterclockwise

nergised the bowl

The first one I saw fed then-new GM HEI modules into a test station. It was driven by a motor with an off-center counterweight, so the circular oscillation of the bowl was more evident. You can jump a coin uphill on your hand with the same circular motion.

jsw

I'll bet this would be fascinating to examine with a strobe light tuned just off 120 Hz.

(...)

a bowl with

electro magnet

de-energised the bowl

That was one of the half-million things I never understood. It bugged me for years. Now I 'got it'.

Thanks Wes.

--Winston

This really has nothing to do with your gizmo, but I worked several of the "pack" shows in Las Vegas, where manufacturers bring automated equipment of all manner from automated fortune cookie wrappers to automated dry cleaning racks. We were riggers, helping bring in the delicate machinery, and properly set and connect it. Some of it looked otherworldly. Then we got to see it run. It was all a blur, and then the finished widgets spat out the end at lightning speed. There were computer shape recognition technology, rapid counters, stuff like yours that I couldn't understand or comprehend, just stand in awe and watch it work. It was fascinating as all get out. You must have some machine to get his attention like that.

Steve

Heart surgery pending? Read up and prepare. Download the book $10

--snip--

Perhaps due to the Chinese connection, martially speaking?

-- You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club. --Jack London

parts. I knew

a bowl with

de-energised the bowl

How good of you to convey as much of our technological expertise as possible to your Chinese doctoral candidate colleague.

There isn't much point in concealing old technology they can buy at a scrapyard. Stories from WW2 prisoners such as Greg Boyington show a considerable difference between the open attitudes of Japanese who had visited the West and the narrow racist prejudices of those who hadn't.

OTOH before WW1 the British and Germans had been each other's largest trading partners..

jsw

Do you really think such machines are not already churned out in chinese factories

--snip--

pretty darn

Yeah! They only have our nuclear bomb secrets and the entire array of stealth fighter and bionic soldier specs now.

Do NOT tell them about important secrets such as the way a vibratory tumbler works. Don't you dare, Wes!

-- You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club. --Jack London

I see 2700+ such suppliers on the mainland. I did some work on driving them optimally using accelerometers etc. a while ago (end customer was the US military) but really in most cases this is _mature_ technology that has no real secrets to yield.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

The Chinese do not need vibratory screwing. They seem to be doing pretty well with their regular screwing. There are already over one billion of them. Improving the efficiency of their screwing might lead to too much screwing and a resultant population boom. :) Dave

They make most of the vibratory toys as well, so any disruption to supply could be extremely frustrating for a portion of the population.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

This is the same reason an object/load on a flat bed truck or trailer will move to the front when driven over a bumpy road.

Paul

pretty darn

I saw patents going back to 1928 or so on that technology. I didn't look at the Great Britain ones I saw reference to.

As it was, we both walked away knowing something neither of us fully understood at the beginning, I figure that was an even trade. My typical day is not particularly challenging, after almost a decade working here I have a pretty good grip on things and most of what I run into is more a matter of memory rather than problem solving skills. Actually having something to ponder and seek an answer to and then try to understand the answer made for a rewarding day for me personally.

I'm also tending to believe your comment was tongue-in-cheek and yes, I am concerned about transferring advanced technology to China. I have a feeling Boeing is cutting their own throat and I'm sure a number of other companies are doing the same.

I work for a multi-national non-defense company and we have facilities all over the world. I'm hope visiting America and meeting people that treat him civilly will pay off in time. At the very least, my employer expects me to treat him like any other employee.

Wes

SNIP

Hey Wes,

Ever hear the motto "Syntron Shakes the Nation". They were world leaders in the technology at one time. Don't know about now. I've seen some of their stuff that you could throw a specific bunch of fastener parts into the hopper, and it would sort the bolts by length, sort the nuts, and both washers and put them all in the proper place. Amazing.

Brian Lawson, Bothwell, Ontario.

So you'd spoil the guy's day by revealing that what he is discovering with great glee isn't special or secret but in fact rather mundane: elliptical vibration, been around for decades. Millennia, in fact, since some legless critters locomote that way.

Why screw up what may be a perfectly good dissertation topic for a Chinese PhD candidate?

We just feed one fastener type at a time but I have no doubt with the right ramp cut outs, air blows, and other tricks what you say can be done. No, I never heard the motto.

Are you going to NAMES this year?

Wes