Needed A Project

So following in my hoarding thread. I decided I wanted to make my own sorter. I don't want to fork out $400+ for a rydale cause once I get to a certain point I'm just going to casually sort silvers. So I figured this would give me a good project to work on.

Surprisingly I couldn't find a lot of How to's for making one of these other than buy "this" and fashion some crap outta cardboard and plastic bottles. So I'm going to try my best to document something of a how to for the one I make, hopefully to help others with this endeavor.

For starters the core of the sorter relies in how you determine Copper Vs Zinc / Silver Vs Clad.

From what I read there are two real feasible ways to do this. by weight and by Eddy Current (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddy_current)

For me the weight option was out due to the speed at which I want this machine to sort. A great example of a by weight sorter can be seen here. This is however a much cheaper and simpler solution to build. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6dYza7E9_c)

So I chose to go with a Eddy Current comparator, like this one. (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...RTQ:US:1123)

It works on the principle that you give it an example of what to sort for (true) to be sent one way and it will throw all the coins that are not similar to the example (false) the other way. example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pANmastNB24

Now all I need to do is build the housing, the feed assembly, a hopper, and suspend it high enough for a tray for "true" and "False" collection system.

Out of the likely candidates for a housing material (Steel, Aluminum, Plexiglas, Wood, Cardboard) I chose Plexiglas for its ease of use, cost, durability, weight, and I don't want a big clunky wood box.

As for the feed system I am going to use an existing coin sorter (sorts by denomination). I chose this one that I had laying around the house. Runs on an direct power source. not batteries. (http://www.amazon.com/MISC-4860-Dig...2004&sr=8-1)

there is also a similar model. (http://www.amazon.com/Ultra-Sorter-...2004&sr=8-3) But this one requires batteries, and I want something a little less volatile. I want to just have one power source for the whole unit. I could buy this and make a power board for it... but I already had this one. It would be easy to convert a battery system to an A/C system.

out of the selected unit I will be using the following parts;

the feeding disk (large circle that rotates and moves the coins)
the motor assembly and carriage
the tray system that separates the denominations
the rear housing of the unit (holding most of it together.)
and somehow I will rig the light sensor system so I can have a digital counter for the unit.

The comparator is scheduled to arrive today so I will be getting the Plexiglas after work. Most likely this will include a couple trips to radio shack as well, since I will probably have to build a power board to incorporate it all together.

Stay tuned. I will be including pictures as I go.

I will also try to include specs (voltage, speed, cost, tools) and dimensions of parts I needed to cut or use.

Hope someone at least finds this interesting.