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 Replies: 26 / Views: 4,498 |
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Pillar of the Community
Australia
877 Posts |
I look forward to your next progress report.
Say 1st April next.
Jeff
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Valued Member
 Australia
465 Posts |
Yeup. Big chuckles. Big laughs all round. If you are not interested in what I am trying to attempt then please do not comment.
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Pillar of the Community
Australia
877 Posts |
Please don't get me wrong. I am very interested. I just have some doubts about the practicality and cost effectiveness of the project.
If it works out I will be first in line to buy a machine (or details of how to construct it).
A machine that can identify a 1966 wavey 2 20ยข would be rather sophisticated and could cost a lot of money to make. If it identifies every wavey then I might find two each year and they are worth a little over $200 each.
Jeff
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Valued Member
Australia
465 Posts |
It is more of a lesson in engineering for me. Not in it for the money (pun intended), I do not hope to retire out of it, more to learn different skills. Of course being interested in collecting coins and finding out more about them def helps. The thought of selling them for profit did not even occur to me.
BTW : Built the robot arm in the last two days. It is not going to be of much use, too much play in the movements and not enough control. Kids love it and I learnt a little from it, so nothing lost there. Kinda of what I thought it was going to be like. Will need to use stepper motors and more sensitive control methods. Onwards and upwards :-)
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Pillar of the Community
Australia
518 Posts |
Dibby any news on this project?
250th Post :)
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Valued Member
Australia
65 Posts |
Hey Dibby. My partner suggested a conveyor belt type thing rather than a robotic arm, using gravity to drop the coins on the belt. Thoughts I had about that though were - how would you make sure the coins were in the same position ie all top of heads pointing north etc but I guess it's just so your camera or micro can take the pics then you look through right? In which case you can rotate the images. Anyway I'll keep thinking... Keep the updates coming  |
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Valued Member
Australia
465 Posts |
The robot died. My four year old knocked it off the table and the arm detached from the base. LOL. Trust me, if you knew my daughter (my youngest) you would just laugh. It was not going to be able to be precise enough anyway, will have to make a real one. Good learning experience (on many levels) so nothing lost. The conveyour belt is good, but how to get the images from both sides? I was thinking about feeding the coins in using 2x2 holders which have glass inserted in the middle with the plastic cut out. This way they are always in the middle of the picture no matter what size and with two cameras both sides can be viewed. This is only one idea though - plenty more. Need to keep it simple. I am always being too complex. With the image, it should (  ) be easy to turn the picture around. I think that the date is always in the same place, I could use that. The Queen keeps getting older - so that is no help. Clear conveyor belt, glass slides... The robot arm was to place them in different piles / bins for later sorting. A belt made from 2x2 holders... Needs to be reliable / exact... Ideas are good, keep them coming Concerned :-) |
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Valued Member
Australia
465 Posts |
Progress report : Slow lol - been too busy to do much, the complexity is not as bad now I have had a few months to think about it. I will be unemployed (company got sold) in a month and I will have some spare time (hopefully!) to get draft rig number 1 up and running. This will be two usb microscopes taking photos manually placed on a 2x2 holder. Photo to be stored in a database which will have a c#.net front end placed on it for browsing and entering details of the coin. I have got a source for much more accurate stepper motor system (usb controlled) which I will be looking at for rig number 2. Feeding of the coins in and rotating them (manually controlled) and ejecting them all to the same bin. Anybody out there clued up on image recognition software  |
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Pillar of the Community
Australia
552 Posts |
Dilby There is recognition software developed specifically to identify forged coins I looked into it a while back......Think project was called COIN.....not so easy to setup Without being negative I don't think you can ever remove the human element from this equation For starters, software can differentiate items if they are identical but vary in minor aspects With coins, you have several factors that need to addressed For example you can have an identical 1984 $1 roo coin, one uncirculated, one well worn but no different in terms of Cuds of varitiations The software will scream this circulated coin is completely different becuase it does not know how to differetiate grade...do you see what I mean? Seconadly, the placement of coin ould need to precise or else other factors come into play like reflection, contrast etc My recommendation in terms of automation is to fill a A$ scanner glass full of coins, scan, they use software to analyse with the aid of he human eye...this alone saves quite a bit of time performing repitive tasks Anyway, this has been my experience thusfar in my endeavours to automate noodling process That said I hope I'm wrong and you succeed in your endeavour |
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Valued Member
Australia
465 Posts |
Thanks MrCruise, I am open to suggestions! I am aware of the level of complexity involved here. I LOVE the A4 scanner idea. Two scanners with a sliding tray between them? Could do about 100 5c coins in one shot. I need to do a time and motion study. Worked with shovels, should work with coins  |
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New Member
United States
38 Posts |
A few ideas for you:
Gravity feed would be simplest, with a solenoid-activated gate (similar to those on coin comparators) to stop the coin for scanning, and an adjustable side rail to center the coin vertically on the scan bed. After it is scanned and processed, it can either drop into your reject bucket or get kicked into another bucket by a second solenoid controlled gate. Two opposed cameras would be ideal to keep you from having to flip coins, or you could use two cameras in sequence although that would mean more moving parts and the delay of having to stop the coins twice.
Earlier today I saw a reference to a program which shows the number of degrees of rotation of a coin over in the Canadian forums. You could probably use that to handle rotation. After you've got that sorted out, go to a database that looks for date first, saving all of the key dates, and cascade down through if-then commands on all of the non-key dates to look for condition using key points similar to fingerprint analysis software.
Edited to add: You might also be able to reverse engineer the software from a counterfeit bill detector for your needs.
Edited by Engineer
04/27/2012 04:29 am
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First Page
Posted 10/14/2011 03:59 am
