This is a project I did ten years ago, which earned me the first pot of gold in my life. You can refer to the example of code changing your life.
The thing to do is very simple, that is, cut off a piece of the round disc from the top and the bottom to make it into a drum shape. The cutting must be carried out according to the printed edge of the disc, and it cannot be crooked. The way of cutting is relatively easy, just click with a knife.
However, the disc is round, has a round center hole, and a round shape, which allows it to be rotated arbitrarily. It is not easy to rotate it to an accurate position by conventional means.
The technology at that time was to use manual positioning. After the positioning was accurate, a positioning hole was drilled on the disc with a bench drill, and every 10 discs were pierced into a column, which was fixed by the positioning hole. Install 4 columns each time, that is, 40 discs, and then use a multi-axis engraving machine to mill off the upper and lower sides. Because it is milling, there must be a lot of dust, and then you have to blow off the cut dust particles with an air gun against the disc. The whole process is extremely inefficient. 10,000 discs require several labors to complete. The equipment is also very large, multi-axis engraving machine, water cooling system, air compressor and so on.
So I used my ability to make a pioneering machine, use the camera to capture the image, perform visual recognition, find the current rotation angle of the disc, and send it to the single-chip microcomputer to control the rotation of the servo motor, so that the disc is aligned, and then capture The mechanism grabs it, moves it to the cutting table, and then grabs it and puts it away after the cutting table is cut. Of course, there must be a feeding system that can feed 100 pieces at a time, so that the entire process is automated. Manually only needs to load 100 discs at a time after the disc cutting is completed, and take away the cut 100 discs at the same time. There is no dust in the operation process, and the efficiency is also very high, 1000 pieces/hour. It also occupies a very small area, and a cutting system can be arranged on a 0.6-meter-square workbench.
The skills used include: mechanical structure design, single-chip microcomputer control (including hardware circuit and software writing), the computer terminal is written in Delphi, and the visual recognition algorithm is also manually hard-written in Delphi. At that time, there was no OPEN CV (I didn’t even know there was such a thing), and it was not like Python now has various libraries that can be called, which is very troublesome. This project uses all kinds of knowledge I have learned. It can be said that it is a collection of what I have learned throughout my life.
There was an episode in the middle. In order to speed up the progress, I found a part-time person to help me write the visual recognition algorithm, and I did other parts by myself. But what this person wrote is useless at all, the recognition process takes 5 or 6 seconds, and the angular accuracy can only be 5 degrees or worse. The algorithm I made myself can do it in 30 milliseconds on the Pentium 4 machine at that time, and the angular accuracy is better than 0.1 degrees
I named this machine the Mayflower, which is my hope for the future. The name of the Mayflower comes from that famous ship. This is also the first proud work of my life. After that, he made some proud works one after another, such as super-large 3D printers, which were sold to many universities and 3D exhibition halls, as well as 3D consumable extruders, 3-axis and 4-axis parallel robots, etc.
After the CD cutting machine was completed, I did not sell the machine, but did the cutting and processing myself to earn processing fees. It's a pity that the CD-ROM has come to an end, and this matter has been done for 3 years, and it is basically over.
Then there is a round of skills update that lasts for several years. In the past, the single-chip microcomputer used 51 and 430, and it was updated to STM32. The Protel99 used before was updated to AD. The machine used AutoCAD to be updated to SolidWorks and then updated to UG. Now it is called NX. Before programming I use Delphi, now I use Python, and I use OPENCV for visual recognition. This round of skill update is long and painful. Meals are not counted. I have to sit in front of the computer for more than 13 hours a day for study and work, and I basically don’t take a shower until 11:30 at night. sleep. This round of skill updating can basically keep up for 5 to 10 years. It's time to retire too.
Until now, I still do development by myself, write code, help customers customize products, make circuit boards or equipment, and then make my own 6-axis parallel robot in my free time. My way of coding has allowed me to support my family. Although I don’t earn much, I have a great sense of accomplishment. I make money to support my family and satisfy my hobbies. I feel very good.
The project video can also be watched directly at Station B
Automatic Disc Cutting Machine
Most of my previous projects were updated on Youku, and the projects I am doing are basically published on this site and Bilibili, Toutiao, and Douyin platforms. Among them, this site mainly focuses on technical articles, and the other platforms mainly focus on works. host. Welcome everyone to continue to pay attention.
#Automation# #Embedded# #机械# #电子# #STM32# #parallel robot# #Vision recognition# #OPENCV#