Check out some 'pick and place' machines used for surface mount devices. The same thing could be done with a 'vacuum pickup' as the CNC router device. Vacuum pick up a ball, take it over to a 'tub' of hot glue, possibly kept on a hot plate, dip the bottom portion of the sphere in the hot glue, then rapidly take it to the 'final resting place', and push it down into place firmly. Release the vacuum hold, return to pick up point.
And as they say on the shampoo bottle: 'wash, rinse, repeat'. If you have good 'shop air', I could see using a venturi vacuum generator to operate the pickup (unless you happen to have a vacuum pump around). A couple of surplus electrically operated air valves would do the trick. I would probably put a small amount of silicone caulk on the bottom of the pickup (and let it skin over or solidify for a days or so) just to make a good seal on the ball bearings/marbles. Similar to buildyourcnc.com/PickandPlaceMachineTheredFrog.aspx or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CqpbsTfVtM ><> ... Jack Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart... Colossians 3:23 "You don't manage people; you manage things. You lead people." — Admiral Grace Hopper, USN "If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the precipitate" - Henry J. Tillman "Anyone who has never made a mistake, has never tried anything new." - Albert Einstein On Tue, Oct 9, 2012 at 4:52 AM, craig <cr...@facework.com> wrote: > I have a CNC related problem. > > I am making small decorative personal gifts using thin wood (5-6mm - 1/4 > inch thick) and 6mm diameter colored glass balls (small marbles). > > A pattern of shaped holes is cut in the wood with a small cnc router > using 2 tools. A 1/4 ball nose mill cuts to approximately 4mm depth. A > 3/16 tool then cuts the rest of the way through he wood. additional > surface patterns may also be cut. > > The balls are then glued into the holes with a clear adhesive ( > currently a thinned clear caulking compound). > > The resulting items are interesting viewed directly or back-lit. > > > The problem: > > The marbles are currently glued in by hand. > Painting the glue into the holes, placing the ball and pressing it > down gets tedious. > > I would like to automate this process by replacing the spindle with > other equipment. > > I can automate the pick and placement of the balls. ( spheres may be > the easiest item to pick and place) > > But I have not found a good way to automate the gluing process > inexpensively. > > suggestions? Thoughts? > > > Any help would be appreciated. > > Craig > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Don't let slow site performance ruin your business. Deploy New Relic APM > Deploy New Relic app performance management and know exactly > what is happening inside your Ruby, Python, PHP, Java, and .NET app > Try New Relic at no cost today and get our sweet Data Nerd shirt too! > http://p.sf.net/sfu/newrelic-dev2dev > _______________________________________________ > Emc-users mailing list > Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Don't let slow site performance ruin your business. Deploy New Relic APM Deploy New Relic app performance management and know exactly what is happening inside your Ruby, Python, PHP, Java, and .NET app Try New Relic at no cost today and get our sweet Data Nerd shirt too! http://p.sf.net/sfu/newrelic-dev2dev _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
