4 ms·

My issue with motors is that all of their problems seem mechanical in nature to me. I don't think anyone will really have a problem wiring up an H-bridge or wh

My issue with motors is that all of their problems seem mechanical in nature to me. I don't think anyone will really have a problem wiring up an H-bridge or whatever to run a motor. I'm personally wondering how to use the physical properties of a motor to like, move Magic The Gathering cards around, or other real world tasks. It very quickly becomes a mechanical levers / pullies / motion kinda problem, rather than electrical. And I have no idea how to study mechanical engineering. ------- Like: how does a damn printer pick up just one piece of paper? Yeah yeah, there is a motor involved, but it's not the hard or interesting part. There has to be little rotating mechanical fingers, the shape of the basin, the winding path the paper takes internally. Who designed that? How do I study that stuff?

sacrosancty 4y ago
A lot of that stuff is internal industry knowledge that people learn by working for a company that already does it. It probably started out with people experimenting. You don't learn that in a mechanical engineering degree. Though printers use rubber rollers on the top sheet in the pile so the friction between the rollers and sheet is greater than the friction between sheets and therefore only the top sheet is fed by the rollers.
- HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
  ...and often a second roller on the underside, slightly forward and running in the opposite direction to strip off any sheets that adhere to the top one.
HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
> Like: how does a damn printer pick up just one piece of paper? Ah, the task of Singulation! The answer is "with a lot of difficulty" :-) I used to work for a large corp whose specialty is building high-speed paper handling machines for offices and industry. It is a far harder task than it seems on the surface.
conductr 4y ago
This is a great point and where I spend most my time and 3D printing. The coupling between motor and desired function is 90% of any project for me.
relaxing 4y ago
>I'm personally wondering how to use the physical properties of a motor to like, move Magic The Gathering cards around I would use a suction gripper on a 2-axis CNC platform. > How do I study that stuff? Take a printer apart to see how it works. The pros do it, too.

sacrosancty 4y ago

A lot of that stuff is internal industry knowledge that people learn by working for a company that already does it. It probably started out with people experimenting. You don't learn that in a mechanical engineering degree. Though printers use rubber rollers on the top sheet in the pile so the friction between the rollers and sheet is greater than the friction between sheets and therefore only the top sheet is fed by the rollers.

HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago
...and often a second roller on the underside, slightly forward and running in the opposite direction to strip off any sheets that adhere to the top one.

HeyLaughingBoy 4y ago

> Like: how does a damn printer pick up just one piece of paper? Ah, the task of Singulation! The answer is "with a lot of difficulty" :-) I used to work for a large corp whose specialty is building high-speed paper handling machines for offices and industry. It is a far harder task than it seems on the surface.

conductr 4y ago

This is a great point and where I spend most my time and 3D printing. The coupling between motor and desired function is 90% of any project for me.

relaxing 4y ago

>I'm personally wondering how to use the physical properties of a motor to like, move Magic The Gathering cards around I would use a suction gripper on a 2-axis CNC platform. > How do I study that stuff? Take a printer apart to see how it works. The pros do it, too.