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Old 21st Apr 2021, 11:08 am   #1
dave walsh
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Default Counting Components

Older Forum members may recall an edition of the Radio Constructor in which "Smithy" explained to his young assistant Dick how resistors/capacitors [or was it condensers then ?] were quantified in the factory environment by weight approximation using scales in a 99-1 ratio [or something like that]. I mentioned this to the very experienced "old school" guy working on my roof today and he said "Oh yes, using a balance!" I don't think he worked in the Radio Industry but he knew the technique.

The article came to mind because I'd seen the over-excited Jeremy Vine trying to explain, this morning, what only 32 Covid cases looked like against 74 thousand hospital admissions, using rice just in case viewers couldn't work it out for themselves. He claimed that his research assistant had spent a day counting 74k grains Well that aside and given a need for artistic license/entertainment etc it all seemed very patronising when, for example, a thousand grains in a cup could have easily been replicated [by weight or eye] 74 times! Measuring out one by one wouldn't have done at all in the period when Radios were hand built. "Time is money" as they say and that was Smithy's point in the article I suppose.

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Old 21st Apr 2021, 11:13 am   #2
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Default Re: Counting Components

Look up counting scale.
They are used in industry for small components like screws and so-on.
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Old 21st Apr 2021, 11:22 am   #3
dave walsh
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Default Re: Counting Components

Oh right! Well I did think is it the same approach or something electronic these days. I know there is an emphasis on entertainment overall but I wonder if it would even have ever occurred to anyone on the [TV] production team that there might be an easier way to complete the task

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Old 21st Apr 2021, 11:44 am   #4
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Default Re: Counting Components

My long-closed local hardware & tool shop used to have one of these. That was in the days when you could just go in and get as many (or as few) as you needed rather than buying a box of 200.

When I salvaged large quantities of loose small fasteners from the production line racks when my Marconi site closed, I used our electronic kitchen scales to estimate quantities. I took typically a set of 10 items as the reference, as the scales only have 2g resolution. No way was I going to individually count what turned out to be nearly 2000 M3 press nuts!

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Old 21st Apr 2021, 11:47 am   #5
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Default Re: Counting Components

I'd hope so!

The only justification for counting 74,000 of something numerically when it could be counted by weight, is if you wanted 74,000 exactly and not 73,999 or 74,001 - and in that case, it would need to be checked by another person anyway to guard against the (strong) possibility of miscounting.

Counting scales do indeed exist, and are cheap now - a few button pushes and it knows the weight of one, so tip a pile on and it'll do a quick internal ratio.
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Old 21st Apr 2021, 12:09 pm   #6
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Default Re: Counting Components

If you do want to get precise, there is something more amazing.. hypnotic even.
The vibrating spiral component dispenser.

Components (screws, grains of rice, whatever) sit in a well. As the whole thing vibrates, they climb a spiral moulded into the wall around the well, excess falling down a layer until one by one they fall out a lip at the top. Easy meat for an optical counter.

Jeremy Vine is too depressing for me to want to listen to.

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Old 21st Apr 2021, 12:26 pm   #7
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Default Re: Counting Components

Ah, the bowl feeder, with judicious machining of the track you can also orient components, ready for use, wrong way round one fall off ready for another go. A gate at the end hold them back until required, you can "stall" these without consequence. And to keep on topic they are often used in mass electronic assembly.
 
Old 21st Apr 2021, 12:41 pm   #8
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Default Re: Counting Components

I have seen bowl feeders in the past mostly feeding a screwdriver via an umbilical.
Things like resistors were bandolier fed to reduce problems with bent leads.
Lockfit transistors are the sort of thing that might have been bowl fed in their day.
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Old 21st Apr 2021, 1:12 pm   #9
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Default Re: Counting Components

In places I've worked I've also seen bowl feeders for various feeds, including making switches and other electromechanical devices.
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Old 21st Apr 2021, 1:19 pm   #10
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Default Re: Counting Components

Electromechanical parts did work well in bowl feeders.
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Old 21st Apr 2021, 1:21 pm   #11
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Default Re: Counting Components

For sure the ‘counting’ would have been done by weight. It’s normal for Jeremy Vine and his scriptwriters to invent stories for the purpose of an entertaining illustration. The story even included losing count at 25,000 because of an interrupting phone call!

Still it conveyed the message of the spectacular effectiveness of vaccination in reducing hospital admissions.

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Old 21st Apr 2021, 1:55 pm   #12
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Default Re: Counting Components

I've wondered how those machines in banks work, the ones cashiers use where they can tell if a wad of notes is correct, presumably by weighing them.

They will count out manually say 200 or 300 in tens and then just stick the whole bunch on one of these things. How something can differentiate the weight of one note out of many is amazing I think.
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Old 21st Apr 2021, 2:25 pm   #13
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Default Re: Counting Components

That is interesting. My wife pointed out that the rest point when you pay via the machine in a supermarket etc is a scale and has a very fine differentiation [If it works "please remove the item"]. I find they seldom behave for me, like computers!

I did once work as a clerk in the Civil Service. Moving to Hull I was a relief Benefits Cashier at the docks for two weeks, instead of working at the Employment Exchange, paying out [manually] on the Waterfront to Fishermen between trips in the North Atlantic. We went to them-it was easier all round. £3000 [a fortune then] paid out in notes over an afternoon at the end of the week was hard work and left your hands black and greasy. The Cod [straight from a trawler] and chips at lunch made up for it though.

I only saw Mr Vine by accident honest! It was good that vaccination was being encouraged [sort of] but the people who can't wait to open up didn't help. Jeremy once hosted an International Phone In re World Religions, wearing a Canary Yellow suit! I waited only for Jonathan Miller to appear but he'd walked off in disgust before it began. Not Television's greatest moment! Something like the rice sketch might have been a welcome relief on that occasion.

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Old 21st Apr 2021, 3:12 pm   #14
Malcolm G6ANZ
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Default Re: Counting Components

The same method is used to count pills and tablets. The machine weighs one tablet then can calculate the weight for ,say, 100 tablets. ( https://www.precisa.co.uk/pill-count...-pill-counter/ )

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Old 21st Apr 2021, 4:22 pm   #15
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Default Re: Counting Components

Counting by weight was used for the all the nuts, bolts, washers and set screws at the electrical wholesalers that I worked for in my teens. Mind things like nails were sold by weight then. Sadly for me this type of item had to be individually counted at my last job in later life.

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Old 21st Apr 2021, 8:29 pm   #16
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Default Re: Counting Components

Nails/tacks in particular, were traditionally sold by the pound in old-fashioned "Arkwright"-type hardware-stores.

I recall bandolier-supplied SMD components being "counted" by the metre in some cases!
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Old 22nd Apr 2021, 12:50 am   #17
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Default Re: Counting Components

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mooly View Post
I've wondered how those machines in banks work, the ones cashiers use where they can tell if a wad of notes is correct, presumably by weighing them.
The self service ones can detect and reject notes with folds in them so they must be using image recognition. I've seen cashiers weigh bags of coins though.
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Old 22nd Apr 2021, 4:11 am   #18
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Default Re: Counting Components

Don't know if it is still done, but when you got paint mixed up, they used to use the same procedure of weighing to get the mix right.

One of my suppliers bought a couple of ex paint store scales (complete with paint runs and drips) for weighing components - it could weigh down to 0.01 of a gram.

Stick 10 components on, tell it that it was weighing ten and it would happily tell you how many of that component you were sticking on all day, just do the initial weight again when you changed to a different component and carry on.
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Old 22nd Apr 2021, 9:14 am   #19
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Default Re: Counting Components

there's a photo in 'The Setmakers' at Pye I think in the stores showing them counting components by weight.
I have one of those counting scale thingies here (actually a large digital lab platform scale) that weighs one and then tells you how many there are in your batch. Useful and not generally included in domestic cookery scales.
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Old 22nd Apr 2021, 10:40 am   #20
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Default Re: Counting Components

Well I did what I should have done at the start, ask Mr Google

Seems they are readily available. This one shows 29 notes of £20. £580 in all.

I wonder how much the banks pay for theirs...
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