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A DIY M&Ms and Skittles sorting machine

willemm.nl

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Re: A DIY M&Ms and Skittles sorting machine

#71

Post by Hello71 »

ThrustVectoring wrote: post #47
yesbabyyes wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to my friend, no; it could definitely do a "better" job to select the best grain. But obviously no one is interested in rejecting grain that could be legally sold. Further, I'm guessing that there will always be some trace amounts of heavy metals, poisons and such in any grains so it's necessarily about setting a limit and optimizing the mix for the largest clean yield (in itself an interesting problem sinc…

There's a similar issue, IMO, with new home construction. There's a minimum legal quality limit for having a home be sellable, and anything past that basically doesn't get done. It's made worse by the home evaluation metrics - square footage, bathrooms/bedrooms, and location are most of what matters for getting a mortgage (and thus for bidding on and pricing a house). Like, if you look closely at a 100 year old house…

I don't really think this has to do with legal limits; you could probably sell a hut as a "house" in most places if you wanted to, as long as it was compliant with the building codes. The problem isn't that the government won't let you call it that, the problem is that nobody will buy just a hut, they want an actual house.

While it may or may not be the case that 'house quality' has declined over the decades, that's driven by economic factors: do house buyers want to pay 1.2x or whatever for those extra details? I would conjecture that home developers are not stupid, and that they have tried adding those (presumably expensive) details, and found that they were unable to recoup those costs in an increased price.

Re: A DIY M&Ms and Skittles sorting machine

#72

Post by rmason »

jacobolus wrote: post #43
Drdrdrq wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But it doesn't just reject every bad seed, instead it will optimize to keep within legally accepted limits. This is just... I guess the emotion you feel when reading the last paragraph defines you as either technical guy (outrage / resignation, depending on your age and experience) or managerial guy (pure delight). I am guessing there is a switch that makes it sort properly, you know, for VIP?

In the 1970s, the USA sold a large amount of wheat to the USSR in a famous deal. The contract stipulated that the wheat would contain something like (I heard this from a friend whose friend knew something about it; in searching I can’t find a source online, so the story might be apocryphal. I also might be off on the precise percentage.)

Grain elevator contracts contain an allowed foreign material allowance. Farmer's bringing in their grain get docked for any foreign material. Then the elevators add foreign material to the grain as train cars are loaded. It's crazy but that's just how the industry has always worked.

Re: A DIY M&Ms and Skittles sorting machine

#73

Post by [deleted] »

jacquesm wrote: post #60
taneq wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just remember that the moment you stick an Ethernet port or WiFi connection on it, security becomes just as important again.

Networking this particular device is useless so not planning on that, but yes, you're 100% right. Many producers of SCADA stuff and industrial controllers that worked just fine as long as they were isolated have found this out the hard way over the last couple of years. And I don't doubt that there are many still to come, insecure protocols, world-open ports whose only protection is that probably nobody knows what si…

[deleted]

Re: A DIY M&Ms and Skittles sorting machine

#74

Post by WalterBright »

ThrustVectoring wrote: post #47
yesbabyyes wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to my friend, no; it could definitely do a "better" job to select the best grain. But obviously no one is interested in rejecting grain that could be legally sold. Further, I'm guessing that there will always be some trace amounts of heavy metals, poisons and such in any grains so it's necessarily about setting a limit and optimizing the mix for the largest clean yield (in itself an interesting problem sinc…

There's a similar issue, IMO, with new home construction. There's a minimum legal quality limit for having a home be sellable, and anything past that basically doesn't get done. It's made worse by the home evaluation metrics - square footage, bathrooms/bedrooms, and location are most of what matters for getting a mortgage (and thus for bidding on and pricing a house). Like, if you look closely at a 100 year old house…

My house has a number of details that would never be put in a spec house, because only someone like me would be willing to pay for them. I expect when this house is sold, it will garner a 0% premium for those features.

For example, it has GFCI breakers for all circuits, not just the bathroom ones. For another, it has a stainless steel sill plate (which keeps wood boring insects from coming up through cracks in the foundation).

Re: A DIY M&Ms and Skittles sorting machine

#75

Post by analog31 »

Animats wrote: post #11

Here's the commercial version.[1] This machine is sorting peas by color. Peas. Individual peas. Each individual pea is examined by cameras for size, color, and looking like a pea. Rejects are kicked into the reject hopper by an air jet. There are machines like this for most fruit. Typical throughput is a ton per hour. Most fruit and berries go through such machines today. That's why the fruit at the supermarket is so…

Long ago I visited a company that made agricultural sorting equipment. They were trying to develop a new machine for sorting ears of corn. Among the requirements, the machine had to be capable of rejecting a dead rat.

My partners and I were bidding to design the machine... we didn't get the job.

Re: A DIY M&Ms and Skittles sorting machine

#76

Post by niij »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #58
ue_ wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't sound like a very nice thing to do. I wonder if capitalism is to blame, as I would certainly blame capitalism, or good old fashioned egotistical rivalry that I'm told was common in many areas of life then between the USSR and the US. I'd say that feeding humans or even livestock is more important than profits. Or at least, it ought to be.

Or classical capitalism, because 99 ton of wheat plus one ton of sand is one ton of wheat cheaper than 100 tons of wheat. Sand is heavy and cheap.

Perhaps it's 1% by volume instead of by weight.

Re: A DIY M&Ms and Skittles sorting machine

#77

Post by aaron695 »

jacobolus wrote: post #43
Drdrdrq wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But it doesn't just reject every bad seed, instead it will optimize to keep within legally accepted limits. This is just... I guess the emotion you feel when reading the last paragraph defines you as either technical guy (outrage / resignation, depending on your age and experience) or managerial guy (pure delight). I am guessing there is a switch that makes it sort properly, you know, for VIP?

In the 1970s, the USA sold a large amount of wheat to the USSR in a famous deal. The contract stipulated that the wheat would contain something like (I heard this from a friend whose friend knew something about it; in searching I can’t find a source online, so the story might be apocryphal. I also might be off on the precise percentage.)

There's also the 'story' of the Japanese firm who included 10 broken 'X's' with the delivery of X, since the contract stated 10 broken X's per 10000.

I think you'll find neither story is true.

Like most Urban Legends it's a bit silly, people are people whatever the culture. They have common sense.

Re: A DIY M&Ms and Skittles sorting machine

#78

Post by [deleted] »

jfim wrote: post #61
taneq wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, kind of both. As an engineer I applaud the fact that it optimizes for maximum usage while remaining in-spec. I'd still hope they preferentially discard the really nasty stuff. A few slightly discoloured grains per kg is much better than an entire dead mouse every 100kg.

You'd be surprised how disgustingly high the legal limits are for food to be considered defective in the US, though. http://www.fda.gov/Food/GuidanceRegulation/GuidanceDocuments...

[deleted]

Re: A DIY M&Ms and Skittles sorting machine

#79

Post by nikcub »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #58
ue_ wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't sound like a very nice thing to do. I wonder if capitalism is to blame, as I would certainly blame capitalism, or good old fashioned egotistical rivalry that I'm told was common in many areas of life then between the USSR and the US. I'd say that feeding humans or even livestock is more important than profits. Or at least, it ought to be.

Or classical capitalism, because 99 ton of wheat plus one ton of sand is one ton of wheat cheaper than 100 tons of wheat. Sand is heavy and cheap.

I just happen to have bought some sand recently, and it isn't that cheap. Especially not the type of sand that you'd feel comfortable mixing into food.

Where I am, a ton of sand aggregate using in construction is ~$100 per ton. The better sand used in gardens, the brown sand (it's used to repel water so you don't over-water crops) is more than than.

Considering the wheat/ton spot price is $160 per ton at the moment, I don't think the actual prices would be too different.

[0] http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=wheat&month...

Re: A DIY M&Ms and Skittles sorting machine

#80

Post by fulafel »

ue_ wrote: post #53
jacobolus wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the 1970s, the USA sold a large amount of wheat to the USSR in a famous deal. The contract stipulated that the wheat would contain something like (I heard this from a friend whose friend knew something about it; in searching I can’t find a source online, so the story might be apocryphal. I also might be off on the precise percentage.)

That doesn't sound like a very nice thing to do. I wonder if capitalism is to blame, as I would certainly blame capitalism, or good old fashioned egotistical rivalry that I'm told was common in many areas of life then between the USSR and the US. I'd say that feeding humans or even livestock is more important than profits. Or at least, it ought to be.

A good compromise would have been to put a small bag of sand in the bottom of the container.
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