BCD11 wrote:thripp wrote:Is that a straight chute? The Ryedale has a curved chute and I wonder if it jams up more because of that. It seems like I have to clean it every 50,000 pennies.
Hi thripp,
It is a straight chute coming off the hopper. At the comparitor end the plane of the coin changes to vertical so it can drop straight into the acceptance slot of the comparitor with no "rattle" as madwest once called it.
thripp
The ryedale slide is curved so as to transition the angle from the cube hopper output to the angle of the comparator input. BCD11's chute is so different from the ryedale because of how the coin exits his SGT hopper -vs- how a coin exits the Suzo-Happ cube hopper that the ryedale uses. The SGT hopper is angled from vertical. The Suzo-Happ hopper is angled from horizontal. As a result, the ryedale slide relies on the coin sliding along on its face before going vertical. BCD11's chute relies more on the coin sliding (or even rolling) along in its edge before going vertical. Both are susceptible to gunking up, but the slide (ryedale) approach is less tolerant of the gunking whereas the chute (BCD11) approach can tolerate it a bit more.
Just as BCD11 says, one of the best favors you can do for yourself is to get the coin going as close to vertical as possible for whatever type of chute/slide you come up with. If you can get your coin freefalling straight down, it won't slap around when it goes into the comparator. If your feed rate is very slow, your machine would tolerate the delay that results when that happens. But, if your feed rate is fast, the next coin comes along and you have a clog at the comparator inlet. The clog then results in a jam.
Material selection wise, I really like the hotwheels track because of its chemistry. It is some form of polyethylene (or maybe polypropylene) and therefore inherently non-stick. It will never need dri-slide. It also does not exchange ions with copper as readily as aluminum or the other popular plastics (like abs) and therefore doesn't build up the static charge that can hold dust/grit and deliver annoying zzzaps to you and/or your comparator. Plexiglass is very easy to work with and is fairly non-stick when it is new. Once it gets scratched up, it will need dri-slide or it won't perform well. Acrylic is a bit harder than plexiglass but otherwise will behave very similar. ABS will perform similar to the other clear plastics, but will tend to gather a static charge. Aluminum will perform like the hard plastics (non-stick when smooth or polished, need dri-slide as its shine wears away) but could be one of the worst for building static charge. Plated steel (nickel or chrome plate) would be good when new/smooth but need dri-slide as it wears.
I challenge Andy
to come up with a teflon slide for his customers.