Very cool... did it save you money 3D printing it or was it just the cool factor?

MACS wrote:

A professor in school once told me: "A good engineer is a lazy engineer." I'll never forget his advice.

Moral of a story:
1) Find the easiest way to solve the problem.
2) Create ways to minimize work.

BuckyB93 wrote:

Very cool

ZRX1200 wrote:

I got my bullet collator working. I 3D printed the plastic parts and assembled them today. The link below is a short video of the collator dropping 9mm projectiles into a tube that will be connected to a die on a loading press. The purpose is to place a bullet on top of a charged case before the bullet is seated in a loading press.

Gene363 wrote:

I know almost nothing about ammunition, but that was really cool to watch. It's a big-time time saver isn't it? You made that yourself with a 3D printer???

rfenst wrote:

Yes, the large round plastic bin is one 71 hour print job, the rotating disk was printed overnight, and other bits took anywhere from forty minutes to a few hours. All from 3D models developed by others, all I had to do was put them in a slicing program set up for my printer. The slicing program then makes an instruction file for each layer, including fill rate, fill structure, wall thickness etc. Then that file is fed into the printer.

The gear motor is a stock item along with the speed controller and other bits of electronics and hardware used to assemble the parts and wire it all up. This one uses a microswitch to turn the motor on and off as the feed tube empties, I have another that uses a light sensor and I'm making a third that uses a proximity sensor to detect the metal of a case or bullet.

Gene363 wrote:

Very, very cool!
What type(s) of engineering did you used to do?

rfenst wrote:

A professor in school once told me: "A good engineer is a lazy engineer." I'll never forget his advice.

Moral of a story:
1) Find the easiest way to solve the problem.
2) Create ways to minimize work.

BuckyB93 wrote:

I'm a machinist, and many moons ago an engineer told me "Work smarter, not harder"....excellent advice that has
carried me throughout my career.
I worked hard at becoming the "laziest" machinist I know...also one of the most efficient, in our shop
Well, that and leaving my cellphone in my locker during my shift...most of the time8-[

RMAN4443 wrote:

Almost makes one want to get back into reloading.

Burner02 wrote: