Automatic Sorting Machine Makes Beadwork Enjoyable Again
Redditor Dumjim built this Arduino-controlled automatic bead sorting machine to organize their beadwork supplies.
There are few tasks in this world more demoralizing than sorting through large quantities of small objects. That is especially true of the tiny multicolored beads that crafters use for beadwork. When you buy a package of beads, they come sorted into individual containers. But soon enough, you end up with piles of hundreds of beads mixed together into a frustrating rainbow. To organize their collection and make beadwork enjoyable again, Redditor Dumjim built this automatic bead sorting machine.
This contraption is very similar to the M&M sorting machine that we featured many years ago. The mixed beads go into a hopper on the top of the machine. They then feed down through a chute one at a time. A servo motor turns a wheel that grabs a single bead and places it under a sensor. A second servo motor then positions an output chute to point at the bin corresponding to that bead's color. Finally, the wheel turns to drop that bead down the output chute. The process simply repeats until all of the beads reside in their proper containers.
The real magic is how the machine detects the color of a bead. For this, Dumjim turned to a tried-and-true technique. If you shine a white light at an object, you can then measure the intensity of the reflected light in the red, green, and blue portions of the spectrum. The ratios will correspond to a standard RGB color value. Dumjim used an Arduino Uno board to control the servo motors and the color sensor — likely something similar to Adafruit's TCS34725 RGB Sensor. Dumjim designed the machine's frame and mechanisms in Autodesk Inventor CAD software and then 3D-printed them to assemble this prototype.
