The complete mechanical project ended with the following appearance when fully assembled.
The project was reduced from the original idea of 5 modules to 4, and each one is described below.
In the candy storage section, up to four liters of each type of candy can be stored, with holes next to the front that take the candies that fall to the next section of the machine. The candy storage also have a lid attached to the top by cabinet hinges (indicate by yellow) fixed on the right compartment wall. The lid will be locked by a padlock (indicated in red), which will be attached to the back wall of the storages.
The candies fall from the holes above to the inside of a pipe with an Archimedes’ Screw inside, that is driven by a 100 RPM DC motor to push the required amount of candies to the next section. The Arquimedes’ screw will be printed in a 3D printer. Although is not shown in the image, we will very likely use pipe’s connectors to connect the top hole of the tube with the bottom hole of the storages, so there is not risk of candies falling out of the tubes.
In the following view from above (without the pipes), it’s possible to see the DC motors with their gearboxes, and the holes under the mechanism that take the candies that fall to the next section of the machine.
In this section, the candies requested by the customer are stored inside some sort of cups, waiting for payment and acceptance, or rejection. Each of the cups is turned by a servomotor, and have a bearing on the other side. These cups will also be printed in a 3D printer and have an internal angle of 45°, so there is no risk of candies being stuck inside them after they are turned 90° by the motors.
This is the main section of the machine. Here we have the power source and the power strip, the PCB and the Raspberry Pi 4. In the front panel are the camera and the display. The rejected candies fall from the mechanism above to the boxes, and the accepted candies fall to the ramp and will be collected by the customer.
