“The Background
I already explained the motivation of my project in the Card Feeder article. But in short, my children and I have amassed a large amount of Trading Cards by now. The handling, sorting, etc. is very difficult with these quantities. We have already tried it, but we gave up frustrated. For this reason I want to build a Trading Card Machine, which should take on different tasks.
Trading Cards should automatically be
managed (Which cards do I have?, Which ones are missing?)
sorted (Block, Language, Set, Series, etc)
rated (How valuable are my cards?, How much money do I have to spend for a full set?)
traded (Buy and Sell)
Because of this ambitious goals, I decided to split the huge machine into 3 parts.
Card Feeder - a machine which grab and transport a single card out of a card stack
Card Scanner - a part where the cards will be analyzed
Card Sorter - a machine which will store the identified cards
This Instructable is about the 3rd part, the Card Sorter. Cards that have passed through the machine will be stored in the Card Sorter. The decision on what is sorted is made by the Card Scanner. The Card Sorter is only responsible for the right place to store the cards.
The focus of the Trading Card Machine is currently on the World of Warcraft Trading Cards, as we have by far the most cards from this type. That’s why I designed the Card Sorter so that every set has its own storage compartment. There were 21 sets in the WoW universe, so I need space for 21 + 1 storage opportunities. The additional tray is for cards that were not recognized by the Card Scanner or that could not be assigned to the Card Sorter.
There are many ways to do it.
It was important to me:
as few mechanical and electrical parts as possible
to use gravity
cool look
a lot of movement
visible movement
It was NOT important to me:
space saving, lightweight, portable
effective or fast
After many considerations and a few sleepless nights, I had decided on the following variant:
The Card Feeder is in the middle at the highest position and put the cards on a ramp. These then slide down into the Card Scanner. After the Scanner, the cards slide down over a ramp into one of the 22 compartments. These 22 storage areas are arranged in a circle around the center and can be positioned by a motor to the ramp accordingly.
Exactly this part I want to show you.
Let’s do it!
In this instructable I will show you Part 3 - How to create the Card Sorter.”