Engineering A Mechanical Bolt Sorting Machine So You Dont Have To | 3D Printed
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- Опубліковано 26 січ 2025
- Fully 3D Printed mechanical bolt / screw sorting device available for free!
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M3 Version:
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M6 Version:
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Absolutely love the problem solving in this project, and the video production is amazing!!
Thank you! really means alot to get good feedback from such an experienced creator!
Mr. Staton made a honor posting here because EmGI deserve it.
@@EmGi_happy this space exists and there are awesome people in it that use the Internet for better
Would it not assist if it were motorised to maintain a set speed that works best?
Hundreds of hours of design to save 2 minutes? I'M IN !
Ditto.
Yeah, but it's 2min saved for everyone who makes and uses it.
That's the spirit.
The urge to spend hours to fix a minutes problem
2 minutes if you have 10 bolts. now to 10,000
Nicely done. You had me at, "instead of spending 2 minutes sorting them manually, i will spend hundreds of hours building a device that does the job for me." Truer words have never been said. 👍
Absolutely
And problem solving is wayyyy more fun than bolt sorting.
Same goes for software engineering: "Five hours of debugging can save you a good 5 min of reading documentation" 😅
It's an engineer thing!
The only way forward in my opinion!!!!!😂
Rendering the Animations almost killed my PC so i did the necessary and bought a New 3D printer
I had a similar problem, I needed new tires for my car, so I bought AMS
That's how complex renders are made these days: you print out the scene, let physics do the baking, and film it. Scan the scene with a 3d scanner, then texture and render the frames. Voila 😂
This is some impressive piece of engineering, btw!
Lol
What software did you use for the animations? They look amazing
Thank you! they were done in blender 4.2
Now make a pre-sorter that sorts different diameters.
So your desk looks like "Let's Game it out" Satisfactory session when everything is chained together.
Oh and everything needs to operated by a single lever of course...
The lever must be operated by an AI-controlled motor that determines peak velocity for all the sorters simultaneously.
You'll need another tier for threads per inch.
@@tommy8716These are metric bolts, so it'll be thread pitch rather than tpi (e.g. 1.5mm per thread)
@@HydroculatorYou don't need AI for that.
@@bobweiram6321but AI is an important unnecessary added complication!!
This has huge potential by attaching a motor to the handle which would allow you to run it at a constant speed without the need to do it yourself. PEAK LAZINESS!, additionally a little cam could be use to jiggle to feeder plate.
I am a robotics teacher. This will be extremely handy when we go to take apart our robots. Sorting nuts and bolts is the most tedious part of my job. I may need to modify the files, but thank you so much for this.
I would pay quite a lot of money for the 3D print files of a sorter for our robotics screws (Vex Robotics)
@ that’s what we use as well. If I can make it work I’ll post a link to the files.
It should be reasonably easy to motorize this as well to run basically autonomously. You could even experiment with adding some vibration to the whole thing to make the hopper more reliable in case it gets stuck too often.
@@acerqua24 i am on a vex team to and when I saw this, that was the first thing I think about I’m still trying to find one that will fit the screws. I think they’re around like an M4.
@acerqua24 I am a competitor in High School VRC. I am actively working on designing a sorting mechanism inspired by this video, I'll add a link to this thread once I'm done.
The 3D renders made this piece so understandable and easy to watch! Thank you for making this! Truly your best work so far!!!
Thank you for the kind words!
XD Instant Sub. "Instead of spending a few minutes sorting the screws manually, I spent hundreds of hours building a machine that will do it for me". That's modern engineering in a nutshell, and I love it.
Amazing project!
Danke :)
Something to consider for future designs, while most people don't have a bare motor, basically everyone has a drill.
Speed is the consideration
@@techristopher8077 you could use a gearbox reduction but that would definitly add to the complexity
@@ultrapim1 You say this like that's not his primary motivator
@@techristopher8077 this design would not have worked attaches directly to a drill no. But he said he was originally thinking about using motors, but wanted something anyone could use without have to buy a motor and bunch of electronics.
I found that odd because the motor and electronics for this could be had pretty cheaply and easily
I ordered one to modify a tool at my work for $30 and it comes with a gearbox that slows it down to 27 rpm and puts out 3.6 ft lbs
This thing wouldn't need nearly that much
You know its gonna be a great video if a Paulaner Spezi is opened.
Bayern
Turning a 2 minutes job to a 2 days job is the real engineering.
2 minutes only if you have a handful of bolts. This is for professionals who do this thing regularly so that they won't have to lose 2 days.
Holy shit! How do you only have 5k subscribers?
Your video production is amazing. The animations are stellar! Great demonstration of your thought processes and problem solving.
All things considered I really don't think you have over engineered this. Compared to other solutions I have seen there are no redundant operations. Well done!
6:51 Small tip for how to remove the bolts from a single container with multiple compartments: Hold something flat over all but the outermost compartment and empty that compartment. Repeat with the second outermost compartment, etc.
Great job!
A vibratory motor on the hopper will drastically reduce the bolts sticking.
Spending hundreds of hours now to save thousands of hours later is always the better choice. Thank you
GENIUS!
at work we'd spend DAYS sorting hardware.
What you need now is a dedicated head-sorter and THICKNESS sorter. 10-32, 8-32, 1/4-20, 3/8
panheads, machine screws
This is cool. Now we just need the following; a way to separate colour (silver and black), head type (pan, countersunk and button), tool type(hex, torx, phillips etc) and nuts by colour, size and type(nylon grip or standard).
In any case I will still make this. I will probably motorise it as I like the idea of dumping a handful of bolts in the hopper and coming back later to find them all sorted as if by magic. Really cool work, subbed.
This is honestly nothing short of amazing. The ingenuity of the finished product working had me in awe. Subbed!
All the keyboard cowboys can say how it could be better. I say it's AWESOME and a joy simply to watch the video. I only wish I had your design skills, patience and command of a foreign language. Nicely done, sir. Nicely done indeed.
Thank you 🫡
3 years ago I told my coworker “we need a machine to sort these bolts, if we can sort coins we can sort bolts”
Thank you for proving me right 😁
Super sleek! Needs a clacker to give the hopper a little smack from underneath every cycle to help keep things moving for those stubborn ones.
Overthinking and overengineering have special place in my heart! Thanks! Great video :-)
spending hours and hours designing a solution that maybe 3 other people in the world besides you will need. love it.
i probably spent 30-40 hours converting my duster to accept milwaukee batteries. worth every minute.
Interested to see if you could incorporate a Vibratory Bowl Feeder (hopper) instead of the seesaw feeding so that bolts don't get stuck.
I wish you all the luck you deserve with this channel. This video is a gem. From the music you chose, the editing, the humorous remarks, the subtle explanations of the physics involved, to the final product. Fantastic.
Thank you. Appreciate it
absolutely brilliant can see a LOT work has gone into that very well done
Pushing 3D printed part/assembly/machine capability to a very satisfying place! Bravo EmGi! Your machine also reminds me of the pain of being an engineer in the US: try sorting out hex head bolts, and also fitting the sizes, "1/2, 11/16, 7/8" and so on, color embossed on the bolt-length scale face, instead of "5, 10, 15, 20, 25..."!
Really love this. I also appreciate that my algorithm nearly instantly shows me any new screw sorting machine.
German over engineered design at its best! Thumbs up and new subscriber. Respect from 🇨🇦
phenomenal, people like you end up saving lives by noticing that little bolt thats misaligned on a bridge
I’ve just spent the last 7 days looking for exactly this to sort my screws! Thank you! 🙏
This is a forward modern engineering design process, which is so great！
Well done. Nicely documented and presented.
Last video of the day and it is such a hidden gem! Love the video and the ingenuity that went into the print. I have the exact same set of M3 screws and I am sure it won't stay as well sorted as it is right now for long. Now... Please create one for M2, M4, M5 screws! And for some bonus problem solving: Perhaps you can put everything into one print!
Definitely subscribed and I'm saving your print for later so I have it ready should the need arise.
Love your work here. You get this refined for additional sizes of nuts and bolts, and I will be saying "take my money, I need one"
Well done, I appreciate your commitment to only 3d printed parts!
Im so annoyed how well this works and how satisfying it is. great stuff!
about two years ago i dropped a case of like 50x different sized M2.5 and M3 bolts that since then live inside three plastic bags in the back of my drawer, this could be the answer to my prayers
you could add an spining agitator to the feeding ramp to prevent the issue you have with the larger bolts.
Ha! I just said the same thing before looking in the comments. Someone else also suggested a clacker to smack the bottom of the tray to jostle the bolts. I think both ideas are valid, the agitator might be the more elegant and reliable method, though.
Just an ease of use thing, and I know almost anyone who feels the need to do it could, but adding a slot on the side for either a pre-existing clamp or an optional one that can be printed along with it to slide into and secure the sorter down to say the edge of a table or desk would (I think) make using it a whole lot easier
I love that this could so easily be motorized with a single motor and a cammed disk
Loving it! Maybe after the transition from the bolt being vertical to being picked at oriented in the horizontal: have a little correction chute to correctly catch a receive the bolt before it is allowed to roll down the final ramp.
This funnel and final chute helps to collect and prevent jams whilst making sure the cap can be hanging correctly over the support. Maybe there needs to be a gate to limit bolts from having the wrong speed.
Great idea. i think thats something i will keep in mind when doing an improved version
Very nice design! Would maybe be an small improvement if you engrave bolt size on the containers so you wont forget when you take multiple containers out or something else. Otherwise have size on both the containers and the big cointainer where they sit in. But this may be a personnal preference.
Whoaa, this is crazy cool. Works much better than I expected it would. Might actually print one
This was the first video of yours that I watched. YT FINALLY got something correct for this suggestion!! This video alone was worth a sub, but I went back and watched all your previous videos. You've reignited my excitement about 3D printing that other channels haven't been able to do. I much prefer the narrators voice in this video as compared to the first one or two. If this is your voice, please keep using it for all your videos! Wonderful work! Thank you!
Thank you! i had to use the other voice in my first video because i didnt have a good mic ( horrible quality can be heard in my second video) but i was able to improve audio quality quite a bit
awesome job!
I'd love to see a part two with a more general solution to the screw/bolt bin that are not just 1 head size/diameter. Maybe just based on weight?
Like, the eternal problem many people (like me) have is they have a bucket full of screws/bolts of all sizes, and it's very handy to have around, but the small ones go the the bottom and stuff. It would be nice to be able to sort them in ~5 weight/length classes.
Again, awesome video
Thank you! because of the many requests i get i will probably try to make a improved version that supports multiple types of bolts/screws as well as diffrent diameters
@EmGi_ cool! Can't wait
This man has just done more to better humanity than a nobel prize!
I just got into 3d printing and this is the kind of stuff I want to do, it looks incredible, thank you for sharing your thought process it was very insightful
Danke!
danke für den support! ich weiß das wirklich zu schätzen ☺
It may seem like just an unnecessary time expense, but the end product helps you as well as countless others, so I feel like it was time well spent
The rail thing where bolts get vertical could be an insert that’s fast and simple to swap. Make it a size that like m5 bolts would get stuck in and any other size would fall into a collection basket below. Then swap in a size for m4 bolts. Then m3. Then m2. Then all the bolts will be sorted very easy. Make the rail at least like 15 mm deep though so it doesn’t let the target size fall through the wider gaps w weird alignments.
BubsBuilds’ bolt sieves let bolts fall through for example. He has UA-cam videos on them
Lovely!!!!!! I need to sort so many screws during my stem camps ! This will be an eyecatcher. You will get a good coffee from me!
Thank you. Appreciate the Support!
Just wow man, incredible!
So glad you are willing to share these files for free as well. Cant wait to give this a try, and if that didnt earn a subscription idk what will!
Thanks for walking us though the process. Great to see your "mistakes" that you immediately learned from.😀
This is beautiful, great job! Personally, my solution to my ever-increasing unsorted fasteners bin has been to ignore it haha
Thank you!
Excellent work, looking forward to lots of further improvements, eg a rotating, handle, an widened hopper etc. So many possibilities!
I saw your post about this on reddit the other day - I understand it much better now after having seen this video! Very impressive!
You could probably add a circular agitator to the hopper that spins with the push of the lever back and forth to keep from manually having to agitate the bolts.
Probably could add a mechanism to rattle the feed tray to reduce chance it gets stuck there. Maye be for the output make it so barrel that can pick up more than one each pass in case more than one falls in the queue.
Very satisfying to look at this project, design looks great and simple.
So overcomplicated, so much labour to improve the machine, so very german! I LOVE IT! Even the paulaner spezi couldn't be missed.
BTW: just another idea to overcomplicate things... what about a linear 2 one-way rotational adapter on the 90º lifter? this way you could just rotate a drum in the same direction on both in and out stroke for an overcomplication perfection machine
Amazing intro, can't believe more people aren't talking about it
What a brilliant solution. I am in envy of the mind that can think of all these solutions.
Awesome video, I really like the fact you went through the whole process, failures included. Thanks for sharing, and thanks for the stls!
that intro was killer dude. nicely done
Thanks!
thank you!
The production quality of this is insane
Version two Needs an Crankshaft! its much more fun to operate and others can add a motor if they want!
One push for each sorted bolt would kill me 😁, at this point, you are saving energy if you do it yourself.
First.. love it. Is it perfect? not quite... but it is fantastic.
The only things I can think to make it better are - 1, a crank rotation instead of a handle system, simple circles with a hand crank to cause the sawing motion. (this tends to be more comfortable as well, as you can reduce the 'back movement') 2 - an agitator to keep the 'needs sorting' box, from jamming, this could be a slow moving 'wiper blade' that just goes back and forth really, not full circles which might trap parts and keep them spinning.
An idea to solve bolt jams in the hopper: my inspiration comes from paintball and feed jams in those hoppers. Look ti the old VL revolution 2000, they used essentially a rotating stir bar near the outlet to keep things moving. No reason you couldn't make this even more over complicated with something like that.
Dude that is awesome!!! I have lots of small bolts and nuts of different diameters and materials. Searching for part I need is a mess. An idea for the next project - sorting stuff by mass into say 256 (16x16) boxes by using automated pocket scale.
Wonderful devise ! If only all my piles of bolts were the same diameter. Rotation covers are also called journal caps.
You have my subscription amazing production quality! Keep up the great work!
Wow I saw this trending yesterday on Makerworld and today I see this video, that explains why it's trending!
Actually very well engineered. Not more complicated than it needed to be and functioned quite well.
This is an amazing idea and I wish I could use it. Since I work in a machine shop, we have so many different sizes of bolts and screws laying around in boxes that this would be a game changer for organizing and resorting them. Unfortunately, while it does sort them, it does so by the length of the bolts and not by the length, the diameter (of either the head or the threads), and the TPI's of the bolts. So, for example, if I had 8 different sizes of bolts and screws that I needed to sort, that means I would need 16 of these sorters to cover the two different TPI's we have for each type of bolt or screw. I suppose I could just use a thread gage or a bolt checker to separate each size and TPI's before putting them into this sorter but at that point, I might as well just use a ruler at the same time to figure out the lengths. On a side note, it would be interesting to see if you can modify this design to have an attachment for a servo or some other type of motor and you just use gear ratios to control the speed of everything so nobody has to worry about programming the motor. They would just need to purchase the motor off Amazon, attach it, turn it on, and go.
im planning to further improve this to hopefully support multiple types of bolts with diffrent diameters and a motorized version.
@@EmGi_ I await in eager anticipation.
Drinking Spezi? A Man Of Culture!
great machine, now all we need is a pre sorter that can sort out different diameters from m3 to m10. then this sorter can just be scaled up op match the diameter
Printing this for sure! Great work. Now we need m4 and m5!
Wow What an honor. Thank you! Will probably add M4 and M5 in the future
and a presorter so I can dump them all in together!
Add it to the same sorter @@EmGi_
I can't remember the last time the bolts I needed to sort were all the same diameter
You can greatly simplify the machine if you don't care about the final orientation of the bolts. Instead of doing two 90-degree rotations along two axes, you can do a single z-axis rotation on the bolts keeping the initial horizontal orientation. This would remove some potential failure points and you could operate the device faster. To scale this to an industrial level, make a larger initial funnel and replace the small recipient trays with tubular chutes that go into larger end-recipients. This whole assembly would be best done with laser-cut sheet metal.
not sure if i understand it correctly but if i keep the horizontal orientation they will be aligned in 2 diffrent ways. the head is either looking to the left side or to the right side. and for the sorter to work its required that they are all aligned the same
Thats the most amazing thing I have seen in quite some time!
Thank you!
very nice. one suggestion i would make. i know and udnerstand its mechanical but, option to add automation with little motor. so for example u leave it in the garage overnight on slow speed and in the morning it greets you with sorted bolts. or while u do something else its sorting (so u fix it if it gets stuck)
the bins and the hopper are really small which makes it hard to add a motor because you would have to empty the bins and refill the hopper every few minutes. But im planning on creating an improved version that can be motorized
Sehr nice! Das hätte ich gebraucht als ich vor einigen Wochen unsere "Schraubenkiste" in der die letzten Jahre so ziemlich alles gelandet ist, "aufgeräumt" habe... 😀 Habe direkt abonniert ❤
Excellent work. Very thoughtful. Keep up the good work.
😊
This is a really cool project!! I would love to see how you would expand it to handle sorting different size bolts (ie: M8, M10, 1/4")
The best part is when you said instead of spending 2 min to sort them manually I will spend hundreds of hours building a machine.
This is YT content I love!
Love this project and the animations are so pretty
LOVE WHAT YOU DID! Wish you a lot of YT sucess, I just finnished my workshop yesterday :)
Weiter so!
I subscribed just for the quality of the video and animations, great work man!
Thank you!
Super Projekt. Eine modulare Umbaumöglichkeit für die Verschiedenen Durchmesser wäre was feines.
Danke. Ist als nächstes geplant
I love the middle finger to the motor.
Instant sub
Blown away! This is amazing! High on my next things to print list!
haha, this is brilliant. It's like a real version of a William Heath Robinson illustration!
Absolutely love this. An idea to think about, albeit completely overkill for something like this: for the chamber that does the final movement laying the bolts onto the sorting plate, I wonder if there’s a way to integrate something like a geneva drive. Rather than oscillating the chamber, only sorting one bolt per cycle, you could have it constantly rotating bolts towards the plate throughout it’s entire cycle. This could potentially allow you to expand the initial capacity and speed up the sorting a bit. I might have to play around in cad just to see if it’s even feasible😂
Interesting idea. Will think about it when i will create the improved Version
Wow the intro is incredible ! Kudos for that, don't loose that trend !
Thank you!
Have you considered trying to make the sorting mechanism into a spinning mechanism? Or some other way to make the motion continuous instead of oscillating? It might be easy to add a crank and gears to this, and at that point you can just hook up a cheap slow motor