Assemble the Mover
A fully 3D-printed belt that smoothly delivers bricks right under the camera. It’s like a red carpet for LEGO pieces.
Designing a conveyor belt for the sorting machine might sound like the easiest part. Well, it’s not. It took me countless iterations to arrive at a setup that met every requirement:
- Affordable (under $10)
- Operates reliably on 5 volts
- Quiet
- Prevents LEGO bricks from rolling off
- Runs for 24 x 7
- Assembly in 5 minutes
At first, synthetic leather seemed like the perfect solution—but the bricks had other ideas and kept rolling off. Adding a textile layer solved the slipping problem, yet after a few months of continuous 24/7 operation, the material began to fray and break apart.
In the end, I decided to design my very own 3D-printed belt. Using OpenSCAD—programming fully parametric 3D models, love it!
