Can someone please explain to me or point me to information on collators or feeders? Either bullet or case versions are fine.
I'm trying to grasp the concepts of how these things work and I'm having a hard time understanding. I get what they do, but I do not understand how they do it.
I'm looking to make my own case collator.
I can design/print my own drop tube, wire a motor with speed control, wire/setup a optical sensor to determine if cases are in the drop tube (thus triggering the collator to feed more cases), and so on. I can pretty much come up with everything other than how the collator plate spins to interact with the collator body. What is the theory behind this? How does a collator ensure that cases and or bullets are always fed in the direction that is desired? How does one determine the math/geometry behind a collator plate for each cartridge?