Video cam/monitor powder check for your reloading press/hornady bullet feeder mod

[DaSandmanCometh]

I posted this up on AR15.com and got some good feedback so I figured I'd post it up here as well.

So first of all, here's what I used, got it from amazon, pretty cheap and you could probably get it cheaper if you look on ebay.

Camera - $20 You can adjust the focus on this by screwing out the threaded portion so it works great
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003SX0RMM/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Monitor - $20 the base comes with double sided tape already applied so all you have to do is peel and stick where you want to.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005JSMM9K/ref=oh_details_o02_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Both of these are 9V, would make more sense that they would be 12V, but no. So you can use a 9V DC plug in for both. But I had a couple other things planned so I modified things a bit.


In this pics you can see my set up, it's an plain acrylic box with four DC to DC voltage regulators, one master on/off switch for the three voltage regulators that control the LED lights under the top of my press, one for the camera, and one for the monitor. The fourth regulator is for my low primer alarm, the circuit is right next to it, and there's an on/off switch for that circuit below. You can see that I wrote the DC voltage that the reg is set to on it. I tired to run all of this, plus another reg for spare off one 24V DC adapter plug to begin with, but that didn't work, no mater what the size I could only run three regs off one DC adapter plug in. So now I have the low primer alarm reg being run off it's own dedicated 12V DC adapter plug in and the three regs for lights, camera, monitor ran off it's own 12V DC adapter plug in.



I had to get these male to male adapters as both the camera and the monitor have female RCA's on them.


Both the camera and the monitor came with female power plug in's, but that wasn't going to work for my set up so I got some 2.1 x 5.5mm DC Power Pigtail's and soldiered them back to back to go from the plug in's in the box to the female plug in's on the device.


This is what the monitor shows, this spot is right after neck expanding and powder. So if I was really running you would see powder in there.


I mounted the camera with double sided tape, had to use a few pieces so I could get it pointed where I needed it. It's pretty sturdy and hasn't moved yet.

 

[DaSandmanCometh]

For the Hornady bullet feeder, it will continually feed as it only has an on/off switch. The Lee bullet feeder fingers doesn't have the strength to move a bullet if there's a lot of weight on top of it. So I made this to fix it so that the feeder only feeds when needed and doesn't stay on all the time. Since the motor is AC, I had to get an AC sensor, so I got this:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007Q85LOY/ref=oh_details_o04_s00_i02?ie=UTF8&psc=1

It uses a pair of IR LED's to shoot out a singal, get's reflected off a reflector and then sensed. It's wired so you can wire it either in open or closed circuit. I tired to use this as is with a small reflector but the plated bullets would reflect the signal. I ened up taking out the LED's from the small circuit board and extending them out with wire. I built this little mount out of spare metal pipe/tube I had laying around. I used some barbed hose connectors I had laying around as the LED's fit perfectly in them. I hot glued them on both sides to make sure they stayed in place, and I had a screw driver inserted through both to keep them aligned while doing so. After that I hot glued the led's in the end. Using the long tubes cuts down the beam to where it's not wide and more focused. Same for the sensing LED and therefore less false signals. If you attempt this, you have to remember that the LED's have a positive and negative side to them. You can see if the pics below the sensor box that's taped up and double sided taped to the top of the press. It then runs into the Hornady bullet feeder through a hole I drilled. (1/4" if I remember correctly)






This is the wiring for the sensor, the brown and blue are your hot and neutral, which matches up to the color's in the hornady bullet feeder. There's also a ground in the hornady bullet feeder wiring but you won't touch that. The wiring in the feeder has an added piece of wire to it, a black piece on the brown wire and a white piece on the blue wire, or vise versa. I don't have pictures of that and it's kinda a pain in the butt to open it up. The black and white wires are connected to the blue and brown wires by but connectors. The white wire goes to a terminal on the motor using a spade connector, the black wire goes to one terminal of the on/off switch and then continues from the other switch terminal to the other terminal on the motor. All using spade terminals. So I cut off the black wire terminal going into motor and combined it and the brown wire from the sensor. I cut off the terminal of the white wire where it went into the motor and spiced in both the blue and white wires from the sensor. This gave the sensor it's hot and neutral so it could work. Now the white and grey wires are your switching wires from the sensor. I already had the white wire set up, I just needed to put a terminal on the grey wire and connect it to the motor. This runs the sensor in closed circuit, so when the circuit is closed the motor activates.



Let me know if you got other questions.

 

[NWFLYJ]

Very nice writeup.

 

[TennJeep1618]

Excellent job! Thanks for all the ideas and the great write up!

 

[Idoono]

Nice write up. Got me to thinking.

Idoono

 

[jakec]

damn thats a crazy setup. good job man. i was happy to just get my little press mounted straight.

 

[oneshot]

You have miss your calling, come help me set up on my 1050. just my 2 cents jj

 

[DaSandmanCometh]

You have miss your calling, come help me set up on my 1050. just my 2 cents jj

Would be glad too, but with the 1050 you can pretty much buy everything to make that thing stupid proof and more productive.

 

[oneshot]

That's what I.m looking for stupid proof and more productive just my 2cents jj

 

[DaSandmanCometh]

I wish I could justify a 1050, I would have that thing so automated I would be reloading in my sleep.

 

[TraderDan]

Oh I think he found his callin jj, look where he is posting from. My guess is he works on this kind of stuff for Uncle Sam. McGuiver meets Mcgee.

 

[DaSandmanCometh]

Actually I don't, wish I did. I'm just a ground radar guy here, but an engineer at heart I guess you can say.