[HN Gopher] Ingenious Low-Cost Tilt Detection System
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Ingenious Low-Cost Tilt Detection System
Author : eigenvalue
Score : 35 points
Date : 2020-03-02 22:15 UTC (44 minutes ago)
(HTM) web link (imgur.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (imgur.com)
| Johnny555 wrote:
| Couldn't these be triggered by shock/vibrations that make the
| ball jump to the next slot? At first I thought they were filled
| with mineral oil or some viscous fluid to prevent this, but it
| looks like there are holes in the backing material so it's not
| fluid-tight.
| mike_d wrote:
| Shock and vibration are bad too. You'll usually use tilt
| sensors with impact sensors: https://spotsee.io/impact
| daenz wrote:
| Assuming Z axis is "up", you'll need one of these for the X and
| the Y axis to catch all relevant tilts. It's probably not cost
| effective or practical to make a 2-dimensional detector, but I
| imagine you could.
| mike_d wrote:
| I used these when we would ship servers off to edge sites. You
| end up putting 5 or 6 of them on the box... tilt sensors on two
| sides, impact sensors, and temperature/moisture to make sure
| they haven't been left out on tarmac/loading docks. $100 in
| stickers on a $xx,xxx shipment is an easy justification.
|
| In practice they aren't hard for a motivated person to reset,
| but they do result in handlers along the way being a bit more
| careful with your stuff.
| dekhn wrote:
| Large expensive equipment (shipped in custom-built pallets) use
| this. About $3/each to ship a $100+K box.
| https://www.amazon.com/Tiltwatch-STWPLUS-Plus-Label-Pack/dp/...
| heartbeats wrote:
| Doesn't being mass-produced sort of defeat the purpose? Buy an
| identical label, replace the barcode, and you're done.
| paxys wrote:
| Not if it is stuck inside the box.
| exhilaration wrote:
| How does one acquire these without triggering the tilt alert?
| klodolph wrote:
| You can see that in each section, there is a small hole in
| the back where you can see the box through the hole. When you
| buy these, each hole has a pin in it, keeping the ball in the
| starting area. When you pull the indicator off the backing,
| the pins come with it. So you only have to keep it upright
| after you peel the backing off.
|
| Here is a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuLClpWRmQ8
|
| You can see that each hole has a red colored pin in it, and
| you can see the pins come away with the backing (at about
| 0:21 in the video).
| draw_down wrote:
| I'm imagining a very low-tech solution to this one.
| phren0logy wrote:
| You don't, you just flip them all around and jiggle them to
| reset them. Then you hope nobody does that to your box...
| Johnny555 wrote:
| Are you sure? There are holes in the yellow backing that
| look perfectly placed to have some sort of retaining pin
| inserted to hold the balls in place until use.
|
| At first I thought they were meant to insert the ball, but
| the holes look too small.
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| If you don't know, don't guess.
| pretendgeneer wrote:
| I believe those dots above the start area have something
| pulled out when you take the back of the sticker that stops
| it from rolling around until it gets applied to the correct
| thing
| ogre_codes wrote:
| There are little dots at the top of the place where the each
| ball starts. I expect there is something in those spots which
| prevents the balls from moving and you remove it before you
| apply the detector.
| paxys wrote:
| It is clever, yes, but also something that has been used in the
| shipping and logistics industry for decades. So more standard
| than ingenious.
| lykr0n wrote:
| I love simple and ingenious stuff like this.
|
| Low cost, simple, and effective low tech way to monitor a
| shipment.
| echelon wrote:
| For those who didn't quite get this on the first glance:
|
| This isn't a low-fi analog sensor used for taking novel
| measurements of things. It's meant to be affixed to packages to
| determine if they were mishandled during shipment. If a package
| was dropped or overturned, the ball bearings will fall out of
| place and (presumably) be almost impossible to return to their
| original positions.
|
| Pretty cool.
| brundolf wrote:
| Yeah I had no clue what I was looking at. Thanks for the
| explanation.
| umvi wrote:
| > and (presumably) be almost impossible to return to their
| original positions
|
| You'd want the widget to have a tracking number on it though,
| because otherwise they could just rip the whole widget off and
| slap on a fresh one.
|
| I'm hoping that's what the purpose of the number along the
| right edge is.
| mike_d wrote:
| > and (presumably) be almost impossible to return to their
| original positions
|
| Unless they have fixed them, the bearings are metallic and can
| be reset with a magnet. (I had to do this a few times when I
| bumped the thing putting it on)
| csours wrote:
| These look like glass from the low res photo.
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| This is why you stick them on the inside of your package, as
| well as the outside.
| larkost wrote:
| My last employer used these when shipping robots. I don't know
| which was better: being able to show mis-shipment, or the
| deterrent effect of these highly-visible stickers.
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(page generated 2020-03-02 23:00 UTC)