Title:

Pipe Drilling Automation for PVC Oyster Sorting Machine

The original goal of this project was to design, build, and program an automated drill press machine with an automated drill head, rotation, and lateral movement of a large PVC cylinder in the manufacturing of Virgin Oyster Company’s oyster sorting machine. Previously, Brian Gennaco, the company’s owner, had to manually drill between 800 to more than 2,000 individual holes in an average 6’ long Schedule 40 PVC tube - a task that often lasted eight to twelve hours. Mr. Gennaco requested a machine that could automate the entire hole drilling process similar to a CNC (computer numerical control) machine. After the current design was settled upon in December of 2021 and materials were ordered and delivered in February of 2022, the project was updated to only incorporate the mechanical aspects of the automated drill press machine. The machine is made of an 8’ x 25” x 29” welded steel cage that holds an adjustable lathe chuck at one end that can suspend a large PVC pipe through the cage. A 30” long steel carriage that holds a drill press, rolls with v-castor wheels on top of the steel cage through the control of an 8’ ball screw. The electrical engineering, systems engineering, and programming will be completed at a later date either by commission or a future senior design group project.

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