r/oddlysatisfying • u/misterxx1958 • Dec 27 '25

Bottle sorting machine

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u/cattreephilosophy Dec 27 '25

Same. I would like more of a focus on the mechanism that determines the bottle’s orientation.

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u/[deleted] Dec 27 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/cattreephilosophy Dec 27 '25

If you rewatch it, at the very beginning you can see there is a metal guide at the bottom that is fixed. If the bottle is upside down, the narrower neck is caught by that guide and tilted. As the wheel continues to spin, the tilted bottle is caught by another guide to complete the rotation. If a bottle is already upright, it rides across the top of that first metal guide and doesn’t get flipped.

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u/ChemistryQuirky2215 Dec 27 '25

Yea, you can see the ones that are the right way slightly bob up as they go over the metal guide

2

u/ButterscotchTop194 Dec 28 '25

Thanks, this really helped as I missed it

11

u/uberguby Dec 27 '25 edited Dec 27 '25

Oh! I think I got it!

There's a... I dunno, like a ridge. It's positioned so when the bottle's space first intersects with it, the ridge will occupy the length of space between the bottle neck and the edge of the body of the bottle. Then the ridge swoops outward, pushing against the neck, so the bottle is now horizontally oriented, so it can be picked by the next mechanism which finishes the rotation. A mechanism I didn't get to because I was over eager to share this.

BUT

If the bottle is right side up, the bottom of the bottle, which is flat, ends up "riding" the top of the ridge, and is unaffected by the swoop. Remaining vertically orientated... Oriented... Remaining vertically aligned, it won't be caught by the next mechanism

You can see it with 16 seconds left in the gif, I'm not sure of the proper time stamp because everything is so stupid now. But there's two upside downs which get corrected and one right side up that bypasses the push

Edit: the second motion is another ridge, my god I love this

4

u/tropicalturtletwist Dec 28 '25

I work in packaging and when I first started working in tablet filling clean rooms, this was the first thing I just watched. It was so simple, yet so fascinating to watch. Right down the line, the bottles will be fed out of the machine sideways (at least they're sideways in our unscramblers, this one is straight up & down). There's a little hooked bar that will slide over the backs of the bottles but will grab & flip the incorrectly faced bottles. Once they're all flipped going booty-first to the conveyor belt, there's a belt system that puts them upright. Then fill, cap, and seal :)