2017 m&m machines both designs

Dan Noren

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falcon heights, minnesota
time to get a move on with this project. i say both designs, because there is a second design, one for the desktop crowd. i used the same base as the first design, removed one of the spacers, and used a disk, instead of a gear. it will have a smaller mason jar for the goodies, and a slot either side of it in the top, for business cards. time to put that lazy cnc machine to work. it will be in charge of the tops (need the consistent accuracy, as there will be six of each), the trays, the gears, and disks. the rest will be cut by hand.
 

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started the marking and cutting today. figured out how big for each, and cut the blanks. first ones done are the ones that don't need any cnc work.
 

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  • 005 glue up of blank for gears.jpg
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haven't used the cnc for this yet rob. all of the cuts you see were done by hand. unless you are talking about the parts to be done on the cnc, then i agree with you. today i smoothed out the blank for the gear blanks. got nine of them cut, but only need six. gotta think about possible bad parts.
 

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started cutting the gears today. got three of them done before calling it a day.
 

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got the last of the gears done, and the first three of the disks. tomorrow it will be finish up the disks, move on to the tops, and bases.
 

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got the last three disks done, and started in on the tops for the geared machines. got the first three done today.
 

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I had heard through an engineer friend who was supposed to be involved in something for Mars Candies, that they were supposed to be coming out with M & M candies with a caramel center. These were supposed to be on the shelves in May of this year, but I haven't seen them yet. I think they will be very popular, and this could be the reason why I haven't found them yet. Has anyone else seen them?

Dan, You are making great progress on those machines. If one of these was in my house it would always be empty, especially if it was filled with the caramel M & M' s

Charley
 
i'll keep an eye out for them. finished off the tops for the gear machine, and started on the desktop tops. got 2 of them done before calling it a day.
 

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Yes those Carmel center m&M's are out are they are GOOD!!! Coffee nut is also out which are just as good. Dan any of which will fit right into those dispenser of yours. The only problem with those dispensers I see, is you can't get enough at one time. But that's just me. Need a handful at a time.
Those are gonna be fine machines.
David

Found our first carmel center m&m' s at Dollar General before the big box store.
 
found a problem with the first one, the slots were too narrow. looked at the code again, recalculated, and tried again, this time it worked ok. then moved on to the other 5.
 

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with so much to be done, got the cnc machine working on the bases for the machines. got 4 of them done today, and was able to do a test fitting of the parts for both machines.
 

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got all of the preliminary cuts done. found that i had drawn the lines on 3 of the tops for the desktop models incorrectly (after cutting one of them that way). corrected the lines, and cut them. set up the cnc again, and quickly cut a new top. now, all that is left, is the hand sanding of the details, and assembly. couldn't resist seeing what all of them would look like after assembly, so i did a quick test assembly, with all of the respective mason jars.
 

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