Cartridge Blades Chocolate Banana Loaves Vending Machines Dive Computers
Today on "how it's made," cartridge blades, chocolate banana loaves, vending machines and dive computers. Developed in the middle of the 20th century, the cartridge blade is an invention with many cutting edges. The plastic cartridge houses up to five razor blades. With multiple blades, fewer shaving strokes may be necessary, which results in a faster shave. For the multibladed cartridge razor, getting rid of stubble is no trouble. When the many blades become dull, the cartridge can simply be popped out and replaced with a new one. Making cartridge blades starts with coiled steel strips that are a few miles long. The strips unwind around guide rollers that orient them for entry into punch machines. Revolving cylinders help feed the steel strips to the punches. The punches cut holes in the steel, spacing them at precise intervals. These holes will allow production machinery to grip the steel and move it through the blade-making process. Machinery pulls the steel ribbons through an oven, which heats them to a searing 1,832 degrees fahrenheit. The steel then enters a cooling chamber, followed by another oven. The temperature extremes change the steel's molecular structure. It becomes harder and stronger. The steel rewinds and then unwinds between grinding stones that hone the edge into a very sharp gothic arch profile. They're now ready to break the steel into individual blades. A mechanical punch snaps it. And it breaks cleanly. With a skewer holding the blades in alignment, a technician scrutinizes the edges for any defects. After applying coatings to prevent rust and add durability, they bake the blades in a special furnace. This binds the coatings to the blades. At another station, they transform plastic pellets into the razor cartridges. This machine melts the pellets and injects the liquid plastic into molds as pressure is applied. The plastic solidifies into the shape of razor cartridges. The cartridges bounce along a circular feeder. The feeder orients them front-side-up and then funnels them into the next machine. This one resembles an octopus with numerous tentacles. The tentacles are robots. The first one places the cartridges in a fixture on a revolving table. As the table turns, it serves up the cartridges to the next robots in the assembly line. In quick succession, these robots snap a total of five blades into the cartridges. By now, the holes used to move the blades through the assembly process have been trimmed off. And it's a perfect fit. They now place back casings in front of the cartridges and install pieces of metal on the parts. The metal pieces are sacrificial anodes. Their sole purpose is to be sacrificed to corrosive forces to save the blades. After that, robots flip the back casings then transfer them to the cartridge blades and click them into place. The cartridge blades are now fully assembled. The robotic system takes them into a station with more quality control cameras. If no problems are found, the blades move into another mechanized system. This one installs a temporary plastic cover to protect the consumer and keep the blades sharp until it's time for a shave. Robotic arms pick up the clear plastic protectors two at a time and place them in slots in the assembly machine. They then snap the cartridge blades into the plastic covers. With the protectors in place, the robots send the cartridge blades down a chute and into a bin. They're now ready for retail and the business of personal grooming. Many schools today require all food on the premises to be allergy-free because so many children have life-threatening to peanuts, tree nuts or dairy products. Often, these allergies are so severe that just touching or inhaling the allergen can cause a potentially deadly reaction. These kid-sized chocolate chip banana loaves contain no peanuts, tree nuts or dairy products. Nothing else this company makes contains them either to eliminate any possibility of cross-contamination. As a further precaution, all the ingredients come from suppliers whose facilities are also entirely peanut, tree nut and dairy-free. To make the batter, workers first combine water, canola oil and sugar. Then they add pureed banana and mix until the ingredients are well blended. They add wheat flour, then sea salt, baking soda and preservatives such as citric acid, routinely used in packaged foods, to prevent the growth of bacteria and mold. The final ingredients are eggs and chocolate chips, not milk chocolate because these snacks are dairy-free. Instead, chocolate chips are custom-made for this bakery by a producer of certified kosher pareve foods, meaning the products contain neither meat nor dairy ingredients. A pump moves the finished batter from the mixing bowl to a large hopper that feeds the automated production line. At the start of that line, more than 620 loaf baking pans pass under spray nozzles, which lightly grease them with canola oil. This prevents the baked loaves from sticking to the pan. Then the pans enter the depositor, which drops 1.5 ounces of batter into each loaf cavity. This one batch of batter produces 6,666 loaves. The filled pans enter a multilevel vertical oven in which they zigzag up and down 13 baking zones of varying temperatures. After 27 minutes, the loaves are fully baked. However, they can't be packaged yet because they're piping hot. So the next station on the line is a multilevel vertical cooling chamber. Its fans draw out the hot air while blowers introduce filtered cold air. When the pans exit the cooling chamber about 25 minutes later, the loaves are just slightly warm. A robot now descends on two pans at a time. It jabs the loaves with needles to lift them out then withdraws the needles to drop them on a conveyer belt that's ventilated to help the loaves finish cooling. This belt transfers them to a narrower one that leads to the packaging area. There, workers line up the loaves in single file on a track that leads to the wrapping machine. Each loaf is roughly 3 1/2 by 2 inches and 1 1/2 inches high. Even though each one started out as 1 1/2 ounces of batter, some moisture evaporated during baking, reducing the final loaf weight to 1.4 ounces. Under the watchful eye of a sensor, the loaves enter the wrapping machine where printed transparent film envelops them. The two edges of the film overlap slightly underneath the loaves. The machine seals the edges with a combination of heat and pressure. Then it simultaneously seals and cuts the film in between the loaves. Each chocolate chip banana loaf is now individually wrapped. Workers pack the snacks into the retail packaging. The box moves into a glue machine, which seals the flaps. The bakery conducts several quality control checks throughout production, for example, testing the viscosity and ph level of the batter. It also tests the finished product. Once per hour, they cut up a loaf and place the pieces in a moisture analyzer. The correct moisture level ensures that the loaf has a proper cake texture and isn't dry because as much as this snack needs to be safe for kids with allergies, it also has to taste great. Vending machines are a common sight in public places. The first modern vending machines in 1880s england didn't sell food at all. They dispensed postcards. Nowadays, automated vending has come full circle with machines selling not just food but electronics and other consumer goods. Thirsty? Just select a drink. Enter its number on the keypad. The led monitor displays what you've chosen and how much it costs. Then insert the money. The monitor shows your credit, how much you've paid. The credit resets to zero when the machine releases your drink and returns any change you're due. The vending machine has a welded steel body onto which workers assemble the other components such as the see -through refrigerator and an lcd monitor to display advertising. Workers assemble the machine's payment and display system, starting with the machine's control board. They install the led monitor and the keypad, which are integrated into a single unit. After bolting the unit securely in its window in the housing, the workers screw the control board securely in place, then plug the led monitor and the keypad into the board. They install the coin acceptor. It can be set up to recognize up to 16 different types of coins. When a customer inserts money, the coin acceptor transmits the value to the control board, which displays the amount on the led monitor, calculates it into the purchase of the item and directs the coin acceptor to dispense any required change. Next, workers install the bank note acceptor. It identifies the denomination of an inserted bill with an optical scanner and, to make sure the currency is genuine, measures fluorescent ink with uv light and reads magnetic ink printing with a magnetic scanner. It sends the value of the bill to the control board. They plug the data transfer cables from the money acceptors into the control board along with a cable for the controllers that operate the machine's product release motors and the data transfer cables coming from the two coin hoppers, which collect the inserted coins and dispense change. Then they close up the machine with cover panels. A worker constructs the product feed trays that go into the vending machine's refrigerator. The first step is to attach partitions to a back panel to form columns. Each column's width is set to the dimensions, weight and type of packaging of the product it will dispense, from small featherlight bags of chips to heavy glass beverage bottles. A feed tray can have up to six columns. The trays are constructed entirely of stainless steel because it withstands refrigeration temperature and doesn't rust when exposed to moisture. Workers install a motor at the back of each column. Once the tray's installed in the fridge, those motors plug into the control board. When the customer pays for the selected product, the board activates the motor for the corresponding column to release the product. Side-by-side columns designed to be stocked with the same product have linked motors. That way, if one column sells out, the linked one with more of the same product kicks in. Each motor moves the product with a steel drive spring. There are seven different sizes of springs. Workers install the size that has the correct spacing between the rolls that corresponds to the dimensions of the product being dispensed from that column. Once the customer pays for the selection, the motor rotates the spring 360 degrees to release the product and move the one behind it to the front of the line. Once all the product feed trays are installed, workers adjust the refrigerator thermostat and stock the products. Then they test the machine. First, they purchase a product with paper currency. They make sure the bills feed smoothly, that the bank note acceptor sends the right data to the control board, that the board calculates the transaction accurately and activates the correct motor. They run the same test with the coin acceptor to make sure its sensors correctly detect the coin, dimension, weight and chemical composition and transmit accurate information to the control board, all this to ensure the vending machine customers get exactly what they paid for. Dive computers help divers safely return from the deep. These wrist computers keep tabs on the time and depth of the dive. And they calculate a safe ascent. The journey back to the surface must often be done in stages, or the diver could fall victim to decompression sickness. A dive computer is something someone wears when they're ready to take the plunge. Strapped to the wrist like a watch, it provides critical safety data during the dive. They start with panels of four printed circuit boards. A technician confirms that the tracks and pads are correctly located. A conveyor then takes one of the panels into a machine that precisely positions a metal mesh stencil over it. An automated squeegee spreads solder paste onto the circuit boards through the open areas of the stencil. The solder paste will act as glue for over 100 tiny electrical components. Next, the circuit boards receive those electrical components. A robot peels them off plastic strips and places them on the soldered areas at an impressive rate of 13,000 pieces per hour. The parts include microprocessors, sensors and memory chips. Then the circuit boards head into an oven with several different heating and cooling zones. As they travel through these zones, the soldering particles melt to bond the components to the circuit boards. Passing through the cooling zones, the solder hardens. And this solidifies the bonds. The circuit boards have now received all of the necessary parts. A technician places the panel of circuit boards in an automated optical inspection machine. Here, a camera takes a picture of the panel and sends it to a computer. The computer scans the circuit boards for missing components, positioning errors and soldering defects. If there are no flaws, the panels move on to a programming station. Here, a technician positions them under probes. The probes descend and load software into the microprocessors. This brings them to life and enables them to control all of the board's functions. Another technician trims and cuts the panels using circular saws. She then punches out the four round circuit boards and transfers them to a tray that has an electrically conductive surface. The surface protects the boards from mechanical and electrical shocks until they're ready to be assembled into the dive computer module. Now the fabrication of that module begins. The technician places a buzzer mechanism behind a backlight. She transfers the two of them to the reverse side of a display screen. She places a plastic framework on top. And she inserts rubber connectors in it. These little rubber parts will make the connection between the circuit board and the digital display. The next assembler inserts the circuit board into the digital display unit. She installs a temporary battery and checks the digital monitor to confirm that it's functional. Satisfied that it's in good working order, she sets it aside temporarily. In the next stage of production, the worker removes any dust particles from the screen using blasts of compressed air. She snaps the dive computer module into a tough plastic case that's designed to withstand a lot of water pressure. She cleans a glass face plate and places it over the digital screen. This face plate will protect the screen from water. The next part is a metal bezel. It surrounds the face plate and will be used to secure it to the casing. She flips the assembly around and screws the bezel to the case from the back. She inserts the computer battery into a titanium back plate. She then installs the battery assembly in the back of the module and secures it with screws. This completes the dive computer module. All that's left is to attach the wrist strap, and this dive computer is ready to probe underwater and provide critical safety information.