Once the chips are stacked in the vertical tube, the chip feeder helps in depositing the chips into the chip dropper.
The Chip Feeder
The chip feeder consists of a circular, acrylic plate and a rectangular, acrylic plate (see figure). The circular plate is rotated by a servo motor. This plate has a hole (HOLE 1 in the figure above) whose diameter is slightly bigger than the diameter of the chip. The rectangular plate also has a hole (HOLE 2 in the figure above) cut in it - diametrically opposite the tube. As the circular plate rotates, one chip falls from the tube and into the hole cut in it. The gap between the tube and the circular plate is approximately one half of the chip thickness. This vertical positioning of the tube prevents the other stacked chips from rotating along with first chip. Hence only one chip falls into the hole at a time. Once the plate rotates by 180 degrees, the hole in the circular plate is above the hole in the rectangular plate and the chip falls into the chip dropper.
The sequence of this operation can be seen in the figures below.
(a) Chip falling from tube into HOLE 1 (b) Chip being carried
(c) Chip falling in HOLE 2, and finally into the Chip Dropper