I designed a completely new version of the cup dispense mechanism with much fewer moving parts (reduced to effectively one moving part). Reciprocal motion "sled" home position has base grippers, dispense position has separator slides. Exceedingly simple and super effective. Testing 8-magazine production system here after assembly
I designed and built a 1-channel proof of concept, seen here very reliably dispensing cups.
Shows base grippers (green/tan) and separator sliders (yellow) mounted to base sled. Cylinder pushes and pulls sled to cycle cup dispense.
Base gripper (green) designed to maintain orientation of cup, which has an internal locating feature. Separator slide (yellow) has ramp design to aid in separating cups that may be stuck together in the stack.
Designed top level assembly including cup magazines, cup receiving and delivery elevator, and dispense mechanism maintenance servicing pull-out assembly.
Elevator receives and delivers cup stacks to each lane in the cup magazine.