Pill Box Filler

Asymmetric pill shapes (e.g., elliptical, capsule) cry out for a means of aligning them.

Think about providing some suitable grooves in the flat surface on which the pills are initially placed. Throw the pills on randomly, provide a little agitation and, voila, the pills are aligned with their major axis parallel to the groove.

The number of pills in each groove is not the same so a simple push with a comb won't work. I haven't gotten beyond this point yet so I'm just describing the grooved plate idea so others can run with it.

Scenario: Seven straight "grooves" in a plate, each with a different number of pills aligned in the groove.

Block all the grooves at one edge of the plate and agitate until pills are touching the block.

Make a separate tool with seven teeth spaced to match the groove spacing. When this tool is inserted between the pill touching the block and its immediate neighbor, all seven pills can be swept into the waiting pill box.

Again, one of my crude sketches may help visualization.

Attachment 50747

It should be obvious that, if this method can be made to work for non-circular pills, it will also work for circular pills.

I don't trust any prescription meds that the big pharma owned drug pushing doctors my medical insurance insists I visit once a year say I need to take daily for the rest of my life I simply don't have the prescripts filled. If I have to visit a DR, for an injury and am prescribed a short-term med I have those filled and take them as directed. For everything else I research for alternatives to the long-term prescription meds this probably means I am taking a few more pills than pharma meds but at least what I take are not laced with unpronounceable chemicals and probably don't take those as regular as people think I should.
As far as a sorter goes, I have issues with the idea. It seems to be just another step. What's wrong with just dumping a hand full of pills in your hand then placing them ti the little dosage compartments then grabbing the next one and doing the same.

I updated the article again. By enlarging the holes in the channel by 1/16", the elliptical pills now fall through.

Rick

I think I've solved the sorting and dispensing problem after making several iterations, see my post entitled "Pharmaceutical dispenser" which I uploaded on Sunday 7th, but which (strangely) hasn't yet appeared on the daily email feeds.