Lantern Press makes all types of custom merch, from puzzles to tote bags to fridge magnets. Designed and made in Seattle, they are unique in having a team of artists and manufacturers to design and make all of their offerings.

I upgraded a 15-year-old fridge-magnet machine that applies the magnets to the back of artwork. Lantern Press has grown considerably and with demand from their growing order counts, a group of 6 people were helping applying the magnets by hand to keep up. The old machine was a batch process that had a 10 minute reload cycle, was often broken down, and had a bad tendency to crush and destroy the artwork when jamming – The new machine was designed to be continuous, to have control logic to automatically switch between two loadable slots (as seen in the leftmost image). It also has motors that could detect torque loading and will stop moving before it destroys the artwork if there is a jam. It also includes sensing to make sure the artwork is picked and placed correctly and that its status is communicated to the rest of the machine.

The project scope included designing a new loading and placing mechanism (pre magnet), a picking and unloading system (post magnet), and programming a new control system (and rewriting the existing 15 year old system) to effectively communicate and synch the processes. I designed the hardware in SolidWorks, programmed a waterjet to cut out flat-stock, finish machined a majority of the parts on a manual mill and lathe. I programmed in both C and whatever the old system was in and tuned the whole assembly line to pass a difficult quality test.It is producing around 1500 pieces of finished product per hour as you read this.