Great that there are so many new people following this project.

There are numerous changes in feeder design.

I decided to leave the concept of placing tape into gear manually. Now tape is inserted and removed always with the motor. Also added small part under the pickup location to push the tape upward. As you some tapes are thicker than another and tape cannot be loose at pickup location.

Also tape now returns from back. Tape has to bend some amount to travel the route and requires some force for pending. Luckily the feeder is very powerful because of transmission, but i think still fast enough.

Cover of the feeder will be controller PCB.

Also started to think how feeders are connected to machine. Plan is to add "back plane" pcb, that will be electric gateway as well as mechanical locators for the feeders. Every feeder has four 4 mm "banana" plugs that will plug into back plane. Those "bananas" are heavy enough to mechanically locate feeders into their place. So there is no need for separate locator pins and connectors.2 pins will provide power and 2 act as an bus (i2c or rs485). Every reader has it's own address an there will be jumpers or dips for setting it.

Some changes are still needed. Pickup location is for example now too "far".

Just drop message if you tips or comments.

Thanks for your support!!