Using pre-packaged gooey stuff

Here is a link for a gadget sold for emptying out squeeze tube such as toothpaste and bathtub caulk come in:
[toolmonger.com]

it's not too hard to imagine attaching a motor to this and using it to push goo out thru an orifice. Given the wide range of stuff (spackle, silcone rubber, glue, fast set epoxy, etc) that come packed in tubes this might be useful. Thoughts?

I don't know how you would get the correct amount dispensed. The relationship between turns and paste dispensed would be non-linear I think. That wouldn't be to bad if it was repeatable but I suspect it isn't very.

I wonder if you could make a flow meter with an optical mouse looking at the paste through a transparent pipe.

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

What about a pressure readout at the nozzle? if the pressure remains constant, then the same volume is flowing, right? Thats fluid dynamics I think.

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Jay

Yes that's probably true, that's the basis of the pop bottle and baloon extruder.

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[www.hydraraptor.blogspot.com]

Wacky idea: Could an optical mouse be used to track the rate of material coming out of the nozzle? As I understand it, an optical mouse is essentially a tiny, short-focus camera hooked up to a DSP. The mouse might be able to interpret the motion of the extruded material as mouse movement.

It might work with a rectangular cartridge, like this: [greta.dhs.org]

But to me this extruder seems needlessly complex and hard to replicate, I use an ultimate fabric painter for the extruder on my repstrap.
[www.instructables.com]

It is basically just a syringe connected to an aquarium pump. One could probably make simpler extruder using a pipe with an air hose attached to it with an extrusion nozzle on the other end. To control it, you could keep the air pump on all the time and use a simple 2 way solenoid valve to let air out of the extruder when it is not extruding and prevent it from flowing out when it is extruding. This would prevent the extruder from oozing.