You probably wouldn't want them in sync because then there can be no possibility of any randomness when the two cards are smashed together. I imagine that when they smash togethers, sometimes you'll get the left side one going under the right side one and vice-versa, at least adding some limited randomness at that point.
Totally agree! Also, notice how the two "cams" are proud of the surface, not to push the cards, but to shake them up and down. This causes the angle at which the cards enter the shuffle zone to change, helping them not hit each other as they stack and possibly adding to the randomness of the order.
I'd try a diode in series with one of the motors to deliberately "randomise" the speed differential. Then do the shuffle test again and compare results.
Going by the experience of having read various Chinese products' manuals poorly translated to English, Chinese often say "open / close" when they really mean "turn on / off".
@Nevir202 A closed circuit is one that allows electrons to pass through (on position) . An open circuit is one that does not (off position). In Chinese, an electronic device is "open" when the circuit is closed and vice versa. Counter intuitive.
Professional magician here with a few things to note: In theory, this works about the same as a riffle shuffle. In order to achieve a random result with a riffle shuffle, you need to shuffle about seven times. Given that the cards tend to kind of "clump" in this machine, probably about 10 times might do. In casinos I think the method varies, I think some tables use machines, where as poker tables the deck is shuffled with a wash ( where essentially the deck is dumped out on the table and the cards are swished around by hand. They also decks are replaced with new decks of cards periodically with the old decks being punched, marked, and resold or donated). As others have mentioned, it is pronounced suit as in suitcase or pantsuit, as opposed to suite as in penthouse suite, but that is really neither here nor there. Depending on how steady your hands are, a Faro shuffle is essentially the same as a riffle and is easy to do with a new deck and a little practice. I do have a friend and fellow magician who has essential tremor, for whatever that is worth. My guess is that perhaps there was a previous model with a switch, and open vs close is open circuit vs closed circuit. A piece of felt will make card handling on the table easier. Magic shops sell close-up mats, game shops sell play mats, PC stores sell oversized mouse pads, but if you really want to get cheep you can go to a craft store and get a piece of felt and a piece of foam and hot glue the two together. I actually have written a computer program to simulate shuffling, I'll bet I could narrow down how many shuffles it would take by counting how many cards are clumped together on average in the first shuffle.
Some Brits (including me) pronounce it as 'syoot', though it's not as common. This tyoon/toon, nyooz/nooz thing is called 'yod dropping' if you want to look it up. As to where "soddering" came from... we Brits still can't work that one out.
He's also BLIND, which makes the fact that he's perhaps the greatest living card manipulator all the more impressive and wonderful. He does a turn on Penn and Teller's "FOOL US!"
Yeah Richard Turner is unbelievable with cards. Its hard to believe hes doing what he is doing even when you KNOW what he is doing and watch his hands closely. What a mindblowing ability
@dothemathright 1111 What could possibly go wrong? I recommend sealing those inside a mountain behind a vast abyss of lethal radiation so no one can fuck with them for thousands of years. All you really need to communicate with them is a teletype, a speech synthesizer, and, ultimately, a whole shit-ton of surveillance cameras.
My guess is that the "open ... close" text is just the manufacturer's abbreviated (and inept) way of saying "This is a drawer. Open it to take out your cards and then close it." I'd also guess that they use two motors in attempt to make the shuffling more random. If the shuffling wheels were synchronized and the mechanism perfectly interleaved the cards (not likely, but ...), then you would get a "faro shuffle," which isn't randomized. (See the Wikipedia article; 52 faro shuffles would return the deck to its original order.)
I thought it might be a residual artifact from a design that had a latch on the tray? Then it was later determined to be unecessary and the labels were printed so they used them.
It's not 52, in fact you can faro (shuffle every other card alternately) 8 times and return the deck to original order if the top card's position is preserved in each shuffle. If you do it the other way and always shuffle under the top card, it takes 26 times to return to the original arrangement.
It's great if you want to play 52 pickup! Actually that would be a funny mode to have on a shuffler, if you hit the button it just spits all the cards off the table.
If the motors were perfectly in sync, they would give exactly the same result every time you shuffled the cards I think. It wold always perfectly alternate LRLRLR etc. By adding some uncertainty to the mechanism, it seems to make a more random shuffle by adding the possibility of LLRLRLRRL etc. But then again, it’s a $25 card shuffler.....
If I remember correctly, if it did a "perfect" riffle shuffle (LRLRLR...), then after 7 shuffles the deck would be returned to its original position. Card sharps and magicians both use this fact to good effect.
@@tammymakesthings Almost. After 7 shuffles it is about as "random" as you can get with a riffle shuffle. However, any further shuffles after that tend to bring the cards back toward order. So when doing a riffle you want to do 7 shuffles, but not 10 or whatever.
I think the word for the quarter-deck of cards sharing a symbol is a "suit", pronounced like the article of clothing, not a "suite", a homonym of sweet. This confusion isn't at all unusual, as the word "suit" in this context is both a noun and a verb (much like "color"), such as in "a four-suited deck", where the e "wants" to make the i long (but doesn't). Then again, it could be a Philly Thing. There are lots of Philly Things, most of which I've long forgotten. There are just under a bazillion ways to shuffle cards, including my big brother's favorite: "52 pick-up". Here's a summary of some of the more popular ones: shuffletech.com/card-shuffling-methods-types-techniques/ Long ago, while recovering from a badly sprained wrist, I had to learn to shuffle and deal one-handed. I tried several of the magician-like "trick" shuffling methods, which annoyingly often turned into "52 pick-up". What I settled on was "the big smear" AKA "washing the cards". The key is using a large enough area: Too small, and little shuffling occurs. But there's no need to go much beyond an 18" diameter circle.
Don’t sweat the essential tremor Frannie - I was diagnosed with one as well about a decade ago. I work in IT and deal with minuscule screws on motherboards and whatnot - it is what it is. I did notice as I began drinking less over the years that the essential tremor has all but dissipated [knock wood]. A few minutes of quiet mediation was really helpful to me before I would dig into tearing into a jukebox or turntable or rack cassette deck, etc. and I had good success with that minimizing or even eliminating my essential tremor while I was working on stuff. And of course limiting or cutting out caffeine did wonders for me back then too. Just some adjustments and tweaks I had to make on myself to get me fine-tuned and back to good. But yeah don’t sweat your essential tremor - most of us understand it’s just a thing that happens to many folks as we age. You’re awesome! 😄👍🏻
Honestly I agree, I had noticed it and only really hoped she was OK. I hadn't commented as I imagine you would already know so I'd just be pointing out the obvious!
I'm a double transplant recipient. Some of my permanent medication are steroids which gives me mild shakes in the hands. (Actually, the first week after surgery the high doses of steroids made me thing the floor was shaking). I repair laptops and PC's, but can't do tablets or phones. Recently got into making my own guitar pedals. I need to space things out a little more to compensate. At least for me I don't have a "career" as such fixing small electronics.
I've said it before, but that intro you've put together with the BINA-VIEW is so, so, so awesome! Also, since I was a kid, I've always been fascinated with card shuffling machines. I could play with one for hours and a little kid.
I really actually think this is a good design. You want there to be a little bit of slop in this machine. If the two sides would be feeding exactly one card and then the other, it would have a very specific and predictable effect on the deck, rather than a random one. You want one side to feed two cards occasionally before the other side feeds one. I would have used a slip belt on both sides.
4 года назад
The two motors not being tied together just adds to the randomness. The two sides angled down helps to guide the cards to the middle, even if two cards try to enter at the same time.
On professional Poker tournaments, the dealer often shuffles by hand..just spreading the whole stack on the table and mixing with both hands, just like the young children do.. that's my favorite also.. that's most effective and will save your wrists and the precious cards also
@@CrowManyClouds I did not know that term, thanks! That amateurish looking method is always used by the dealer, when a new deck, or a recently checked (sorted) deck has to be quickly randomized. Therefore that's perfect for Frans use case.
I have an old late 60s version of this shuffler. It has 2 buttons. One opens the motorized tray after the shuffle. The other one closes the tray and starts the shuffle if it senses cards in the upper area. It takes 4 D size batteries. There is an additional switch on the bottom of the unit that turns the power on and off. My grandparents bought it at Korvettes in the King of Prussia mall. I still have the original box, and it has a price sticker on it for $9.99. Also, different from yours, are rollers that are one directional mounted on C shaped arms that pivot from the center of the machine at the top. These rest on top of the cards and trigger microswitches to run the motor on whichever side still has cards to push into the center tray area. Pretty fancy. Also the sides are wood like yours, but the rest of the unit is sheet metal, except for the battery holder. Which is riveted to the bottom and has a hinged sheet metal door with a screw to cover the compartment.
$10-$12 for bog standard Bicycle cards? I mean, there are lots of fancy decks with super intricate designs and embossing and metallic inks on the outside of the tuck box and $10-$12 is the NORMAL price for them, as well as in-between decks. You can find regular and cheaper decks here in Louisville, no shortage.
The card shuffler, Not great, not terrible , I just had to say that. My hands get shaky sometimes, well like if i had to fill out a form in front of a job interviewer or something. That is one thing I have never played is cards, only the snap thing you play as kids.
Remove batteries and power it from adjustable power supply then slowly add voltage until it begins to spin slowly and do a slow motion video of how it works
Wow, what a piece of 80's gadget catalog tat! You have to do half the work yourself! Very interesting though. See if you can get hold of a Shuffle King shuffler, that would be something.
I think your looking for conformity in randomness ? Random is just that, random. Just because you have 3 or 4 of the “X” suit still in “order” whilst all the rest of the pack is mixed up doesn’t mean it’s not random
The one without the faux wood sides are much cheaper here in Singapore. Barely US$10. Thank you for showing this. I have only one functioning hand and was considering one of these. Now I'm not so sure.
One way to increase the randomness is to cut the deck unevenly and reverse one of the stacks. I usually do that a couple of times while hand shuffling.
There is no randomness. There is just some pattern that it is more difficult to recognize. Since the total number of possible combinations is 52! any shuffle will do.
Alex Ferr That misses the point I’m trying to make. The shuffler will produce shuffles where all cards within one color are still largely increasing. Several shuffles might cut those chains. Cutting the deck and reversing some cards speeds up that process.
Bengt Johansson what do you mean by “reversing some cards”? Face down results in a deck in which half the cards are face down, which is utterly useless no matter how random it is or isn’t, and flipping it 180 degrees top to bottom makes no difference whatsoever given that cards are rotationally symmetrical on their face.
Fran, I think you are missing the point. The machine is not a card interliever, its a shuffler. 2 independant mechanisms working a 2 slightly diferent speeds, not alligned with each other adds randomness. The end result is a couple of cards from one side a single card from the other a couple of cards from the other etc. Tie them together and interlieve the cards once split them and reload and put them back exactly as they started.
Magician and card manipulator John Scarne recommended taking half of the cards out of the middle to frustrate card mechanics efforts to stack deck of cards.
I know this is an older video, but question? Did that shuffler work correctly when you put it back together? From what I saw the two motors were spinning the same direction, so one side would be correct and push the cards to the center, but the other side would be throwing the cards away from the unit!!! Maybe it needed to be turned 180 degrees so it fed the cards to the center? Maybe the spinning at the end was a "trick of the video" that made it appear to be spinning incorrectly (I guess like bicycle wheels appear to be going the opposite way!!!). Great video Fran.
Always wondered myself what was in them.. Oh, and it's Suit, like what you wear, not Suite (sweet) like a sofa set... Suit is Cards... Suite is musical pieces...
Thanks Fran. I remember seeing these things as a kid and thinking "How Fancy" I always wished I had one, either that or wished I was a "big shot" who could shuffle like the dudes on TV. LOL
Do an online search for used Las Vegas casino cards. They offer collections of several decks for $10-30. I use a random number generator to produce a pseudo-random sequence of the numbers from 1 to 52, and then manually sort the deck to match the result. Much easier than using that machine. :-) I agree with others that two motors with the likelihood that they're not running identically helps with the randomization.
Regional thing perhaps, I've only ever heard them called suits but I seldom play cards. From Washington state and now Colorado. Then again I pronounced Bass on the front of my radio as in bass fish. I'm 46 and still pronounce it that way out of spite because I didn't learn it was different until a number of years ago.
I have noticed that my hands have become a bit shaky myself. It began around age 60 and has become progressively worse ever since. Now at age 69, it has become quite noticeable. Both my doctor and my family have commented on it, however nobody seems quite concerned a out it so I guess it isn't much of a problem. Thanks for the great videos, I do so enjoy them, it is sort of like a visit from a friend who drops by on occasion to share a cup of coffee and a bit of conversation. I am becoming more and more lonely now since my wonderful wife of 51 years and 4 days has passed away, taken from me by a rare form of cancer which was quick as it was deadly. Doctors say there is no chance of survival with that form so we knew what was coming, all I could do was stay by her side till the end came. Broke my old heart into a billion pieces. My daughter has come to live with me and insure that I get a decent meal as well as cleaning the house for me o once again thanks so much for the great videos, if not for RU-vid I don't know what I would do to occupy my time left here on the old blue marble.
I've had intention tremor since i was a teen. Shackey handwriting, soldering requires a hand rest. Keyboarding can be bad. The harder i try to contol it the worse it is. Grabbing something with tweesers is a comic exercise. Ive learned to use props to stabiluze my hands for everything
It's nice how America's corporations were all given a hella tax break yet when the pandemic came they totally stuck it to us with the price of things. November 3.
I'm 26 and have a tremor. I watch people, and a lot of them these days have a tremor. I suspect there is a strong environmental component. -Damage to proprioceptive fibers (causes issues with the spine, esp. cervical region) -Long term exposure to RF radiation -Our brains and tissues are full of nano and micron scale aluminum etc particles. When irradiated either you have ion cyclotron resonance, or the deposits in eg myelin facilitate voltage discharges, which causes inflammation and gradual scarring. DECT phones seem to be the worst. At this point I have seizure-like effects if I'm around them for too long, and the last time I put one up to my ear I had involuntary spasming of the corresponding arm. Obviously this is not what anyone interested in electronics of any kind wants to hear, in my experience, but that's how it's been for me. The older generations are wrongly attributing a compounding of myriad environmental stressors to natural consequences of aging.
My parents had a similar model in the early 1970s and I would play with it thinking it was a punched card sorter. It foreshadowed my tech career at age 6.
I have same shuffler. Picked it up at a goodwill recently. I took it apart cuz one side wasn't powered. Found the motor separated from the contacts and put it back in place. Prob was dropped. I actually put motor back in backwards and it was spinning outward once i'd put it back together. Took apart again and turned motor a half turn to send spinner correct direction. But, the gripper wheel won't pull the cards through at all or enough to get the kicker cam behind it to do its job. So, they just sit there and sometimes get pulled. Any suggestion on getting a better grip on the cards? (Excalibur Electronics Card Shuffler Model 425-F)
I know, I'm being picky. It is suits, not suites. ;-) Casino style shuffle is a riffle, to mesh the two piles together, then by hand the 'strip the deck', which moves chunks of cards around in the deck, then riffle again. Finally cutting the deck in two and reversing the top and bottom stacks. This randomized sufficiently for casino game play. The shuffle machine is a good way to shuffle in most cases, but not after a full game of solitaire. You'll never see a casino put an unshuffled deck in a machine for that reason. They always first hand scramble, then shuffle virgin decks. I guess I should explain "scramble". You place all the cards on the table, facedown, and hand mix them, separating the cards and then meshing them together again until you feel the mix is random, then start a normal shuffle.
Magicians talk about a "perfect shuffle" where one an only one card from each of two decks alternately where the two decks have the same number of cards. Someone who is a skilled card mechanic, like Ricky Jay, could start with a new deck in order, and when done would have a new deck in order. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faro_shuffle en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricky_Jay here's some patents about this: patents.google.com/patent/US10092820B2/en?q=Card+Shuffle&oq=Card+Shuffle#patentCitations So it's a good idea to have two independent motors, but they could have used the same motor-gear mechanism by reversing one of them 180 degrees. Unless there's different gearing, is that the case?
12 bucks for a deck of cards......WOW ! I have around 20 decks left when I used to go to Las Vegas and buy the used decks that the casino already used They have cuts on the corners of them but they are complete decks. The casinos used to sell them for 25 cents a deck back in the 80s and breakfast was 49 cents, lunch was 99 cents and dinner was 3 bucks.....ALL YOU CAN EAT...A giant shrimp cocktail with 10 JUMBO SIZE shrimps in it for 99 CENTS down town at the Golden Nugget casino.....man, those were the days.
I think by the time you get a belt that would work, and 2 shafts & gears to connect the sides, then you'd probably need another block or extrusion to support the ends of that shaft because it can't go through the center because that's where the cards collect, it'd have to go behind the back, I think once you add all that you've outweighed the cost of another motor. Then also there's additional complexity in assembly and increased fail points, etc. Because you'd need the 2nd block either way, you'd just not need the motor.
2:47 - Fran: “it’s very inexpensive” ... Shuffler: *piece falls to the floor, mostly unprovoked*... Fran: *picks up piece and repeats the line, as-is*... It’s ok, Fran, you can call it cheap, with both meanings of the word in mind. 🤣
A deck of cards for twelve bucks? Immediately after watching video I went to the local market and bought a full plastic poker deck for 120 rubles(approximately 1.60$). What a treasure I have now! I mean, of course it's most likely a cheap knockoff Chinese deck, but it's definitely more robust and playable than flimsy paper card you can buy here for less than 0.5$. God bless Siberia! Also, as always nice video. Thank you, Fran!
Like other commenters here, oh please oh please oh please let Colossus be a Forbin Project reference, that movie kicks so much Artificial Intelligence Gone Wrong ass.
At the end of my games of solitaire, I prefer to take a leaf from Microsoft Solitaire’s playbook and throw all the cards on the floor. They end up nicely shuffled as a result!
According to the seminal research on the subject by Dave Bayer and Persi Diaconis, it takes about seven shuffles to sufficiently randomize a deck of cards. Here's a link to the paper: projecteuclid.org/euclid.aoap/1177005705
I always enjoy these explorations of electromechanical devices. But solitaire with real cards instead of on the computer? I don't have the patience for that, shuffling machine or not!
Before This One even watches the video, It would guess that the shuffler would use the same actuating technology as a money counter (a wheel with rubberised tongues), but doubled up, and asynchronous. Edit: It was close.
Interesting, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard a suit referred to as a suite. Is this a philly thing? Suit makes more sense to me as they are kinda wearing their colors/patterns like you would a suit.
I would think that having two motors would be more random and as that is what you're trying to do with the deck more random is better! Also, not sure where you're getting cards from but on amazon.ca I can buy 12 decks for $18CAD ($14 USD) or about $1/deck!
Re: Two motors: you don't want perfect 1:1 in a shuffle. The common riffle shuffle, as used in casinos, is more random specifically because of the inability of most to be precise enough to get a 1:1 every time. The more uneven the interleave, the more random the shuffle actually is. The $15 ones I've seen ARE single "motor" (hand crank), and are far less random.
Hi Fran, nice video. I was not aware of a shortage on playing cards, here in Australia we have the run on toilet paper, sanitiser, Glen 20 / Eucalyptus spray ( smells much nicer than Glen 20 ) , rice, pasta, tomato sauce and pet food ( yes people staying home are overfeeding dogs and cats ) I have spend about 20 mins trying to figure is one motor should be faster than the other, but that would just place more from say left deck in tackle with right deck. If the motors are equal you are then just swaping into a mirror image The tilt cam would not do much, from a quick view is seems to be about 20-25% of the entire 360 wheel, so there is a 1 in 4 or 1 in 5 change both kick cams will be at the 12 oclock position and any given rotation, plus they will be near enought for the next few revolutions. Even if you disassembled and moved one of the kick cam wheels say 30 degrees out, with similar or different motor they will match up sooner or later. - Hmm i wonder if a resistor on one motor would mismatch the speed enough to make more variation or would is only achieve in say having the faster one continue to lay say 3 or 4 cards on top of each other. It does not appear to be a good randomiser, you are correct it needs to be supplements with several random hand shuffles. I would also get rid of the silly clear perspex door and just tilt the machine to get the cards out, or use it to store a full deck when not in use. I still use the Ipad 2 for the solitaire game, as well as the original MS Windows version ( the 3.1 version of SOL i think works up to Win 7 ) Re the hand tremor, my father had it since age 50, i get it time to time, but i found using those little foam sponge sleeves over pens / pencils / screwdrivers helps as your fingers are not as much in a claw position. I do not do much PC repair work any more but the odd times i go ok then all of a sudden drop a screw or stark fumbling when trying to locate it and hand start the first few threads. I have thyroid eye disease ( called graves disease with eye protrusion due to ineffective treatment over last 15 years - but i had thyroid removal 2018 ) - anyway the 2 hospitals have separate clinics Diabetes / Cancer plus the eye clinics so i have meet about 40 doctors in the last 4 years of treatment and we chat at times, re the random hand spasm etc, a few suggested some squishy jelly stuff kids play with like playdo and a few advised it may be a motor reflex issue as in the brain sending out false signals or the nerves just reacting on their own to other impulse, strange that 3 or 4 doctors suggested i keep a few coins and play with them from time to time and try and replicate some magician moves in rolling the coin and passing between fingers as a exercise in mental concentration and manipulating small objects. I am a accountant and i use the keyboard often in my 9 to 5 job, keyboard use if not really a problem but i do find using the mouse at times can be a issue - again that enforces that with my fingers extended when touch typing i am fine, but grasping and my hand in the almost clenched formation is where i feels the problem is Regards George
Just a friendly FYI: It's suit, not suite. And before anyone tells me it's the French way of saying it, nope, a suite is a set of rooms in both French and English. The French for suit is 'costume' and the French refer to suits of cards as 'couleur' or colour in English. And now you know :)
amazon prices have gone through the roof across the board. a decent pack of cards hasn't changed price much in the last five years. i'm a big fan of this pair of KEM plastic cards www.kem.com/cards/ARROW-CONS-RED-BLU.html. $15 a pack and they last forever, and feel great. you'll never want to play with card again after handling good quality plastic cards.
we had two plastic electric-powered card shufflers - to shuffle two decks worth of cards. the quickly broke. We now have a plastic hand-cranked shuffler,, same size, and its lasting just fine.
where are you finding decks that expensive? Right now on amazon you can get a pack of bicycle playing cards for 4 dollars, or a 12 pack of decks for 13 dollars, and that specific machine is for sale for 10 dollars on amazon lol
That "casino like" shuffle is actually called a riffle shuffle, and the one with your hand is called an overhand shuffle. And when you do seven riffle shuffles, it should not be necessary to do any overhand shuffles in between to get a random order when starting from an ordered deck. But probably you don't want to do seven riffle shuffles (even with the shuffler) if it is just for your game of solitaire. I'm not sure if connecting both "cams" with a belt or cogwheels would be a good idea, it would probably reduce the randomness of the shuffle.
Is your drawer in backwards? The tabs look like they may be designed as detents to keep it from falling out. Also, we always said “suit” instead of “sweet” (phonetic)
As many have mentioned, you don't want them perfectly in sync. Run them through the machine, cut into ~thirds, machine, cut again, machine, cut... repeat half a dozen or so times and it should be well shuffled. But secondly, how would you even be able to without making the unit larger? If you had a belt going from one side to the other it would be in the way of the chamber the cards fall into. Also it might be worth adding some kind of barriers to help prevent cards being shot out of the sides.
Last hoarder house I cleaned out had what must have been 75+ decks of cards. All new. Coulda stacked you to the ceiling. I think we threw them out or gave to Goodwill. Sorry!
Bend that to move one of the motors only when the audio peaks on an AM receiver and the another when it is quiet. Radio randomness seeded card shuffler.
Gee it seems to me the physical manipulations required to help the machine give you desired randomness (split the deck, shuffle, take cards out, manually random shuffle, reinsert cards, etc.) is as tough on your hands and wrists as a strict 20 seconds of manual shuffling.
Have you considered setting a filter on the comments to black list words like tremor, Parkinson’s, handshakes, etc? You then don’t have to worry about comments you don’t want.
I speculate that the 'open' and 'close' notation was originally supposed to appear over some kind of indicator light set up that 'reminded' the user not to open the drawer when the machine was in motion ? Lights that were subsequently removed from the design partially because it saved time and money but mostly because they were almost totally useless. Also, 'suit' is pronounced as in a 'suit of clothes' not as in a 'suite of furniture'. (at least here in Europe.)
As for the On / Off button, Here in Canada the French don't really have a word for On / Off when it comes to a switch. I have heard many French people say please open or close the light when translating from French to English.. Hope that helps
I was half expecting to see some basic circuitry to introduce irregularity in the voltage going to the motors, even if it was just a few caps & resistors. This would at least make having 2 motors make sense - if the motors run at a variable & irregular speed it'd introduce more randomness to the shuffle.
A deck of cards can be divided into four suits. Is it a Philadelphia thing to call them “sweets”? In over five decades, I have only ever heard them called “soots”. As in a two-piece soot.
You might get a better shuffle if you divide the deck into two parts, then for just ONE part, cut the cards and complete the cut. The pass both parts through the machine. Repeat for several passes, each time making a cut on just one part.
