Marble lifting automation

[bb218]

Why don't you have only one marble in the chute so it drops an new one each cycle ? As long as the marble gets down the chute before or at the same time as the arm gets down to load it. Mike

 

[Lawijt]

Hi Brian , thanks for the explanation & the pictures. I wil try too grind it also like you did.

Barry

 

[crueby]

Being an adult can be much more fun (as long as you act like a kid still!). When I was young I had to pick up the marbles and put them in the top of the chute myself!

Looking great - can't wait to see what marble marvels it does next.

 

[Brian Rupnow]

On Friday, I finished a fairly large design contract, (Large for an old semi-retired poop like me, anyways.). That gave me this past weekend to play with my marble machine. I have reached the conclusion that there is as much work, or possibly even more to a machine like this than there is to a model engine. The trick with these things isn't making them work. That's pretty straightforward. But making them work CONSISTENTLY---That's where the devil is hiding!!! At any rate, I have futzed away at this thing until I am ready to make a short video of the operation. I still have no firm ideas for the return part of the equation, but that will come with time. So---Here is a video of the state we are at currently.

 

[vascon2196]

Very cool Brian...very cool.

 

[stevehuckss396]

How hard would it be to make the balls come out the top of the tube and go down one of those tracks made from a pair of wires and recycle back to the point of pick up.

 

[Brian Rupnow]

Steve--That would be TOO easy. I kind of want the balls to do something rather mind boggling as they make their way back down to the load ramp. If you google "marble machine-youtube" you will see some absolutely amazing devices that the marbles animate under the influence of gravity.---Brian

 

[Cogsy]

Very cool machine so far. How about making the balls perform some work on the way back down? I'm thinking like a water-wheel but using marbles. My mind keeps picturing a little flag with the Rupnow logo popping up from somewhere as a ball passes too .

 

[Brian Rupnow]

I haven't done any more since I took the video on the 11-Nov, because I've been sick!!! Not sick enough to lay down and die, but not well enough to feel like doing anything. I am assuming its some kind of flue (at least hoping that's what it is.) I have laid around and read books until my eyeballs are fried, I have wandered in and out of my little machine shop two dozen times, but don't have enough gumption to machine anything. I have done a few of the Solidworks tutorials on sheet-metal, which is a rather confusing part of Solidworks which I really don't use often, and consequently I'm not very good at using it. I THINK I have a new design contract coming up next week, and hope sincerely that by next week I am back to my (usually) good health, because there is some travel involved. My good wife has just quit one job 25 miles away, and immediately got a new job teaching at a local college about 1 mile away, so she is disgustingly happy, while I am moaning about the place, wishing I would either get better soon, or die very quickly, with the emphasis on "Get better soon!!! This is just a post to let you all know that I am still on the planet, with hopes that I will be back on this project before Christmas.---Brian

 

[wagnmkr]

Brian, I for one hope you get well soon. I have been the same as you for a couple of weeks ... not bad enough to want to pop my clogs, but no enthusiasm whatsoever. I don't even feel like looking at engine plans.

As far as your marble machine goes ... make the marbles perform some kind of work on the way down ... or ... install yet another elevator to increase the height ... and then make them do work on the way down. Powering a wheel with a huge mechanical advantage that would power the machine so it could be perpetual ... now I got myself thinking ... no sleep tonight!

Cheers,

Tom

 

[Brian Rupnow]

No Tom--I'm not into perpetual motion. Too much entropy around for that. Although I could go absolutely nuts with add ons, I am going to keep it simple. Right now the plan is to discharge into a round "saucer" with a depressed center with a hole in it, and MAYBE a brass handbell that gets rang on the way down. ---Brian

 

[Path]

Brian,

Get well real soon ... but be sure that you okay to start back making chips. Too soon and you will be back wandering your shop. I know ... I've been there.

That applies to you also Tom.!!

Pat H

 

[AussieJimG]

I'll second Pat: I hope both of you recover quickly.

Jim

 

[Brian Rupnow]

Today I'm feeling more like a living member of the human race, and I've uploaded my 2012 edition of Solidworks and finally gotten it sorted out, so Hey!!--Lets do a little more design. When my marble comes out the top of the Lexan tube, I want it to follow two paths, alternating between them each time. To do that, one needs to have a flip-flop gate. The flip flop gate is activated by the weight of the marble falling through it. I don't know exactly where those discharge tubes are going yet, but I do have a couple of small cast brass bells that I would like to incorporate!!!

 

[vascon2196]

Brian...the bell is a good idea..especially since you already have them. Our students made a marble machine several years ago that uses "The Easy Button" from Staples. At the end when the marble drops on top of the button it says "that was easy".

But it wasn't easy when they were building it!

 

[Brian Rupnow]

Well, that's a days work!! Not very big pieces, but progress, none the less. I made the flip-flop gate, the shroud which bolts to one side of it to keep the marble from escaping, and the carrier plate which the flip-flop gate pivots on. That carrier plate also has two holes bored in it that are on a 5 degree angle down. The two pieces of 1" brass tube are the tubes which will be eventually used for marble tracks, but they have to be cut to length and have holes cut in for the marbles to enter from the side, out of the flip-flop gate. I changed the design from what I had modelled and posted in the last post, to simplify fabrication. Maybe tomorrow I will make the final piece which the carrier plate bolts to and is supported by the top of the Lexan tube.

 

[Brian Rupnow]

This is a blowup of the revised flip flop gate. As each marble escapes from the top of the green fixture on top of the Lexan tube, it will flip the gate to the opposite side. I had to watch a lot of Youtube videos to figure out what was actually happening there. The marble won't roll out the wrong end of the 1" diameter tube because the tube is angled down 5 degrees from horizontal towards the end I want the marble to come out of.

 

[Brian Rupnow]

"Amazing" is a word that often gets overused.--And yet--I find it rather amazing how this flip flop gate works!! In the pictures you can see the 3/4" hole cut in the brass tubes to let the marble into one tube or the other, depending on whether the gate is "flipped" or "flopped". I destroyed another big industrial bearing this morning to come up with another dozen "marbles" --which are actually 11/16" diameter bearing balls. This gave me enough that I could keep loading the balls into the "load ramp" as I hand cranked the big pulley. The balls rise up in the tube, and each time one discharges, it hits on whichever side of the pointed ramp is offset from center, depending on which way the gate is tipped. As it rolls down that side, the weight of the marble tips the gate in the opposite direction so that the next marble will hit the other side of the pointed ramp and tip the gate in the other direction. Perhaps its true "Small things amuse small minds"!! That probably says something about me, but I'm having fun!!!

 

[crueby]

I love the flip-flop gate. Put in enough of them, and you can build a computer! The worlds heaviest, loudest computer.... but the most fun to watch.

Any ideas on what the rest of it is going to do, or is it growing on its own? All sorts of things it could do - play music, operate catapults, turn on your other engines, chase the cat....

 

[Brian Rupnow]

Crueby--I salute your understanding of these machines!!! Right now, its kind of growing on its own. I do have two small bronze handbells that have different tones that may find their way into the mix.