New Ball Lift Design by Rockston Engineering !

[cardwwi]

Why don't you use 1/2" PVC Electrical Conduit 90 Degree Elbow?


$(KGrHqJ,!hYE2ei6mQ3UBNve4Z,JFg~~_35[1].jpg

[mxfaiman]

Why don't you use 1/2" PVC Electrical Conduit 90 Degree Elbow?

There's an idea. Though 1/2" would be too big and I don't think they make it in 7/16".

[rockston]

Thanks for the suggestions ! My thinking was the best way to keep sound levels down is to try not to make too much noise in the first place because we are

dealing with an open box that transmits sound like a speaker.


If I decide to go into production with a rotary drive, I will most likely have delrin gears made and fabricate the rest of the machine

I have a motor coming Monday, I am sacrificing some bpm for lot's of torque and still keeping the price down. It's important to go dc

as apposed to 110 ac so I can safely switch the motor without relays. My plumbing supply house told me that I could buy 1/2" cpvc sweep 90's

where they are legal for water lines just north of me in Wisconsin.



I am also having success with an inexpensive spring loaded roller to take the place of the anti jamming input arm on an orange. Who knows, by the end of this I

might convince myself that the first design isn't that loud after all !

[rockston]

I am going back to the original piston concept , otherwise this project stands a good chance of failing because of all the extra machining involved.

Damn it ! I knew that before I started any of this and I still got suckered into the allure of the simple rotating wheel that's not so simple in practice!

[pachiwall]

I'll bet you can auction off your prototypes!

[mxfaiman]

Damn it ! I knew that before I started any of this and I still got suckered into the allure of the simple rotating wheel that's not so simple in practice!

I'm sure most of us would have gone the same way.

[Denhomer]

Why the sudden change of course again? Something went wrong?

[rockston]

Something more wonderful, quieter and inexpensive occurred to me. cam drive.jpg

[Drunkenclam]

Sweet. I have some perfect metal cams that come out of door closers. But very heavy duty. Put a spring and plunger on the other side or every 90 degress and you can have one motor running multiply lifts

[Wayne-Ooo]

I am going back to the original piston concept , otherwise this project stands a good chance of failing because of all the extra machining involved.

Damn it ! I knew that before I started any of this and I still got suckered into the allure of the simple rotating wheel that's not so simple in practice!

I always liked the first design. It seems so simple.

But if it doesn't work out, here's one I'am working on. 70.gif

[Card Shark]

Keep at it. I am sure you will get this thing up and running soon.

[mxfaiman]

Something more wonderful, quieter and inexpensive occurred to me. cam drive.jpg

I'll say it again.

Looks like a good plan.

Now lets see it get built.

[rockston]

I'll say it again.

You mean this? cam drive 101 - YouTube


New stronger motor on the way

[rockston]

testing test 1 cam - YouTube

[rockston]

I am really pleased with this design! The production model is just going to be a rectangular catch box like the gear drive proto because that

shape works just fine now that I understand the exit hole. The machine can run non stop because it doesn't hammer the stack of balls when there

are non to lift, of course if needed, one micro switch can be installed in the prize hopper to shut the lifter off when it's full



Ok... here is the thing about what ball per minute speed is required for one lifter installed in one machine: My guess is simply the maximum rate that you can lose balls. In theory, it is just less than your shooter speed. But we will go a bit more. So what is that? 2, 3 a second max ?



Now if you want to network your machines and fill a large payout hopper from a collective "lost ball basin" then of course that's a different

requirement. How many of you are doing something like that? I can probably feed 500 bps no problem but it will require a more expensive motor.


Before I go broke ordering motors, what speed do we really need for a single machine lifter?

[mxfaiman]

Well for me cheaper is better as I would be feeding vintages.

Don't know about moderns though. They tend to be ball hogs.

[candyflip]

I
Ok... here is the thing about what ball per minute speed is required for one lifter installed in one machine: My guess is simply the maximum rate that you can lose balls. In theory, it is just less than your shooter speed. But we will go a bit more. So what is that? 2, 3 a second max ?

Unfortunately, no.

Lifters are normally used to replenish the back top hopper on a machine. The prize balls during a fever are outputted from the back top hopper and fed to the front top tray. They can be outputted at as much as 15 balls every 2-3 seconds x 10 hole inputs x 15 rounds. So every 30 seconds during one Round, during a fever, the back top hopper is losing about 150 balls. There is then a short 5-10 second break while it resets for another Round. Then it starts the same sequence again for Round 2 (at 40 seconds). So every roughly 70 seconds total, the back top hopper is outputting around 300 balls to the front upper tray of the player as prizes.

It is also losing 1-2 balls a second from the front upper tray, shot onto the playfield as the player attempts to get balls into the jackpot hole/gate. Many of those will not enter a gate and will be lost off the playfield, but some will enter a 'start' pocket and trigger anywhere from 5-10 balls to be also awarded as prizes. We therefore might add a conservative 3 'hits' to start pockets over the 70 seconds - which is another 15-30 balls. These need to be replenished also from the back top hopper.

So I'd reckon, during Fever only, the machine would need to handle about 320 balls every 70 seconds.

But otherwise, the normal play is using balls from the front upper tray only (the player's balls), not the parlour's (the back top hopper).

The exception to that is when the player has a CR enabled dongle fitted to a CR machine, and can 'buy' balls from the parlour whenever he/she wishes. At this time, they might purchase 100-500 balls at one time, all of which are paid to the front upper tray immediately from the back top hopper, and which would need to already be there in stock (just as they always are in a real parlour).

Hope that helps.

[luckydog]

the only true way to test it is to set it up on a machine with the back top hopper filled to the brim when you actually hit a fever

[compirate]

But the majority of games 'stock' the wins, so they'll pay out as soon as the hopper has enough balls in it. A fast lifter isn't needed unless you have a lot of people playing on the same row of games and winning.

[luckydog]

true