Rockston Side Loader - My thoughts

[Ikaria]

Sharing some of my thoughts / experiences with Rockston's side loader.

My kudos go out to Rockston for developing this and delivering at such an affordable price.

I gave this a test on a couple of my machines, and it works really well.

Contact via e-mail and throughout the process was superb. Shipping was very fast.

No problems with assembly following the included instructions. The most time consuming thing was making the sides and drilling / counter sinking the holes. Really not that long at all.

He recommends using a drill press. If you have one, use it. I don't and had no issues.

Materials - I went with everything listed in the instructions except the PE and vinyl tubing.

The wood from Jo-Anns was a bit too narrow across the width (nominal sizing) to fit the template, so I modified it slightly so I could get 2 sets of side pieces from the wood.

The PE tubing isn't available anywhere near me. I checked 4 Ace Hardware stores as well as the big box stores. Nada. (Actually this was probably the most time consuming thing)

I used a gray electrical conduit elbow that I had left over from a previous project to complete the lift tubing. Had to heat up just a bit to slide the PEX into it.

Additional thoughts - I find that balls jam if the hopper is too full. Jams at the guard to the sprocket area. Not an issue, just don't think you can load it up like the orange lifters.

Also noticed there was a bit of sparking across the aluminum rails when balls are making contact which made me a bit concerned.

I took some Mothers mag polish and gave the rails a good clean/shine. Made a difference with the operation of the gear motor by reducing jerkiness and sparking. Will probably need to do this periodically.

Lastly, I took one of the side pieces and cut it to hold half of a Texas Auctions (miss these guys!) ball catcher so that the side loader could be turned at a 90 to fit a wider variety of machines (I have a lot).

Currently the ball catcher is held in with thumb tacks, which hold sufficiently. Might do something different later.

Here is the final product.


Again, my thanks go out to Rockston!

[rockston]

Thanks for the nice review Ikaria! And also for that alternative tubing idea and other suggestions! I am looking forward to see how the implementation of the side loader evolves with all the creative people here at Pachitalk. BTW Anyone who wants the clear 1/2" ID polyethylene tubing, please contact me, I have a ACE source nearby in Illinois and I will ship it to you at cost. Unfortunately through some research I have found out that not every ACE carries this size.

[rockston]

Attention Sideloader Users:

Customers may want to add small washers to slightly elevate the center rails

I have recently found that the rail spacing in the hopper is marginal as it stands. If everything isn't aligned just right, it's possible for a ball to bottom out on the plywood bottom and not make clean double contact in all places, thus causing arcing. The simple fix for all is to place a M4 washer under each end of the two center rails to create additional vertical clearance from the wood hopper bottom. I bought some from Ace that measure about .032 in thickness and will be including them in kits and pre-built analog Sideloaders from now on. Sorry I didn't catch this sooner! On a positive note, I haven't had a single return from any of the several dozen customers out there now who have purchased a loader. I want to thank my wonderful customers for that! Rockston

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