New Ball Lift Design by Rockston Engineering !

[rockston]

Proof of concept prototype that I just built and got working in 8 hours I am waiting for a higher rpm motor to arrive, but I had tonitus and used what I had in stock. Video to come


Can you figure out how it works by looking at these pics ?

[luckydog]

???

[alphaminor]

a tunnel drilled at an incline from the box into the base of the pvc pipe connection?
then a paddle wheel (or a piston of some sort) mounted into an opening in the back of the pipe forcing the spheres upward???
very intrigued...
looks neat! you will have to share all the details

[Card Shark]

Looking forward to the video

[JACKSJE4]

I will be watching this thread. .

[rockston]

Pretty Close Alpha!

Proof of concept - YouTube video should be live soon

I am driving a single small delrin piston with a crank from the motor. The aluminum tube and its opening facing toward the tray act like the breech of a paintball gun, The thing that makes it all work is a small spring loaded ball (it doubles as a side mounting point to the angle bracket) located near the top of the stroke that the piston pushes the entire stack past. The spring loaded ball holds the stack up while the piston goes down below the entry hole and lets another ball in.

The motor that I ordered is about a third the size of this one and at least twice the rpm

[Card Shark]

Excellent!!!

[Wayne-Ooo]

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[Card Shark]

Something you might consider marketing???

[pachiwall]

Looking good! Can't wait to see how the new motor works! Hope to see how the innards work, if you don't mind sharing! I knew as soon as I saw your solenoid activated door latch, you had some good ideas floating around upstairs! Keep up the good work...and keep us posted with your progress!

[rockston]

Good morning, When I get this optimized I am hoping to take orders and then have my local machine shop run a batch for you guys!

[candyflip]

Genius!

The real challenge is increasing the ball output to say 3-4 or more a second, and having your tube/feeder handle that throughput. I say 3-4 a second as a rough estimate of what you would need a real machine to be handling, as that's only about 250 balls a minute, which as we know is not that many when in the middle of a GIANT fever on some of our machines, where a full fever cycle will consume upwards of 2500 balls. Some kenris use 4000+ !!

[rockston]

Genius!

The real challenge is increasing the ball output to say 3-4 or more a second, and having your tube/feeder handle that throughput. I say 3-4 a second as a rough estimate of what you would need a real machine to be handling, as that's only about 250 balls a minute, which as we know is not that many when in the middle of a GIANT fever on some of our machines, where a full fever cycle will consume upwards of 2500 balls. Some kenris use 4000+ !!

Thanks for your input, There will be a limit for sure of how much time I need to get a ball in at the bottom and I suspect that
I am already close to that. ( just found out that my motor I ordered and paid for is out of stock !) I am hoping for two balls a second or 120 rpm .

If it can't keep up with the demand that a newer machine requires then of course it will be useless there. Perhaps it still may have an application for an older machine. If not, I have a machine at home here that is willing to put up with any help I can give it in the upper hopper.

Have others rigged up their lifter equipped machines with a switch and a valve to let some of those upper balls into the play hopper? Seems to me that at some point, eventually all your balls might end up on top. When that happens I would like to refill my play hopper.

[mxfaiman]

Great Idea. Can't wait to see more of you future progress.

(Not trying to hijack the thread.)

But I mean with all the ideas I have seen so far I'm surprised no one has tried using suction, like a vacuum tube. Seems like it might be fairly easy and if you get enough suction it should go rather fast. (Might just be a little loud, which is a downside.)

[rockston]

... "honey...where on earth is our Dyson ?

[alphaminor]

Brilliant design, can't wait to see where it goes next,

[Card Shark]

I have one of the orange ball lifters on my modern JAWS machine. It has a pressure plate switch that goes in the upper hopper to let the lifter know when it is low on balls. The lifter only feeds the upper hopper which works well as I have a DaveRob Dongle so I can get get more balls (25 at a time) for the play hopper with the press of a button. The system works great and has really improved game play on the machine.

I am planning on doing some tweaking on the set up to reduce noise a bit. I will take some photos and post them when I do this.

Great work on your lifter. I would definitely be interested in one when the design is complete.

[rockston]

Picked up another motor, hopefully it will have enough torque. It's a nice little surplus motor with more than twice the rpm and there are over 400 available if I need them.

Can't wait to try it and see what it can do !

[Card Shark]

Looking forward to seeing the progress.

[mxfaiman]

Picked up another motor, hopefully it will have enough torque. It's a nice little surplus motor with more than twice the rpm and there are over 400 available if I need them.

Can't wait to try it and see what it can do !

Well that looks to be a little bigger.

Let us know the results.