My Ball Lifter Design - Video

[sharmoni]

You have to constrain the balls in the lift screw or they'll just roll to the bottom. The Bandai Spacewarp series of Roller Coaster construction kits used the same mechanism in their ball lift towers: YouTube - Spacewarp 5000 Marble Roller Coaster Set. The balls are held in place by the vertical poles so the the screw lifts them up. I still have one of those kits. Hours of fun.

[mosheste]

You have to constrain the balls in the lift screw or they'll just roll to the bottom.

Not necessarily - if the rotation speed of the screw will be faster than the rolling of the marbles - it will be enough.

(I designed the model using Reactor physics engine of 3DS Max so the simulation is pretty accurate and should work in reality...)

Still the pole solution is nice and its nice to know it exists in reality...

[Eddie]

You have to constrain the balls in the lift screw or they'll just roll to the bottom. The Bandai Spacewarp series of Roller Coaster construction kits used the same mechanism in their ball lift towers: YouTube - Spacewarp 5000 Marble Roller Coaster Set. The balls are held in place by the vertical poles so the the screw lifts them up. I still have one of those kits. Hours of fun.

It appear that the balls are held in place with a Plexi tube in his video IF not thats the way to go.

[mudfud]

yes, the rolling down the spiral is the hitch that I've been thinking about for months now. I did buy some 36 inch long springs already, with the idea that they are a little smaller in gap than the pachinko balls, will trap the balls and the balls will then have to run in a vertical channel on the outside.

otherwise, you have to have a shaft with spines coming out to rotate the spring and trap the balls to keep them from rolling down hill.

I still have the motors, springs, aluminum channel from 6 weeks ago, still haven't started the actual construction part. I have a sense that it will be hard to get things "just right" and not jam. and, in the meantime, i've been reconstructing sanyo II's... but that's almost done and i'll need another project soon...

[rubberratt]

Have you calculated how many shperes/min that would push

[mosheste]

Have you calculated how many shperes/min that would push

Not exactly but i have made the same simulation with more balls and a slower rotation of the spring and it still went smoothly - Here it is - mind you no texture this time for time consuming reasons...

YouTube - Ball Lifter mechanism - Many Balls

P.S

There is a plastic tube and a center poll to prevent the balls from falling down or out of the spring...