Fan Belt Ball Lifter?

[Moparformances]

My 'fan belt ball lifter' concept is a bit different. Instead of using a belt with notches that hold balls in them, I though of trying a smooth belt and trapping balls between the belt and a fixed wall, so that the belt rolls the balls up the wall.

This idea was refined into the idea below. Using a standard automotive serpentine belt and a couple of long plastic U-section channels (electrical surface trunking?). The picture shows a section looking down through the lifting 'tube'. The belt (red) runs down the middle of the two U-section channels which are slotted into each other and held together with elastic bands at several points up the length of the lifter 'tube' to keep the balls pressed tightly into the belt.

lifter.png

As the belt moves up the tube, the pachinko balls act as ball bearings and are rolled up the tube.

I put together a few scrap parts to try this idea out, and it seems that it should work, but have yet to buy a long enough belt to try it out full scale. The thing I've yet to work out are the feeding the balls to the bottom of the belt, as you need to have balls equally on both sides of the belt or there won't be enough pressure on the balls to roll them up the tube.

One of these days I'll get around to building a full scale version, and seeing if I can make it work reliably, but I've got too many other projects to work on right now.

i love this idea but in my minds eye if the balls are not feed constantly into the bottom on both sides then the balls allready loaded could move at differant rates and be allowed to slip back down.. by having balls on only one side of the belt i think your going to have better success
________
3S-GE ENGINE