MARBLE LIFTING AUTOMATION

[Brian Rupnow]

Today I'm feeling more like a living member of the human race, and I've uploaded my 2012 edition of Solidworks and finally gotten it sorted out, so Hey!!--Lets do a little more design. When my marble comes out the top of the Lexan tube, I want it to follow two paths, alternating between them each time. To do that, one needs to have a flip-flop gate. The flip flop gate is activated by the weight of the marble falling through it. I don't know exactly where those discharge tubes are going yet, but I do have a couple of small cast brass bells that I would like to incorporate!!!

[Alan Haisley]

Hopefully the bells are, or can be made, different pitches. One in each flip-flop path. Very cool.

Alan

[Brian Rupnow]

You're right, Alan. The bells are two different sizes with two distinctly different sounds.

[Brian Rupnow]

Well, that's a days work!! Not very big pieces, but progress, none the less. I made the flip-flop gate, the shroud which bolts to one side of it to keep the marble from escaping, and the carrier plate which the flip-flop gate pivots on. That carrier plate also has two holes bored in it that are on a 5 degree angle down. The two pieces of 1" brass tube are the tubes which will be eventually used for marble tracks, but they have to be cut to length and have holes cut in for the marbles to enter from the side, out of the flip-flop gate. I changed the design from what I had modelled and posted in the last post, to simplify fabrication. Maybe tomorrow I will make the final piece which the carrier plate bolts to and is supported by the top of the Lexan tube.

[Brian Rupnow]

This is a blowup of the revised flip flop gate. As each marble escapes from the top of the green fixture on top of the Lexan tube, it will flip the gate to the opposite side. I had to watch a lot of Youtube videos to figure out what was actually happening there. The marble won't roll out the wrong end of the 1" diameter tube because the tube is angled down 5 degrees from horizontal towards the end I want the marble to come out of.

[Brian Rupnow]

"Amazing" is a word that often gets overused.--And yet--I find it rather amazing how this flip flop gate works!! In the pictures you can see the 3/4" hole cut in the brass tubes to let the marble into one tube or the other, depending on whether the gate is "flipped" or "flopped". I destroyed another big industrial bearing this morning to come up with another dozen "marbles" --which are actually 11/16" diameter bearing balls. This gave me enough that I could keep loading the balls into the "load ramp" as I hand cranked the big pulley. The balls rise up in the tube, and each time one discharges, it hits on whichever side of the pointed ramp is offset from center, depending on which way the gate is tipped. As it rolls down that side, the weight of the marble tips the gate in the opposite direction so that the next marble will hit the other side of the pointed ramp and tip the gate in the other direction. Perhaps its true "Small things amuse small minds"!!  That probably says something about me, but I'm having fun!!!

[Brian Rupnow]

I had to machine a reducer shim to install in the very top of the fitting that discharges the marble out the spout to the flip flop gate. Since the i.d. of the Lexan tube was 3/4". I step bored that top piece 1" to fit over the tube and 3/4" to line up with the inside of the tube. This worked fine but---the marbles are only 11/16" diameter. the very top marble would roll towards the back side of the vertical hole and stay there, going out backwards over the open top instead of rolling foreword out the spout. The brass shim which is .080 thick at the widest part tapering to 0" at the end of each arm does the trick quite nicely and forces the topmost marble foreword so that it rolls out the spout as intended. The brass shim is Loctited in place.

[Alan Haisley]

Brian,
I assume that the flip-flop has its CG over center so whichever way it tips it remains stable until the next marble drops.
Alan

[Brian Rupnow]

You nailed it Alan. I am on the verge of making a video showing the flip flop gate in action, but had to go back and revisit the mechanism which releases one marble at a time to the pitching arm today, because it was not operating consistently. There is nothing worse than getting all set up to make a video and then having the machine operate inconsistently.

[Brian Rupnow]

So after a full day of reconfiguring the gate which releases marbles one at a time to the pitching arm, we are far enough along to make a video showing the flip-flop gate in operation. I just spied a nice concave wooden salad bowl upstairs in the kitchen, but when I asked my wife if I could have it to add to the marble machine, my wife was quite indignant, and said that she has had that wooden salad bowl longer than she has me!!! I guess maybe I'll go have a look at Walmart----

[swilliams]

I really like the flip flop gate too Brian. What mechanically minded sort of person wouldn't find that mechanism fascinating?

Steve

[Don1966]

Awesome Brian I like it, are you going to have the balls make there way back to the Shute?


Don

[Brian Rupnow]

Yes Don--I want to make it a "closed loop" circuit.

[Arbalest]

Nice job Brian. I think maybe Mathias would like to see this once it's finished! 

[Brian Rupnow]

I convinced my good wife that she should buy a new set of wooden salad bowls. This means that I get one of the four existing ones to add to my crazy machine. I sorted through my odd bits of 2" round aluminum, and found that by joining 3 of them together I can generate a heavy walled tube to fit under the wooden bowl. A piece of 1/4" aluminum plate will make a bell support for one of my bronze handbells, and a bit of 1/8" steel and some .094 dia. wire can be combined to make a bell clapper. Now the deal is, ---the ball rolls out the spout on one side of the flip flop gate, picks up some velocity from the 5 degree gradient, and discharges into the wooden bowl at one side, where it rolls in ever diminishing circles until, like the famed hoo-hoo bird it disappears up its own---no no--wait.--I mean until it falls down the hole thru the center of the bowl and down through the 3/4" hole drilled through the center of the 2" diameter aluminum. On the way down, the ball bearing strikes the clapper, causing it to rotate on its axle and ring the bell. The ball bearing then discharges from the bottom of the tube, lands in a ball track (which I have yet to make) and finds it's way back to the load ramp for the pitching arm.