Subject:
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Re: The Great Ball Contraption
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.robotics
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Date:
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Fri, 21 Jan 2005 15:22:12 GMT
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Viewed:
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5106 times
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In lugnet.robotics, Brian Davis wrote:
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In lugnet.robotics, Jordan Bradford wrote:
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I got super-motivated and built myself a
ball pump last night.
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Wow, nearly untouched territory... pumping Steve’s... oh, never mind.
On a more pratical note, does your pump meet the height requirement for the
GBC? I’ve got two ball pumps working, but both have the same problem -
allowing room under the hopper for the piston mechanism makes it hard to have
a deep hopper (and I’d really hate to use a “high hopper” for the ball pump
that has to be filled from the standard input via another mechanism).
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I don’t know if it fits into the standard or not. I didn’t plan on using it as
my first device, anyway. I’m going to build a simple large hopper for the
previous person’s contraption to feed into mine, and then I’ll have a feed chute
or something. Maybe I’ll use a conveyor/bucket mechanism to get balls out of the
initial input.
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it’s jam-proof if the marbles come once every
second or so.
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Mine has no problem with jamming, but occassionally problems with “clotting”
in the hopper starving the pump itself. Can yours handle a crate of balls
dumped all at once? I wonder what the ultimate percentage of “continuous
output” vs. “batch output” modules will end up at.
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My tiny little “hopper” for the pump does “clot” as you say, which is a problem
everyone’s going to encounter sooner or later. But I can guarantee nothing will
get stuck if the balls come one at a time.
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keeping tension in the tread links is proving
difficult. Any ideas on how to do that?
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If you need constant tension, one way to do it is tensioner. A third gear in
the chain, that can be moved in and out changing the shape (& therefore
length) of the triangular chain path. This doesn’t have to be hand-tuned
either - use a idler gear on a small free-swingin arm that is held in tension
by a weight or rubber band.
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Heh, once again my over-engineering defeats me. I tried using two shock
absorbers to push a gear into the hanging part of the chain, but they just
torqued the gear so that the chain wouldn’t move. I should always try the
simplest approach from now on. Thanks for the tip.
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One suggestion for people: I don’t like mystery
mechanisms.
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Well, one of the ball pump designs I’ve built can have one side of the
mechanism built out of clear panels... that is, if I could *get* any of them.
After I built it, I found S@H had run out, and Bricklink has (currently)
*one*. Sigh... Also, most of my designs are ending up rather skeletal, due to
the lack of pieces left for building.
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Lack of parts. Yep. Most of my contraptions will be skeletal for the same
reason. However, I have a 4561 (4160), and that has a lot of transparent panels
for the windows. I used one of those for the part of the pump that I think
people would consider mysterious. Now they can see each ball being lowered under
the column of balls and pushed up into it.
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: The Great Ball Contraption
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| (...) I'm not exactly sure how many "teeth" = 1 stud, but I know it's not a whole number. So, I've found if you can change the length by 1 or 2 studs, and add a few chain links, you don't need to add a tensioner. Steve (20 years ago, 21-Jan-05, to lugnet.robotics)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: The Great Ball Contraption
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| (...) Wow, nearly untouched territory... pumping Steve's... oh, never mind. On a more pratical note, does your pump meet the height requirement for the GBC? I've got two ball pumps working, but both have the same problem - allowing room under the (...) (20 years ago, 20-Jan-05, to lugnet.robotics, FTX)
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