Here’s a picture of a lifter ideas I threw together. The cool part is that the ball is lifted almost straight up – this is a straight line approximation mechanism – without a typical elevator or chain lift.
The line where the ball goes up is drawn for analysis bit when done, there will be no vertical supports in that spot. The ball will be lifted straight up along that path.
I am also going to build a lot more track around this lift. The lift is interesting but I’ve spent too much time on mechanisms lately. I want to build some track so I can design in a solid state reversing mechanism.
It’s funny how the picture looks like a bicycle design. Those circles, just like the vertical line the ball lift follows, are just drawings in the simulation and won’t be in the final work.