While designing the lift mechanism for the new rolling ball sculpture, I found myself using a paint program and a lot of manual work to get printed plans with a 1:1 scale factor. In other words, I wanted printouts that were the actual size of the mechanism. This…
Continue readingBeginning of the Tree I’m trying my hand at making a metal Bonsai tree as the main support for the rolling ball sculpture track. This is going to be tricky because I need to get most of the tree finished before I start placing the track. But there…
Continue readingI just finished building the parts for the ball lifter. This won’t be the last post about this rolling ball sculpture because I need to build the track. But I may not have much to say about the lift mechanism after this. Two-Step Ball Lifter I may need…
Continue readingThis is a subtle variation of the previous design. The upper ground connector, for the upper lift, was too far to the left and a little too high. I moved it, and the ground connector below it, a little to the right. The plan was to weld some…
Continue readingLower Ball Lift The rolling ball sculpture (kugelbahn/marble-run), is coming along slowly but surely. The video shows the lower ball lift working. The upper lift arms will attach to this same frame and lift the ball another five-ish inches. I bought some nicely colored 1” marbles to try…
Continue readingI have a few more parts built, so I put the motor on and ran this test. Mechanism Test The motor is running "backwards" in this test. The long part sticking out from the two moving parts is just a metal rod I stuck in there to make…
Continue readingThe previous post about this work-in-progress can be found here. I finished the rough metal work for the frame of the lift mechanism. The frame is designed like a truck frame. Here are some pictures. Three Frame Parts Assembled Frame Motor Installed Ball Stops (not shaped correctly yet)…
Continue readingI resolve to do the following: Work in the garage more. I want to build the ball lifter for a new rolling ball sculpture. I got a new band saw blade that cuts through 1/8” thick steel like butter, even running the blade too fast, and I’m on…
Continue readingDear random internet person, I once had to stop two cars back from a stop sign. There was snow on the road and the road was on a bit of a hill. There was no way to get out and measure the snow composition and compaction, and no…
Continue readingThis is a running log of my progress on the new RBS. I designed the motorized lift mechanism in an earlier blog post, but I’ll show the animation again for completeness sake. Animation of Mechanical Ball Lift I used the Linkage program to design this. It was handy…
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