Great Ball Contraptions

Snapshot

nexander said:

I'm know I'm dancing on the line a bit here but whats the thoughts on the PV balls?  

I've found they're a bit too small. The ones I measured were 13.5mm and Lego are around 14mm. This is enough for the Bidule a balles module from Planet GBC to fail. Quercetti marbles, if you can get them, work perfectly. I suspect that when PV Productions say the balls are made to work with GBCs they really mean with their GBCs.....

greatballpit

Hey everyone, interest in GBC seems to have died down here on Brickset lately.  Check out this fun new ball bin I built, with free instructions available.  It's a small build that might get you thinking about GBC again!

https://youtu.be/XbZBDj1nJvE

Huw

I went away for a week and a bit over Easter, then have been busy with building stuff to review but I'll be displaying my balls in public again this weekend.

Your boxes look great, if a bit over-engineered!

SirBen

I have 4 modules in various stages of development...
Here’s a video of our layout from this past weekend:
https://www.facebook.com/176399929225888/posts/1048758001990072?s=100007467609254&v=e&sfns=mo

greatballpit

Huw said:

I'll be displaying my balls in public again this weekend.

🤔 ... 😂

playwell

^ Well at least we know they are in good shape: 

Huw said:

I've inspected my balls. I can't see anything untoward on them

eMJeeNL

*experiencing meltdown*.

[email protected], and good luck. Did you clean them properly?

greatballpit

eMJeeNL said:

[email protected], and good luck. Did you clean them properly?

I'm balling over here 🤣.  Here's the follow the ball video from BrickCan 2019 this weekend.

https://youtu.be/cS1Xxd2HS60

Astrobricks

^ That’s the most incredible setup I’ve seen. 

greatballpit

ThanksAstrobricks said:

^ That’s the most incredible setup I’ve seen. 

Thanks, you should check out TwinLUG if your from Minnesota, there is a few GBC guys in that club that hang out in my chat.

Snapshot

Anyone know how to contact Ryk Field? I'd like to give him  feedback on some of his modules but he doesn't respond to comments left on his YouTube videos.

greatballpit

Snapshot said:

Anyone know how to contact Ryk Field? I'd like to give him  feedback on some of his modules but he doesn't respond to comments left on his YouTube videos.

You can join the GBC community chat I host on Discord.  He is in there and active, but he is on Brisbane Australian time.  https://discordapp.com/invite/YPwm9w7

RykField

Snapshot said:

Anyone know how to contact Ryk Field? I'd like to give him  feedback on some of his modules but he doesn't respond to comments left on his YouTube videos.

Hey there.  Like Matt said, i'm usually around on the Discord server.  @rykfield mentions usually ping my phone when i'm awake.  I've responded to your comment over on YouTube.  Regards, Ryk.

nexander

Had one of the pv productions closed loop as part of my display at Edinbrick and learned something important - You can't look after a GBC and be one of the event organisers at the same time!  The loop in question had to be babysat much more than expected.  On the plus side had loads of afols saying 'I want to do one' so there is going to be about 8-10 GCB novices coming together for a colab next year, should be interesting!

Paperballpark

Oh yeah, GBCs are pretty much the only kind of display that you can't leave for any length of time. Even trains can be left for a while, but GBCs just can't.

greatballpit

We usually have enough GBC builders in the pit so that we have some coverage when someone wants to step away for lunch or participate in other con activities.

greatballpit

Scrooge McDuck heard about the price of GBC balls and is now hoarding them instead of gold coins!

https://youtu.be/pawI6pj0AqM

greatballpit

Here's a simpler module that only took a few days to build.

https://youtu.be/Jp81c2dYaMo

Huw

Very cool!

nexander

^^that's great, simple but very effective. 
 
Looks like the gbc bug has bitten north of the border. We have went from no gbc builders to enough we might have a colab put together by Glesga Bricks in September. We just need to actually build stuff as we are all gbc novices.

Snapshot

As documented earlier in the thread, I started from scratch last October and now have enough for a small one-man show. There are loads of instructions on-line: www.greatballcontraption.nl (aka Maico Arts), www.greatballcontraption.com, www.planet-gbc.com and, of course, www.greatballpit.com are all great sources of instructions for GBC modules. The major piece of advice I would give is to only pick modules that have .PDF instructions. LDD just can't handle anything as complex as a GBC and .LDR files seem to be useless. I'll also repeat the advice I gave recently on the Brickish forum - grab motors, extension cables and reversing switches NOW from Lego shop-at-home while they're still available.

Cyberdragon

Snapshot said:

As documented earlier in the thread, I started from scratch last October and now have enough for a small one-man show. There are loads of instructions on-line: www.greatballcontraption.nl (aka Maico Arts), www.greatballcontraption.com, www.planet-gbc.com and, of course, www.greatballpit.com are all great sources of instructions for GBC modules. The major piece of advice I would give is to only pick modules that have .PDF instructions. LDD just can't handle anything as complex as a GBC and .LDR files seem to be useless. I'll also repeat the advice I gave recently on the Brickish forum - grab motors, extension cables and reversing switches NOW from Lego shop-at-home while they're still available.

That's why you use Stud.io, the superior design software.

Paperballpark

nexander said:

^^that's great, simple but very effective. 
 
Looks like the gbc bug has bitten north of the border. We have went from no gbc builders to enough we might have a colab put together by Glesga Bricks in September. We just need to actually build stuff as we are all gbc novices.

That's great news! The one piece of advice I'd give is to thoroughly test all your modules! Don't assume that because they run well for 10 minutes at home on a spirit-level-flat surface, that they'll run well for 8 hours at a show with wonky tables and kids poking at them and putting balls back on them in places they really shouldn't.

Sure, they may well run fine, but we've all had modules we've had to pull out of a display after a couple of hours because it's just not working as it should. Also, have a 'back up' module or two for this very reason, to be able to slot it into the gap you've created by pulling a broken module out.

greatballpit

I got the horses in the bacccck.

https://youtu.be/w6VKCyFLN9k

Huw

Another attractive module, Mr. @greatballpit!

greatballpit

Heres the BW2019 module!

https://youtu.be/2ASmhMT_5BI

Huw

I like that! Studless, too, for a change. Where's the instructions?

greatballpit

No instructions in the wild yet, I built it based off the parts list, the cover image(for said unreleased instructions), and some BTB videos from earlier this year where they were testing it.

SirBen

Huw said:

I like that! Studless, too, for a change. Where's the instructions?

Instructions will likely be posted at http://greatballcontraption.com/wiki/Category:Modules after Brickworld concludes as that is where instructions from the past few years are posted.

SirBen

Huw said: Where's the instruction?

They’re now posted at http://www.greatballcontraption.com/wiki/Sawtooth

Snapshot

What I did on Saturday:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/snapshot-jh/48169623796/in/datetaken-public/

Eight or nine Brickish members gathered in a small village hall to put on a small show to help raise money for a defibrillator. It was a bit too warm and numbers could have been better but otherwise went well.

Paperballpark

^ translation: you sweated your arse off, half the modules broke down in the heat and no-one turned up ;)

Snapshot

The first and last bits are almost true but I didn't need to swap any modules out apart from one that didn't work from the start. I think David T & Jonathan N who were running trains had heating problems, however.

greatballpit

I finally built the path splitter I've wanted for a while.

https://youtu.be/TJ2qPTvO_8g

Fizyx

Haven't been keeping up with GBC lately for my own sanity (Not at a place now where I can afford both GBC and the rest of the LEGO collecting I want to do, so sacrifices have to be made ;_;) but I had the latest Akiyuki module that was posted yesterday pop up in my Youtube feed, and I figured that you guys would be interested if you hadn't seen it already.  He's called it 'Peanuts'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gz6g0vT4XsY

Fauch

wow that's really complex stuff

Fizyx

Fauch said:

wow that's really complex stuff

The making of video is really interesting too, although I still have absolutely no clue how he thinks of some of the basic mechanisms/movements.

Huw

The bloke's a genius...

CCC

Even at 8x slow motion I can barely work out what it is doing!

Paperballpark

That is pretty damn impressive! I can work out what it's doing quite easily - it's basically a stepper leading to a ball pump, which then places the balls for another section to lift them out - a la the popular 'picker' module - and dumps them onto an exit ramp.

The clever bit (apart from coming up with it!) is getting it all to rotate and move in sync. It'd be interesting to see how long it can keep going for without some part of it breaking...

CCC

Yeah, it is the timing that is difficult to see, it seems absolutely perfect. Although I guess that as the radii of the arcs are all the same, and the spinning arms are centred in their respective arcs, the spinning arms once set in position will always be in time with each other as they all run from the same motor. I originally thought there was some free flight between one arm and the next which might cause some problems, but during the slow-mo you can see there is a very small overlap in time where two arms are pushing the cart, as the cart is being handed from one arm to another, much like a relay race. And so there is no change in speed during the hand-over (unlike the fumbled relay running at a school sports day!).

I've never noticed it happening, but do the gears ever slip (miss a tooth connection) when running for hours? I guess if one section is prone to slipping more than another it might knock that piece slowly out of sync. I rarely have a set up where I would notice if a slip had occurred.

Paperballpark

Axles can quite easily move over an extended period of time, if not secured properly (and sometimes even if they are!) And this can then lead to gears slipping too. I've also seen gears stripped and axles twisted, and I seem to recall some weird damage done to a part, but I can't remember what now (@huw might know).

Basically, GBCs are funny things - parts have problems you don't expect, tensions you can't predict, and sometimes, just sometimes, modules which worked perfectly when testing don't work at all when you put them in a layout. 

Snapshot

Yup, I had a module at Reading where one axle gradually crept outwards, releasing one of its gears. Now replaced by an axle with a stop. Can't wait to see what it does next.....

Snapshot

So Huw & I displayed our balls in a rather grimy engine shed over the weekend. The public seemed to love it, despite the poor weather. We had the usual litany of modules failing for various reasons and I have a load of repairs/enhancements to make. My slightly ropey video (I do very little video so they're usually ropey) is at https://www.flickr.com/photos/snapshot-jh/48522008276 . I don't know if Huw got a chance to do anything better but he's probably busy scrubbing his balls at the moment.

Huw

My balls are perfectly clean, thank you!

I washed them in a pillow case and now they are sparkling again.

RykField

Those purple and white slides make me feel like a kid again and I don't even know why.

Paperballpark

That's the problem I have - I have a number of modules which need improvements making to them, and I have had since STEAM last year, but I've never got round to doing so.

I also have at least 8 sets to build, including the UCS MF, Corner Garage, Technic Bugatti, Technic Porsche (new one), and Technic Rough Terrain Crane. They've been sat in my Lego room mostly since January.

In addition to that, I have a few new parts to build a new Robot Wars robot from before STEAM in October.

However, my Lego room is currently in a complete mess, with boxes everywhere, and no tables built up at all. This is due to me planning to move house earlier in the year, putting it all in storage and turning the room back into a bedroom. Then taking it all out of storage once I decided to postpone moving.

Of course, I could turn it back into a Lego room, build all my sets, build a new robot and fix my GBCs, were it not for the fact that I'm currently on the other side of the world on an long break.

I also have half a million other things waiting for me to do.

Oh and when I get back I also need to look for a new job, given that my old contract ended about a month ago. There's only so long you can live on savings!

And if that isn't enough, at some point I definitely need to move. Somewhere bigger. No idea where yet.

Sorry, did someone say something about washing dirty balls? ;)

Huw

Excuses, excuses... :)

Snapshot

RykField said:

Those purple and white slides make me feel like a kid again and I don't even know why.

I thought about yellow and black but decided that might be a bit too painful on the eyes. I found a cheap source of double cheeses and bought lots.....

Fizyx

Thought you guys might like to see Akiyuki's newest video too, since you liked the Peanuts one... and this one is Extended Peanuts.  He clearly designed it for this from the start.  Spoilers:  He built it to support feeds from two different sources, with a different distinct output for each source.  His Ball Factory has been probably my favorite semi-sane GBC module for a long time (not counting completely insane ones like the giant Ferris wheel :P) but I think this Extended Peanuts module may have just taken the cake.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bxCCf5wjss