Motorized Cap for Tulio's Marble Machine #3

thingiverse

This thing is intended to replace the cap pieces of Tulio's "The 3D Printed Marble Machine #3" in order to allow me to attach a VEX robotics motor to run it. It just seemed like it needed done. https://youtu.be/HKn0BOGbLsw Smaller Spiral The included smaller spiral section was necessary because the spheres I'm using are slightly too large. This piece allows the blue marbles which I used to travel up the center of the machine. It seems to work okay, though not perfectly, for spheres of around 10-10.2mm in diameter. I would have scaled the entire machine up if I'd acquired the marbles before printing, but I'd already printed the track by the time I realized my marbles were inconsistently sized and too large and I didn't want to print a whole new one. Print Settings Printer Brand: MakerBot Printer: MakerBot Replicator (5th Generation) Rafts: Yes Supports: Yes Resolution: High Infill: Default Post-Printing Need motor, half-inch square shaft, and 2 motor mounting screws. Use the square shaft to attach the Turncap to the motor. Use the screws to mount the motor (the screw heads should sink into the Lockcap). That's it. Just pop it onto the marble machine, and power it to go. How I Designed This I imported Tulio's STL files into Sketchup using the SketchUp STL plugin. For the Lockcap, I added VEX motor mount holes. For the Turncap, I re-designed the base to connect with the motor using a square shaft. For the Smaller Spiral, I separated the outside faces of the Spiral STL from the holes which fit into the Track and Turncap, and scaled those outside faces to 90.5% of their original size on the X and Y axes. Straight Power Powering the motor directly with a 9v battery To power the motor directly... Cables should match: Motor red to 9v black. 9v red to motor black. Adjustable Power Powering the motor with a potentiometer in line. To be able to adjust the motor's speed... Cables should match: Motor red to 9v black. 9v red to VEX potentiometer white. VEX potentiometer black to motor black. (I used a VEX 3-wire "Y" cable as a coupler to connect these two male ends.)