Marble Machine Final Assembly

This post is intended describe the final assembly and summarize the work that was accomplished over the previous semester. As mentioned in the previous blog posts, the final assembly consists of 4 individual 3D printed parts. Since the printing procedure was discussed in depth already, this post will primarily focus on the assembly procedure. The assembly of the final design is quite simple. First, the screw caps are attached to the top of the screw resulting in the sub-assembly seen in Figure 1.

Figure 1. The screw sub-assembly.

 

The screw sub-assembly then was then fit into place on the track. This required matching up the peg on the bottom of the screw with the peg in the track. Additionally, the window hanging from the screw cap needed to be aligned with the track so that the marble could come out at the top of the track. The final assembly is seen in Figure 2.

Figure 2. The final Marble Machine Assembly.

 

Now that the final assembly is printed, we can revisit the Design Requirements to determine whether or not we accomplished them.

Design Requirements

• Marble Track
  • 1 continuous track – YES
  • Incorporate curves, overpasses, and tunnels – YES
    • FDM is best to produce these complex features compared to other manufacturing techniques
  • Designed to fit a 10 mm ball bearing – YES
  • Maximum height will be 11.8” (height of build area of Ultimaker 3) – YES
  • Maximum width will be 8.5” (width of build area of Ultimaker 3) – YES
  • Maximum depth will be 8.5” (depth of build are of Ultimaker 3) – YES
  • Material will be PLA – YES
  • Optimize a Thingiverse track first – YES
    • If time, design and print our own track – NO

• Marble Lift
  • Must lift the marbles from base of track to the top of the track – YES
  • Designed to fit a 10 mm ball bearing – YES, however, the Marble Machine works much better with marbles <10 mm
  • Options include Archimedes’ screw, carousel, arm, and escalator – YES
    • Pursuing the Archimedes’ screw design from Thingiverse – YES
      
  • Requires manual power – YES
    • If time, incorporate a motor to automate this – NO
  • Must be able to handle multiple marbles – YES
  • Maximum height will be either 11.8” (height or diagonal of build area of Ultimaker 3) – YES
  • Maximum width will be 8.5” (width of build area of Ultimaker 3) – YES
  • Maximum depth will be 8.5” (depth of build area of Ultimaker 3) – YES
  • Material will be PLA – YES

• Continuous marble motion
  • Marble cannot fall off of the track – YES
  • Track cannot have any deformities that prevent smooth motion (cracks, voids, delamination) – YES
  •  Marbles should not stack up at the base of the track – YES, only have tested 2 marbles though

• Goals for 3D Printing
  • Create a functioning marble machine – YES
  • Print the track in two colors during one print – YES
  • Optimize quality to time ratio – YES
    • The track is a large print – want to reduce the print time, while ensuring continuous and smooth marble motion
  • Repeatability – YES

Overall, this project was very successful. We were able to meet nearly every design requirement that we set at the beginning of the semester. If this project were to continue, future work could include adding a motor to the screw to make the marble machine fully automated. Additionally, exploring other transparent materials and adjusting the wall thickness would be worth investigating. Finally, a different approach to this project would be to exactly replicate the toy marble machines and print individual pieces that could be connected together.

Thanks for a great semester!