Introduction: K'nex Ball Counter

About: I make K'nex Ball Machines. Here you'll find instructions for some of my simpler projects and photo diaries of my more complex machines. I'm still in the process of building a ball machine larger than any befo…

Hi everyone,

This is my newest K'nex creation, a motorized mechanical K'nex ball counter which is part of my up and coming ball machine. I am planning to use it to count the number of balls going down a certain path on the machine which will also be the number of times the main lift goes up and down.

How it works:

It has 1 regular K'nex green motor that powers the 2 counting dials. It is turned on when the ball falls down a chute and lands on a switch starting the motor. The motor turns a series of gears which turns a small arm turning the units dial 1/10th of the way round. There is a blue clip on one side of the dial so that every time the dial switches from 9 to 0 it lifts another arm which is attached to a gear. This gear meshes with a gear turned by the motor and then using the motors power turns another small arm which turns the tens column. This gear then resets until it is turned again to mesh. The machine then also turns itself off after one complete circuit using a design created by shadowman39 that I have modified so credits to him.

Some stats:

  • It took around 15 hours to design and construct over a period of about 3 weeks.
  • Uses approximately 2,000-3,000 classic K'nex pieces
  • 245 of those pieces are used in the dials
  • The dimensions are 1 red rod high by 1 red rod deep by 1 1/2 red rods wide (3 blue rods) so 128x128x180mm

Any questions feel free to ask I hope you enjoy it ;)

-Northern Fields-

Step 1: Some More Photos...

Step 2: Prototypes and Dial Design

Just a few more pictures showing some of the designs before I added it to the ball machine and how I made the dials