Perpetual Ball Roller

video Perpetual Ball Roller

This little machine has a circular track that tilts so a ball can roll round. Can be controlled directly by user or automatically from preset comands.

More information:
Perpetual Ball Roller

azharuddin says: Jul 22, 2011. 8:22 AM

this is nice.u have tried well.but according to the law of perpetual motion it should work continously without the help of external agents.and u have used batteries it may droup down at any time even if u charge the batteries using finally it may come to zero

unigamer (author) in reply to azharuddinJul 27, 2011. 5:55 PM

who mentioned perpetual motion? Also, please tell me the "law of perpetual motion" because I haven't heard of it before. Maybe you're thinking about the first and second laws of thermodynamics that prohibit such machines?

Rebreg in reply to unigamerApr 23, 2012. 1:42 PM

The perpetual motion law says perpetual motion is only possible if
1 it is run off of its own energy
2 never stops
3 no outside force acts upon it .

unigamer (author) in reply to RebregApr 23, 2012. 1:47 PM

I lol as I sit revising for 4th year engineering exams that strangers on the internet lecture me about the "perpetual motion law"! This is not a perpetual motion machine (obviously), and most importantly, I never claimed that it was :)

tankman1 says: Jul 29, 2009. 10:57 AM

Its not automatic because you had to start it by rocking it with the pot, then all it does is rock back and forth with a spring pulling it back

pmarin in reply to tankman1Feb 28, 2011. 6:04 PM

I thought that purpose of instructables is TO INSTRUCT.
To display something without letting people know how to build it defeats the purpose of instructing.
You wanna display something, go to youtube... BTW, your link does nto work

unigamer (author) in reply to pmarinMar 1, 2011. 8:29 AM

From the video submission page:

What kind of videos can I post?

Submit your how-to videos, show off what you have made or are currently making.

This video is me showing off what I have made. It's not an instructable and nobody ever claimed it was. The fact that this is the first comment you've made, you joined relatively recently and you've submitted nothing suggests you are new here.

Have a read around the guidelines etc. and learn about Instructables. It's a nice community. If you have questions or comments, be polite.

Thanks for letting me know my link doesn't work, that is helpful and is now fixed!

unigamer (author) in reply to tankman1Jul 29, 2009. 3:08 PM

It is designed (and does) to start automatically from switch if it was turned off and would not need it rocked. I didn't do this in the video as I would have had to stop it etc and I didn't see much point in that. It rocks back and forth in one of the automatic modes to make the ball spin round. There are other modes too but my favourite is "random" where it picks one of 4. It's a servo not a spring.

Bowtie41 in reply to unigamerMar 25, 2010. 10:09 PM

It is truly amazing(well,maybe not truly),how many people pick a part and scrutinize EVERY project here while obviously being to dumb,lazy,or uncoordinated to do something on their own.Regardless of what they say,it is a neat project,and very entertaining,and I'm sure like most projects out here,can be built several other ways,but where are THEIR projects?Great Job,and Thank You for posting!!!

hg341 says: Jul 29, 2009. 5:46 PM

could you do this with just a 555 timer?

EnigmaMax in reply to hg341Mar 13, 2010. 8:34 PM

that's what he is using, it's hooked up to the capacitor and potentiometer.

hg341 in reply to EnigmaMaxMar 22, 2010. 2:24 PM

no hes useing a pixaxe

jimmiek says: Mar 21, 2010. 6:27 PM

cool idea, no matter how much some people want to pick it apart, I think it's great!

NastySpill says: Mar 18, 2010. 2:38 PM

Very cool. Well done. An automatic perpetual ball rotator by any other name looks just as cool!

moisture says: Jul 30, 2009. 11:06 AM

Neat! Hackaday commenters suggested adding some sort of positional feedback; that could be interesting, and could open up machine learning possibilities (difficult on a picaxe?). Hah, on a simpler side, I think a figure-8 track would be interesting. Or multiple balls?

unigamer (author) in reply to moistureAug 1, 2009. 2:33 AM

As I mention on the page about it positional feedback is really not needed. Machine learning crossed my mind but is simply not possible with an 08M Picaxe really. If connected to a computer that could do some of the crunching I think bigger Picaxes might manage. The automatic routines come from me playing with it in manual mode and then coding in the servo commands to replicate the action. A friend suggested trying different tracks including a spiral. I may still try this as it is easily removeable. Multiple balls looks pretty cool actually! Haven't put a video up of it yet.

Decepticon says: Jul 29, 2009. 4:21 PM

Neat, but this should really be called and Automatic Ball Roller. Perpetual implies that it does not ever stop and generates it's own power or runs under the power of the object it is moving. It would stop eventually since the batteries would die.

unigamer (author) in reply to DecepticonJul 30, 2009. 3:19 AM

Nope, you're mistaking "perpetual" with "perpetual motion".