Aeolus - Wind Powered Knex Ball Machine

by robocrazy155

3.4K215

Intro: Aeolus - Wind Powered Knex Ball Machine

It has been pretty windy around here lately, and I've always been fascinated by the whole idea of green energy, so I decided to build a wind turbine.

In my search for design ideas I eventually found this page ( http://www.stiltman.com/html/wind_power.html ) which is where I found I diagram that I used to make a vertical axis turbine. Once I had made it and it spun in the wind to my liking, I thought of possible uses for it.

One of them was making a wind powered lift for a ball machine, but the way I had it set up it couldn't lift the Knex balls (that and I only have one of them) so I used ping-pong balls instead.

BTW the lift I used was designed by I_am_Canadian

I won't be posting a full Instructable for this for a few reasons
- It's my first ball machine so it is small and simple (only four mechanisms and two paths)
- It would be difficult to describe how to make the turbine and it would cause confusion
- It's not really all that special

So without further running of my mouth, I give you Aeolus.

PS: here's the link to the vid, ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lE2vMWzOI0A ).

15 Comments

radical28 1 year ago

That is so cool! The wind powered idea.

pikmin205 13 years ago

Lol i use the same ping pong balls as u do for my projects

Sorunome 13 years ago

Veary good and great Idea!!!

TigerNod 14 years ago

Awesome. The first step to Green electricity... In knex. 5 stars!

DJ Radio 14 years ago

dats rad dawg. 5 starz.

The Jamalam 14 years ago

Aeolus was the ruler of the wind in greek mythology. I think that's it. Am I right?

robocrazy155 14 years ago

What do you mean "ruler"? I'm just trying to be clear.

I_am_Canadian 14 years ago

Looks nice! Wanna mention that thats my lift?

robocrazy155 14 years ago

Yeah your right, that is your lift. Sorry I forgot to mention where that's from, I'll add that and a link to the video tomorrow. To answer your question every now and then the smaller balls get wedged b/w the arm of the lift and the receiver track. The lift bounces around a little then it goes back to normal.

I_am_Canadian 14 years ago

Nice :-) I had an idea for one of these a while back, Ima try it out if I can find time.

Oblivitus 14 years ago

A video would help a lot, but this is very original, 4 stars.

stale56 14 years ago

Was he the Greek God of Wind? And it looks perdy nifty and cool, and a video would be nice...