Introduction: Knex Shifting Wheel Lift Instructions

About: Hi! I'm sathothy and I live in the Netherlands. I like to make coasters and ballmachines with knex!

Hi!
This is the first lift I built for my latest ballmachine Composition!
It's basicly just multiple wheel lifts that transfer balls over to eachother without needing a path inbetween!
In this tutorial I'm am going to be showing you how to build one that goes four red rods/metallic green rods high with 4 wheels and 3 exits to the left and 1 exit to the right, just like in Composition. All of this is costumizable by adding more wheels and by changing the direction of the exit slopes on the last wheel!
This lift is designed to be used with the newer style knex balls and I'm not sure if it works with the older style ones.
Here's a video showing the lift.


So lets get started. Oh and make sure you read all image notes!

Step 1: Piece Count

Before you start you have to make sure you have enough pieces. This is all you need:
All in colours I'm going to be using in this tutorial, but you can you use different colours.

RODS (from small to big):
Green : 104
White : 74
Blue : 194
Yellow : 48
Mettalic green : 64
Grey : 33
TOTAL: 517

CONNECTORS:
Grey 1-way: 45
Orange straight 2-way: 30
Red 3-way: 55
Green 4-way: 64
Yellow 5-way: 24
White 8-way: 20
Grey 3D: 98
Blue 3D: 40
TOTAL: 376

OTHERS:
Blue clips: 30
Tan clips: 17
Y-clips: 8
Grey spacers: 66
Blue spacers: 54
Small grey gears (can be replaced with small blue gears): 6
Small blue gear: 1
Medium red gears: 7
Blue Motor(Can be replaced with another motor but you'll need a different gear setup): 1
TOTAL: 190

GRAND TOTAL: 1083

Now that you've got all your pieces let's start building!

Step 2: The Wheels

Here we build the wheels used to bring the balls up.

Step 3: Entrance Track

Pretty simple, the entrance track.

Step 4: First Wheel and Motor Setup.

Here we build the first wheel and the motor setup.

Step 5: Second Wheel

Here we build the second wheel.

Step 6: Third Wheel

Here we build the third wheel.

Step 7: Fourth Wheel and Right Exit Track.

Here we build the fourth wheel and right exit track.

Step 8: Left Exit Track.

Here we build the right exit track.

Step 9: Done!

You are done! All you have to do now is turn it on and have fun! Be sure to send me a picture when you've completed it and I will add it to this step.

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