LEGO GBC - Mangle Rack Module (Akiyuki & others)

[@BrickEngineeringCom]

really like the added twist on the Mangle Rack

[@LEGO_GBC_NL]

Thanks!

[@AlexanderBellOpelika]

Excellent use of secondary movement - sweeper on scissor lift and from center of the trays at the corner turn! A+ Great work!

[@LEGO_GBC_NL]

Thanks a lot for your nice comment!

[@thebigmg]

Great job. I like the motion ot the secound part!! The Mangle Rack!!

[@LEGO_GBC_NL]

Thank you!

[@tomasullrich]

This is excellent. I love the ball splitter. To be honest, I don't understand how exactly it works, but I will figure it out. It seems to be working perfectly well. Great job. Thank you for sharing.

[@LEGO_GBC_NL]

Thanks Tomáš! The ball splitter is a design by Jason Allemann (JK Brickworks) and basically it simply uses a bionicle tooth, a 1x6 tile and gravity. Jason explains and shows how to build it in one of his 2020 marble run videos (link in the description). Indeed it works superb! Tried 2 other ball splitters, but they couldn't handle 2 balls that follow one another so rapidly as in this module.

[@MezCook]

That's so cool and satisfying to watch. 😍

[@LEGO_GBC_NL]

Thank you! 🙂

[@MezCook]

You're welcome.😁

[@thebigmg]

Another question to the mangle rack: it looks like you use 2 XL motors. In the original Akiyuki Video he uses an M-Motor. So is it really necessary to use two big motors?

[@LEGO_GBC_NL]

Good question! 🙂 Initially, when I rebuilt Akiyuki's version of the mangle rack mechanism, I also used just one M-motor and all worked perfectly fine. However, to turn it into a complete GBC module (actual balls entering\leaving the sliding hoppers/trays), I made quite some changes and this resulted in a significant increase of weight. Especially the 7 hoppers/trays contain much more pieces compared to Akiyuki's original design. Due to this, the black thingy that moves the hoppers/trays, together with a few other elements, had to be reinforced as well, increasing the piece count and weight of the whole thing even more. Well, to shorten the story a bit, at one point the single M-motor wasn't able anymore to do the job properly, so I tried 2 M-motors... then 2 L-motors... 1 XL-motor... eventually ending up with 2 XL-motors. Only the setup with 2 XL-motors resulted in the somewhat smooth movements shown in the video and only the 2 XL-motors combined could move around all 7 hoopers/trays with ease and with an acceptable volume level. Also, when testing different setups, I found out it's not only the increased power of the XL-motors that did the trick in the end, but also the fact they're placed opposite to each other certainly seemed to help. So I would say they're kinda necessary to get everything up and running in a smooth manner and if you're planning to rebuild this design, I wouldn't advice to use less than these 2 PF XL-motors, unless you're going to make a considerable amount of changes. Just my honest opinion based on my own experience gathered during the design/building process, of course you're free to experiment and try out other setups to see what works for you, but I can tell you my abandoned early setups were horrible to look at and listen to! 🙂

[@thebigmg]

Thank you for this very long answer. I do understand all the reasons why you did it like these now. I am willing to build it anyway and so I need 2 more big motors. It might happen, that I will write more comments here just to have an idea how it works best. But it might take a few weeks or even month. Time is always what I need more 😁 Thank you again

[@LEGO_GBC_NL]

@@thebigmg You're welcome! Will always try to help as much as I can 🙂

[@mickthebricker]

Very nice design!

[@LEGO_GBC_NL]

Thanks!