jsharp13

Building Ball Factory - Which motor?

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I'm looking into building the famous Ball Factory, but have a little hesitation about the motor. Just in looking at prices, the M is at $7.49, the L is at $13.99, and the XL is at $9.99.  My first reaction is to just buy the XL since the price seems to be low, but I'm wondering if there is something I'm missing.  Is there a reason the XL is cheaper than the L?

While I'm on the topic, I think I'm just going with a battery box for now, to see how much I end up using it.  Is there anything else I should pick up?  Extensions, etc?

This will be my first GBC, so any other advice is welcome!

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If the module is running correctly, you can use any motor.  I run mine on an M motor with no trouble.  There is no need for an extension unless you want the battery box to be far from the module for some reason.

Note that the XL runs much slower than the other motors, so if you use that one you may need to adjust the gearing. 

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1 hour ago, jsharp13 said:

This will be my first GBC, so any other advice is welcome!

My advice would be to at least begin with another GBC module. While the build process for the Ball Factory can be enjoyable, the module is big and the timing can be hard to set up. Yes there are videos on how to do the timing, which help a lot but nonetheless you may find that it ends up being in the "too hard basket". I built the Ball Factory for my LUG's brick show last year and in the end we had to leave it to one side as it (i.e. my build of it) wasn't reliable enough to include in the GBC loop.

Examples of simpler modules which you might want to consider are "Catch and Release" or "Fork to Fork". Whichever module you end up choosing to build, good luck, enjoy doing it and welcome to the GBC drug club!

Regards,

David

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I'm not an expert on PF, but I think the L motor gives better power-to-space than the XL motor. But if those are the prices, the XL one is a good buy - its only real flaw is that it's rather slow and so could do with some gearing up. But if you're having one motor per module, you'd be best with M motors.

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Thank you everyone for your advice.  That explains why the XL motor is cheaper, would be nice if Lego included that info on their description.  

Anyway, I think I am going to take djm's advice and start with something small.  The Fork to Fork looks fun.  That will give me something to build and understand before jumping into the Ball Factory.  Thank you for those links.  That thread is amazing, and I'll be spending a lot of time there.  When I was working on researching GBC, Eurobricks was down, so I wasn't able to to view anything here.  Glad I waited before I went and bought anything!

I'll purchase a medium motor, and look to upgrade later if it turns out that isn't enough for something I'm going to do.  

Thanks again!

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On 10/1/2016 at 5:40 AM, jsharp13 said:

I'll purchase a medium motor, and look to upgrade later if it turns out that isn't enough for something I'm going to do.  

The majority of Akiyuki's modules use an M motor, so if you have one of those you'll be able to do a lot of different things.

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Alright, I ordered the pieces I need for the Fork to Fork, and will start on that as my next build.  One more question.  Balls.  Wow.  $2-3 a piece for the soccer and basketballs.  Trying to figure out if I want to take the plunge there.  How many would you suggest to run something like the ball factory (assuming I would need less for Fork to Fork)?  I know the orange balls or marbles are cheaper, but I think the designs on the basketballs and soccer balls really add something to the motion.  

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If you want to run the ball factory, you are going to want about 50 balls.  For the smaller modules, 20 is enough.

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You could get mostly orange balls and throw in a couple printed basketballs and soccer balls to the mix.  That might help with the ball costs.  Also people can follow a ball through the modules.  LEGO balls are consistent in size and weight.  3rd party balls can vary slightly in size and weight which could be problematic if your module functions depend on an exact size and/or weight of the ball.

 

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Many modules are tolerant to slight differences in weight and dimension using aftermarket balls, but the ball factory is not one of them.  It works best with original LEGO balls.

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