Lego Dice Tower

[S_Bartfast]

Hello,

I've recently come across Lego Digital Designer and must say I've become somewhat obsessed with it .

I was originally perusing the BoardGameGeek forums looking for plans for a "Dice Tower" when I came across a thread discussing dice towers made out of Lego.

A guy called Aaron Balogh posted a link to a LDD file he had created and well, I've been obsessed ever since...

While I've spent a great deal of time in the last few days working on this design I've never really played with Lego before so I don't really know what's practical when it comes to building .

Firstly, here is a link to the LDD file: Auto Dice Tower

And here are a few photos:

 

The way it's meant to work is you place dice in the tray then press the lever down. This raises the tray and pours the dice into the tower where they roll through and come out the bottom and roll back into the tray. There is a trapdoor in the tower that prevents the dice from falling through before the tray has reached the bottom and is ready to catch the dice.

Here are some more images showing how the mechanisms work:

This image shows the tower with the tray in the down position. Note I have coloured the bricks yellow to make it easier to see what's going on. In this position the handle is more or less straight. You can see however there is a slight kink in the handle about 2 thirds the way up. This is to facilitate opening of the hatch inside. You can see that if you were to push down on the handle the whole arm would pivot about the lower of those two blue coloured connector pegs and the tray would be elevated, however if you were to pull the handle forwards the handle would pivot about the higher of the two connector pegs and this action is what is used to open the hatch inside the tower:

Note how the kink in the handle is more pronounced.

While the handle is straight the hatch inside the tower is kept closed:

But when the handle is pulled forwards the hatch is pulled open:

Now to the tray...

See how there are two parallel arms on the side. This is to keep the tray level as it is raised. That small red block at the end of the arms is resting on a connecting bush which is what keeps the tray from tilding forwards and spilling the dice. However, when the tray reaches the top it is meant to hit the ramp and tip the dice into the shoot.

Note how the red block is allowed to swing forwards facilitating the tilt of the tray.

When the handle is raised it can be seen that the trapdoor still remains closed:

The reason this works is because although the trapdoor is hinged at the back the lever is connected to a member that is exactly inline with the connector pegs the whole arm is rotating around:

Remember the blue coloured connector pegs mentioned at the beginning of the post. Well the red axle in the above image is directly inline with the lower of those blue pegs. This means that while the arm is rotating about the lower of those two pegs everything connected to the arm stays a constant distance from that red axle. It all just rotates around that point. It's not till you push on the handle and the top part of the handle starts rotating about the top blue peg that the end of the lever gets pulled away and pulls on the trapdoor. When the lever is pulled away from the beam that linkage pulls on the beam and the trap door should then pivot on it's rear hinge.

Here is a closeup of the mechanism with the tray raised and the handle as low as it can go:

Here is a closeup of the mechanism with the handle in the up position but with the trapdoor still closed:

Even though the handle has moved from all the way down to all the way up the mechanism inside the tower has just rotated about that rear axle.

And this is what it looks like with the handle pushed forwards and the trapdoor open:

As you can see, when the handle pivots about the top peg the bottom gets pulled away and this opens the trapdoor.

Anyway, although I've put a lot of thought and effort into this design I really don't know if it is going to work or not. In particular I'm concerned about the trap door mechanism and the tray tilting mechanisms. I'm kind of hoping that someone with more experience may be able to tell me it they think it will work and possibly if someone has enough spare Lego bits about to try assembling a few things and see it it works as hoped. I'd really like to order all the parts and put it together myself but all those parts are surprisingly expensive (well surprising to me at least) and I'm a bit apprehensive about spending several hundred dollars on a build unless I'm pretty confident it will work.

All the best,

And thanks for your help,

Slarti.

Edited June 24, 2017 by S_Bartfast
Removed large images

[Legocity2713]

Sorry, I'm not an expert, but I am loving the MOC so far. Kind of reminds me of Asgrad from the Thor movies. Good job. :thumbup:

Edited May 4, 2015 by Legocity2713

[Vorkosigan]

I guess I don't see why it wouldn't work, but can't really confirm it would sweep smoothly through all the positions. I am wondering why it would be so expensive, where are you looking at for buying the parts? Also is it possible some could be swapped for cheaper versions? There are often changes to parts and the old versions get expensive, or some new versions haven't come in many sets yet. For example I can't tell from the pics if those are the old castle wall panels or the new ones.

[Deathleech]

It

?

[S_Bartfast]

Okay, after a bit more thinking I have made another change.

I have made the joining piece that makes the kink in the handle longer:

The idea of this is so that as the tray is elevated to the height of the scoop the longer connecting beam will hit that leveling bracket:

Then as the tray is elevated above the scoop the extended piece will push on the leveling bracket and cause the tray to tilt:

This I think is a much more reliable idea than what I had before where the tray was rotated by impacting with the scoop itself.

Edited June 24, 2017 by S_Bartfast
Removed large images

[S_Bartfast]

On 5/5/2015 at 9:04 AM, Vorkosigan said:

I guess I don't see why it wouldn't work, but can't really confirm it would sweep smoothly through all the positions. I am wondering why it would be so expensive, where are you looking at for buying the parts? Also is it possible some could be swapped for cheaper versions? There are often changes to parts and the old versions get expensive, or some new versions haven't come in many sets yet. For example I can't tell from the pics if those are the old castle wall panels or the new ones.

As I said, I'm very new to lego so I really don't know much about anything.

I used LDD Manager to convert my model into a parts list it then sent to BrickLink.

According to LDD the model consists of 594 bricks and the parts list seems to list 90 unique parts. LDD Manager though lists 592 bricks and and only 89 Unique parts. From what I can tell LDD Manager is missing the two 1x1x3 bricks, which is odd since it does have the 1x1x5 bricks.

After converting to XML and uploading the BrickLink I sorted the "By Shop" page by "Lots (Unique)" and Give Me A Brick was at the top with 74 (74). Going to Give Me A Brick bagged me 514 items (of the 594) in 74 lots, for a total of 200 Euros.

There are two castle wall panels in the model. 2x "WALL 1X4X5 W/BOWED SLIT - Black" and 10x "WALL ELEMENT W. WINDOW 1X5X6 - Black". No idea if there old or new. Give Me A Brick only seem to have the two WALL 1X4X5 W/BOWED SLIT though and there 50 euro cents each.

Here is a list to the auto generated instructions including the complete parts list if you're interested: https://dl.dropbox.com/s/lsnf8n3s2oj743h/Building Instructions [Auto Dice Tower - Slarti].html
<Edit: These are not the most update instructions.  Please use the XLF file at the top of this thread for more complete instructions>

Jump to the last page for the parts list.

Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,

Slarti.

Edited June 24, 2017 by S_Bartfast

[S_Bartfast]

It

?

Yeah, there are lots of examples of people who have managed to build working dice towers out of lego, I'm just not sure that mine will be one of them

That particular video is by Aaron Balogh (aka Kerby The Purple Cow) who uploaded the LDD file I based my design on.

By the way here's a link to a really cute minimalist Lego Tower if you're interested: Castle Theme Self-Loading LEGO Dice Tower

Unfortunately I'm not too confident about the randomness of the rolls but it is really cute

[Blondie-Wan]

Hey, another BGGer, cool! Welcome to EB. :)

[Vorkosigan]

S_Bartfast I think I found a more affordable solution. I loaded your lxf file in Brickficiency and went through the parts. There were several parts in expensive or non-existent variants so I changed them to common versions. Also some things like the rare 1x1x3 I changed to 3 of 1x1. All the pins I changed to colors they actually exist in. I don't know where you are in Europe but I ran an optimization and got all the parts (611) for 41 euros from 2 sellers. I don't have time right now to upload the files but hopefully tomorrow.

[S_Bartfast]

S_Bartfast I think I found a more affordable solution. I loaded your lxf file in Brickficiency and went through the parts. There were several parts in expensive or non-existent variants so I changed them to common versions. Also some things like the rare 1x1x3 I changed to 3 of 1x1. All the pins I changed to colors they actually exist in. I don't know where you are in Europe but I ran an optimization and got all the parts (611) for 41 euros from 2 sellers. I don't have time right now to upload the files but hopefully tomorrow.

Wow, thanks Vorkosigan, that's exactly the kind of help I was hoping for. :classic:

I just realised the link at the top of this thread was a slightly old file (without the longer connecting beam I discussed last night). I have now updated that link to the more recent design (with the longer connecting beams). If it's not too much trouble could I get you to optimize the newer model.

By the way I actually live in Australia.

However, if the sellers won't ship to Australia (which happens surprisingly often) I do have a good mate in Finland I'll be able to forward orders through.

Thank you so much for your assistance,

And I'm really getting excited about this now,

Slarti.

Edited May 6, 2015 by S_Bartfast

[Jim]

Hi,

That's a nice contraption!

Can you make sure the pictures don't exceed the site restrictions? That's 1024 pixels wide, preferably 800. Thanks!

[S_Bartfast]

Hi,

That's a nice contraption!

Can you make sure the pictures don't exceed the site restrictions? That's 1024 pixels wide, preferably 800. Thanks!

No worries, I'll get onto it.

Shame, I liked the large image, but I inderstand.

[Jim]

No worries, I'll get onto it.

Shame, I liked the large image, but I inderstand.

Thanks!

You can create a Bricksafe (or Flickr) account. They are both free. You can upload large images for your personal use and embed a smaller version on this site. Bricksafe is very easy to use!

[S_Bartfast]

Thanks!

You can create a Bricksafe (or Flickr) account. They are both free. You can upload large images for your personal use and embed a smaller version on this site. Bricksafe is very easy to use!

You know those images are actually being hosted by a 3rd party, yeah? As in they're not actually 'embedded' in nor have they ever been uploaded to EuroBrick.

If you right click on the image and save the URL or open in a new tab you'll see the image itself is actually hosted by DropBox.

Anyway, I've reduced them all to 1024 but they're still being restricted.

Edit: Not to worry. I found I was able to go back and delete the links and just reinstate the images.

Edited May 6, 2015 by S_Bartfast

[S_Bartfast]

S_Bartfast I think I found a more affordable solution. I loaded your lxf file in Brickficiency and went through the parts. There were several parts in expensive or non-existent variants so I changed them to common versions. Also some things like the rare 1x1x3 I changed to 3 of 1x1. All the pins I changed to colors they actually exist in. I don't know where you are in Europe but I ran an optimization and got all the parts (611) for 41 euros from 2 sellers. I don't have time right now to upload the files but hopefully tomorrow.

Okay, I've been playing around with Brickficiency and while it offers what seems to be a really good service I'm having trouble getting it to work

I've modified my model so as to remove the 1x1x3 bricks and I've changed all the "pins" to be "Light Stone Grey" (which Brickficiency calls Light Bluish Grey), and I've also replaced the 4x10 bricks but I'm still not having much luck with it. It's a shame I had to change the colour of the "pins" as I really liked the 'riveted' look of red pins, but dems is the brakes. Even so though, with 1 - 4 stores selected it's still telling me there were "No Matches Found". It also fails to populate the "price" and"Total" columns on the table even though I've given it my BrickLink details.

Anyway, the model linked to at the top of this thread has been updated so at least when it's imported into to Brickficiency it is able to find all the parts. Please do let me know if you're able to get this to work. It would be awesome to be able to build this model for 40-50 Euros.

All the best,

Slarti.

[Vorkosigan]

You need to make some more tweaks, don't worry I will post the files and detailed explanation this evening (US CST).

[S_Bartfast]

You need to make some more tweaks, don't worry I will post the files and detailed explanation this evening (US CST).

Cool, thanks. I'll check in the morning.

It's 1am here and about time I hit the hay.

Catch you tomorrow.

[Vorkosigan]

Ok so here is the Brickficiency file:

https://www.dropbox....Roller.bsx?dl=0

Here is a report that results in a seller in Poland and one in the Netherlands. Note the price on the files is in USD. Total in AUD is about $57 + shipping. The seller in the Netherlands is on vacation for a couple weeks so if you want you can copy their store number (125661) into the "blacklist" on Brickficiency. Since there aren't many sellers in Australia I searched worldwide.

https://www.dropbox....eport.html?dl=0

Here is a slightly more expensive option with a store in Ireland:

https://www.dropbox....tion2.html?dl=0

So here is what I did with the parts:

1. Converted bricks that were uncommon "without center tube" into normal with center tube type
   
2. Converted all tiles from "undetermined type" to "with groove" as that is the common, newest version
   
3. Converted pins from non-existent colors to the most common color available (black, gray, or tan). You can experiment with changing some of the tan ones to light bluish gray or black if want and see if you can find sellers.
   
4. Changed 1x1x3s to 3 1x1s because in black its fairly rare
   
5. Changed 2x4 tiles to 2 2x2s just to reduce amount of unique parts
   
6. Switched the 7 hole beams to 11 hole as you noted
   

Only changes 4 through 6 should actually affect the assembly.

Edited May 6, 2015 by Vorkosigan

[S_Bartfast]

Arrr, thank you so much.

I had been banging my head against Brickficiency for so long trying to get things to work but it just wasn't happening for me. I then imported your list and got almost exactly the same results as you did and I just couldn't work out what was wrong with the list I'd created.

Rather than modifying the items in Brickficiency directly I was making as many of the modifications as I could in LDD, then I would export the LXF file and re-import it into Brickficiency again. I was doing this so I could clearly verify what substitutions I was making and to try and cut down on the number of different versions of files and things I had. When I did this I would get lists very similar to yours but for some reason the parts showed a much lower availability than they did on your list and I was unable to find any combinations of stores to satisfy all parts. I just couldn't workout what was going on and was writing out a long and detailed post explaining the problem when I realised your list had all these 'U's in a column where mine had 'N's. It was then that I realised I had been searching for "New" pieces whereas yours was searching for "Used", so I switched all my pieces over to used condition and now it works like a charm

Thank you

[Vorkosigan]

Oh yea, I realized that when I saw the 80s/90s style castle wall pieces were not available. I thought that can't be, and realized it was because of everything was set to new.

[S_Bartfast]

I'm looking at actually ordering these bricks tonight but I'm a little concerned about the Polish store ZOLCIASZEKPLUS. They have a great selection of parts at competitive prices and accordingly they keep coming up top of my listings but their webpage says:

A completed order should have an average 4 euros per lot or will be cancelled.

My optimum order would be to get 462 items from them in 70 lots for a total of 48.50 AUD (plus shipping). This clearly averages a lot less than 4 Euros per lot. Does that mean I won't be able to use them? 4 euros per lot seems a fair bit given that most parts are a few cents each. It seems you would literally have to buy hundreds of some items inorder to average 4 Euros per lot, or am I misunderstanding something? ZOLCIASZEKPLUS are also the main supplier of parts in the top 30 recommendations and passing over them makes the price jump from 58 AUD to 88 AUD. Is that normal?

[S_Bartfast]

Well, I finally ordered all the parts.

I ended up excluding ZOLCIASZEKPLUS going with three sellers for a listed price of 64 AUD.

Rather than costing 64 AUD however after shipping and PayPal fees the true cost was more like 150 AUD!

Here's hoping it all arrives,

(then all works after it arrives )

(:

[S_Bartfast]

Well, all the bricks I ordered arrived but unfortunately some of the bricks I needed somehow fell off the order

I was however able to partially build the model and show that it does indeed work. There were also a few problems with the design I was able to identify in meatspace so have made a few changes and am currently in the process of ordering more bits.

Here are some videos of a prototype though.

First, here is a video showing how the trap door function operates:

Next is a video showing how the tilting of the tray works:

nd finally, here is a video showing the tower in operation with a single die:

Edited November 17, 2016 by S_Bartfast

[S_Bartfast]

Okay, I've finally finished this project.

Here is a video showing the completed tower in action:

And here is a clip showing just the tray:

Edited November 17, 2016 by S_Bartfast

[BrickOn]

Okay this is awesome I need one. Perfect for King of Tokyo!