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Hello, a few weeks ago I made a molding factory GBC module but it was not very reliable. This new version is much more reliable and uses even less parts. It is made to look like a lego molding machine with the marbles taking the place of the bricks. Free video instructions.

Our big yearly Lego convention here in Melbourne Australia, was on last weekend, and we managed to put on a pretty good GBC layout Thanks to @rasikaa this year for coordinating it! Here are a few videos: My video, on Sunday Saturday: (most modules running - 111) @9v system's Akiyuki-only layout: Everyone else in the team, incl @Captainowie, @Cadder and others did a great job keeping everything running so well... We only had 76 modules last year, and the jump to over 100, especially with so many brand new modules, is a lot of work! I was happy that a couple of new ones of mine (eventually) worked really well.. and I'll probably do a separate post on them all

This Lego great ball contraption miniloop uses a screw made of technic flex tube to lift the marbles up, then they role down the ramp and back to the start again. The ramp is made of "cheese slopes" and hinge bricks wich make it flexible. The ramp can is flexible but if you want to bend it more than about 15 degrees you have to swap one of the 1x2 slopes for a 1x1 slope. It works well for short distances but might need to be supported if it is made longer. The LDD file is here. Some of the parts for the screw are missing because they are not in LDD, the screw should look like this: More photos here.

I forgot to post this last week, here's my latest module Upslide. It uses a helical pusher to push balls up a friends slide, and it's powered by a PF M Motor. I tried to run it at BrickCan this weekend, but it only performed for a few hours before having a bunch of issues I'll need to fix. I need to reinforce the input bin walls, tweak the output at the top of the slide, and fix a small gearing issue for the helical drive. Stay tuned for a version 2.

Hey Guys, Here's my latest GBC module D.R.O.P (dark red olive pusher). It's not the most exciting module, nor did I do the original engineering of the mechanics. I did however choose the colours and changed up the original design so that this is a bit more sleek looking. It's kind of slow, and somewhat unexciting, but I did manage to hook it up to a shared power system (later in the video) which runs 3 modules off 1 M motor with a simple axle chain using universal joints. Its reliable up to around 22 balls, any more and the arm may not be able to get underneath the balls to sweep them out. Having said that it *should* be able to clear the 1BPS rate of the GBC standard. I'm planning on running this at BrickCan next week and if the module does seem a bit slow I will regear it from 8-40 to 24-40 at the lift-arm.

All mechanical and 100% LEGO Ball Counter. Numbers do not always line up perfectly because of backlash in LEGO gears but it counts every ball. I tried to minimize amount of gears but as many of you know, backlash is almost unavoidable. The wheels can be taken out the GBC to set to zero. 1:10 ratio mechanism by Parax77.

This lego GBC miniloop uses three technic lift arms to push the marbles up a ramp, then they fall onto another ramp. When a second marble falls onto that ramp it tips them down another set of ramps and back down to the start again. It is quite reliable if you place all the 1x1 "cheese" slopes straight but it can get stuck if they are not straight. (using 2x2 cheese slopes would fix this problem but I did not have enough in dark grey) The instructions are here. I also have a LDD file for it but I can not find any place to upload the file as it is not a standard file type, any suggestions?

after watching the brickworld gbc videos i saw that the workshop module is a ball pump and a stepper for 2019, does anyone know where i can find the instructions for the ball pump? thanks

This lego great ball contraption module uses a three sided wheel with "forks" to lift the marbles to the next module. The module is surprisingly reliable but it can take some time to get it running well. The stepper used to load the main mechanism works fairly well but it could still use some work, as you can see at 0:50 in the video it does not always work perfectly. The instructions, LDD file and part list are here. I used 1x3 technic half beams instead of the correct 1x5 ones in the instructions becuase LDD does not have them. The differential gear is not essential, it is only to make it easier to set the timming of the loading mechanism.

Today I present you with my "G-Model" of the 42049 Mine Loader Set. It is a Layout ready GBC module created entirely out of parts that are found inside the 42049 Mine Loader set. By default it can be hand powered, and it has a recirculation function for stand-alone play. You can upgrade it with a motor and disable the re-circulation and run it with other GBC modules. Having said that, the inbox doesn't meet the GBC standard rule for accepting a batch of 30 balls. I had to rebuild the module 4 times before the final model was realized. The first 3 times were failed lift mechanisms, and the 4th was rebuilding the module mirrored because with the addition of the recirculation ramp, it was too hard to see the mechanism when it was running Left to Right. My favourite part of the module was the success of adding the engine and working piston after I had already completed the module.

Hello. Here is my latest creation: a Legophone. A what ???… The name is inspired by Gaston Lagaffe's Gaffophone, and like him he makes music (but does not destroy anything). More clearly, it is a mechanical xylophone (metalophone for purists). It is quite simple: pins arranged on caterpillars come to turn knob pairs. These release a ball falling on the xylophone. Voila for the operating principle. To be able to play a melody you have to go up the balls as you go, which makes the whole thing look like a gbc. Here are some photos : A general view: The inertia motor on the right of the photo has been removed for the video: too noisy. On the upper plate, there is a small black separator on the right: it is for condemned the last note: On this same plateau there are several small arms that serve to distribute the balls to ensure the feeding of each note. Unfortunately it works well only if there are enough balls, and of course I do not have enough. So I palliate this problem by playing a music that has only 5 notes (it's still limit: it would be necessary that the plate is full at the beginning) The lift system of balls: The lift is in two stages: the wheel makes it possible to recover the balls at the lowest level. Otherwise I would have had to raise all the moc. The screw is made through a pneumatic hose. Note that I did not want to motorize this system, and connect it to the crank Legophone. But between the length of the transmission and the multiplication for the screw, everything became too unstable. A more precise view of the Legophone: The xylophone blades are suspended and rest on the rope (made with my braider). The small yellow flip-flops are used to stop the knobs to prevent several balls being released. The video should be more telling than my explanations: Did you recognize the music?

I had to disassemble the BWE and before I laid the parts to rest for a while, I create a quick GBC module. It's based on the Particle Accelerator MOCs and uses a wheel to propel a ball up a curved ramp. Since the wheel imparts a lot of backspin on the ball, it sometimes doesn't reach the end of the main track and instead reverses onto a side track exit mechanism. For funsies, I just connected the exit track back to the main track but I could just as well connect it to a different module. That way each ball could go for a couple rides before exiting to the next module. Badly lighted video here:

Hi. With the quality of entries I've seen so far, I don't like my chances of winning, but it would be nice to get a badge! I'm going to use this contest as an excuse to redo a previous model of mine - a GBC module powered by pneumatics. This is what the old version looked like: I have used it in a previous display, but it has numerous shortcomings as a GBC module. The output is not in line with the input, violating the spec. It was what I needed at the time, but it's not suitable for general use. The output is impolitely high. Again, it was what I needed at the time, but I couldn't put this into a normal circuit. It would frequently jam. It spilled lots of balls. I will be using the same sequencing (basically the simplest alternating sequence possible). I had toyed with the idea of something more complicated, but 1) I couldn't get my head around how to make the sequence I wanted, and 2) it would have been too slow anyway. I probably won't make a compressor for this one, leaving it hand-operated. The idea being that in a display it can be somewhat interactive - the audience gets to power the Contraption (or at least some portion of it). Best of luck to all entrants! Owen.

I have recently become interested in the art and science of GBC and I am looking for the best way to start building. One problem though, I don't like to mix my sets . I have seen some great GBC c-models (such as https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lb5kTm9Ykn0 ) but unfortunately haven't been able to find any instructions. In particular I am looking for simple GBC modules made of single sets to study the entire GBC mechanic and learn from it to make my own modules. It doesn't really need to be fancy or cool, just functional and c-model-ish. Has anyone come across something similar? It seems that in all topics I've found, the possibility of making modules as c-models of existing technics sets isn't really discussed.

As I am packing to move to my new house, I am forced to take stock of my current collection and conclude that it is ridiculous. I've disassembled a number of old Technic sets and a few Technic MOCs, but in particular I went overboard on building Akiyuki GBC modules. I've chosen a few of them to get rid of, but rather than just part them out I thought I would offer them up to see if anyone is interested. I could take them apart and ship them or, if someone is close, they might even want the custom display cases I built! Here is a list of those that will need to go. If anyone is interested in making me an offer, please contact me by PM. Elevator Lift Triggered by a Stuck Ball Zig-zag Lift Catch and Release I had already previously parted out two others, but if anyone wants them I probably still have the parts. Pneumatic Module Fork Module

hi guys I want to change the colour of one of my GBC balls so I can track it. what paint should I use?

(Larger versions of any image available by clicking.) Although I find the whole concept of the Great Ball Contraption fascinating, I have to admit that I have not been particularly tempted to build one myself in the past. I can't say for certain why this was so, save perhaps that I saw too many versions of the standard conveyor built with tracks. Then Akiyuki started creating modules and posting YouTube videos and I was blown away. He has not only created some of the most mechanically complex LEGO creations ever, but he has managed to make them beautiful and mesmerizing at the same time. My favorite of these is the Ball Factory, a stunningly complicated mechanical creation powered by only a single motor. This model not only performs the standard GBC function of moving balls from left to right, but also integrates a similar system of moving buckets which is seamlessly integrated with the ball functions. See for yourself. Akiyuki's original video: I was enthralled by the video but figured I had a nearly 0% chance of ever reproducing this model without full instructions. Enter "The Rebricker", an AFOL who spent 2+ years reverse engineering this model and then creating a series of showing how to put it together. Beginning with his excellent videos, I spent about a month recreating the model in LDraw. This process of placing each part one by one resulted in my understanding of how the model works so that it was actually a reasonably simply matter to build it in real life. After completing the LDraw file I made a parts list and started putting together a bin of the required parts. While waiting for them to arrive, I made the cutaway render below in an effort to show how the model works. While this type of image may work with a typical model, you don't have to look at this image for very long to realize that this model is far too complex to understand with only a single image. Therefore, I'll divide the model into modules and go through the function of each of them one by one. The image below shows each of the modules color coded. Even with this level of subdivision, it is still difficult to see what is going on. Black = Main Power Distribution Green = Ball Spiral Lift Purple = Ball Lifter Gray = Ball Picker Lime = Ball Return Conveyor Brown = Ball Output Selector Blue = Bucket Wheel White = Bucket Loader Orange = Bucket Unloader Yellow = Bucket Conveyor Red = Bucket Shifter Tan = Bucket Dumper Balls start the journey at the input hopper and then are helically lifted by the spiral lift. After rolling down a small ramp, they are pushed onto a couple of pin joiners and then lifted and pushed into a 5 finger claw. The claw translates to the right and drops a pair of balls into a waiting bucket. The entire bucket wheel then rotates until it reaches a point that the bucket unloader lifts the bucket off the wheel and places it on a conveyer. The bucket is enqueued in the bucket shifter and shuffles along until it is dumped out. Depending on the position of the output selector, the balls are either passed to the next module or recirculated back to the input hopper via another conveyor. The empty bucket continues its journey by being lifted and placed back on the wheel. Like a wheel, the whole thing repeats and the cycle continues. To further simplify the functions, I've subdivided the model into three basic systems. The black parts are the motor (or crank) input and the main power distribution. The yellow parts deal with moving balls around, and the red parts deal with moving buckets around. The first module we'll discuss is also the simplest: main power distribution. The entire model is powered by only a single motor or crank. While driving the whole thing off one motor may seem unnecessarily difficult, it is actually the opposite. Because every module must be precisely synchronized with every other, a mechanical interconnection is required. The only alternative would be a maze of Mindstorms controllers and sensors, and it probably wouldn't work as well. Amazingly, when properly tuned the whole thing works with minimal effort at the input crank, and it is quite enjoyable to operate manually. If motorized, even an M motor is adequate. However, care must be taken to only rotate the input crank clockwise. Driving in the wrong direction will result in some disconnection and loss of synchronization at best, and at worst LEGO shrapnel all over the room. In my image below the input is shown in red and rotates at 1:1 with the motor. After passing the yellow idler gear, all the blue axles rotate at 1/2 speed. For ease of explanation, I'm going to assume that the input rotates at 600 rpm and make all my other calculations accordingly. (I know this is faster than a real M motor can turn, but this number makes the other calculations convenient for reasons that will become clear later.) This is 10 rotations per second. The blue axles therefore turn at 300 rpm. In every location where you see a green pinion gear, a function is driven from the backbone. You can see that all the bevel gears are braced by brackets and never skip. A skipping gear would be death since it would destroy synchronization. The most prominent feature of the model is the bucket wheel. This large wheel rests on a Technic turntable and consists of 16 platforms connected by #3 connectors (22.5 deg x 16 = 360 deg). It is very important that the movement of this module be intermittent. It cannot simply be geared to rotate at a constant speed. Rather, in must rotate 22.5 degrees and then stop, waiting for a bucket to be loaded or unloaded. This movement is achieved with the mechanism shown in orange. The 40 tooth gear connects to the backbone. The vertical axle rotates the disc. For 3/4 of the rotation, the 4x4 round corner bricks ride against the 3L blue pins on the bucket wheel and prevent the wheel from moving. The 1x2 panel then initiates motion and the end face of the corner brick completes 1/16 rotation of the wheel. Since the backbone is turning at 300 rpm here, after the 5:1 reduction of the 40 tooth gear the orange disc is turning at 60 rpm. Since the load wheel rotates 1/16 turn for each revolution of the disc, the load wheel is turning at 3.75 rpm. This means a complete revolution of the wheel happens every 16 seconds. Therefore, each bucket remains in position for exactly 1 second before moving on. (Now you can see why I chose 600 rpm for the input speed.) Some tidbits about this module: Because there is 4L axle between each connector, this is not a perfect 16 sided polygon and there is a small bit of stress in the connectors. The orange disc in one key part that cannot be rotated backward or it will jam against the load wheel. I took apart my turntable and added some silicon spray to make it turn more smoothly. At any given time there are only 12 buckets on the wheel; the other 4 positions lie between the bucket unloader and the bucket loader. The wheel rotates counterclockwise. When a filled bucket reaches approximately the 3 o'clock position, it is lifted from the bucket wheel by the bucket unloader and placed on the bucket conveyor. This is much easier said than done. The claw which grasps the bucket must perform a carefully choreographed dance in which it translates radially inward to grab a bucket, then lifts it, then translates in radially outward to lie over the conveyor, then sets it down. This means that both a radial and a vertical motion are required, and they must be synchronized perfectly. The claw is shown in blue. The spacing of the jaws must be adjusted such than they just grasp the tapered sides of the bucket. The entire claw moves radially on the yellow carriage. The yellow carriage also translates up and down when pushed by the orange lift assembly. Vertical motion is driven by the orange lift assembly. The 40 tooth gear is driven by the backbone and turns a 3x3 crank. This crank pushes against a 7L lever. Note that the crank holds the lever in position for 1/4 revolution before releasing it. This lever drives a pushrod which turns a 4x5 L-shaped crank. The crank then pushes against the yellow beam to lift the carriage. The maximum height of the lift can be adjusted by changing the length of the pushrod. The yellow carriage slides up and down on the vertical axles, and carries the blue claw with it. Only gravity returns the carriage back down when the orange crank moves out of the way. Sometimes the axles can be sticky and the carriage does not go down right away. The red gear system controls radial motion of the claw. The 40 tooth gear is driven by the backbone and turns a 3L liftarm crank. This crank uses a pushrod and lever to rotate a 36 tooth gear. The 36 tooth gear drives a 12 tooth gear which is connected to a crank driving the vertical red axle. This red axle drags the blue claw along the yellow carriage. The goal is to move the crank +/- 90 degrees which is why the 3:1 reduction of the double bevel gears was needed. Although the purpose of the red mechanism is only to move radially, it also moves up and down as the crank swings through its arc. For this reason, the vertical 8L axle must be able to slide through the holes on the blue claw. Some tidbits about this module: The 40 tooth gears each rotate at 60 rpm which means the unloader cycles at once per second, perfectly synchronized with the bucket wheel. It must be carefully tuned to pick up a bucket only when the wheel is stopped, and to be out of the way before the wheel starts moving again. It must also deposit the bucket on the conveyor and allow the conveyor to whisk it away before moving back toward the wheel. The bucket conveyor is among the simplest mechanisms in the machine. It is not driven off the main backbone, but actually off one of the bucket shifter axles which has already been reduced 5:1, therefore the long drive axles turn at 120 rpm. The bucket unloader deposits the buckets on the yellow conveyor which then moves them to the green conveyor. At the far end of the green conveyor, the bucket shifter grabs the buckets and moves them off. While this module doesn't need to be synchronized to be in a particular phase with the other modules, its speed is very important. It needs to deliver exactly one bucket to the bucket shifter each time the shifter moves or a queue of buckets will develop. The speed of the conveyor and overall number of links is therefore critical. Some tidbits about this module: It is important that the yellow u-joints be clocked in phase with each other so that the movement of the yellow conveyor is smooth. The yellow conveyor is 1 plate higher than the green conveyor to help with transferring a bucket from one to the other. A small guide had to be added above the transition (visible in the render) to prevent the corner of a bucket from getting stuck in between. At any given time there are usually 3 buckets on the conveyor. The bucket shifter takes buckets from the conveyor and moves them toward the bucket dumper, eventually driving them into the arms of the waiting bucket loader to go back on the wheel. The spacer shown in black has slots for 5 buckets, and there is often also a bucket to the left of the leftmost slot. This mechanism needs a complex motion consisting of both side-to-side and front-to-back movement.It must move the buckets to the side, then shift back out of the way and translate back to its starting position without touching any buckets to start again. The whole things is driven by the apparatus shown in yellow. The 40 tooth gears are driven by input backbone and therefore rotate at 120 rpm. Each drive a chain system consisting of 23 chain links and a single tread link. When they get to the right point in their cycle, the tread links push the red and blue carriages in and out via the vertical 5L beams. The red carriage controls front-to-back movement of the spacer and the blue carriage controls side-to-side motion. As the red slider shifts back forth, it drives a pushrod moving a Z-linkage (the pink pin is ground). This Z linkage slides the red carriage front-to-back on the blue carriage. The black spacer is supported on the red carriage. Note the axle on the red carriage which must be able to slide through the top part of the Z-linkage. This all has to be kept perfectly square to avoid friction. As the blue slider shift back and forth, it drives a pushrod moving an L-shaped crank (the light blue connector is grounded). The side-to-side motion of the output of the crank translates the entire blue carriage side-to-side on fixed axle supports (not shown). Some tidbits about this module: Because 24-tooth gears drive the chain, and because the chains have 24 links, you might think that this would make the bucket shifter operate at 120 rpm. This would be a problem because it would deliver 2 buckets every second instead of one. However, remember that each chain link is actually made up of two cross braces (or teeth), and therefore this extra factor of 2 gives us 60 rpm (one per second). The placement of the track links on each chain must be precisely synchronized. If a link were trying to move a slider left and the same time as another link were trying to move it right, the mechanism would destroy itself. This mechanism cannot be run backward. The track links jam against the sliders. The bucket shifter must be timed to align perfectly with the bucket dumper and the bucket loader or buckets will be thrown on the floor or, worse, down into a mechanism. At any given time there are 5 buckets in the bucket shifter. The bucket dumper picks up a bucket from the 3rd position of the bucket shifter and dumps the balls into a waiting hopper. It then deposits the bucket back into the bucket shifter. It must accomplish all of this during the tiny amount of time that the bucket shifter is stopped, about 3/4 of a second. The white 40 tooth gear is driven by the backbone. It turns a 3L crank which drives a vertical pushrod driving a 4L crank. This is connected to an inverted V-shaped linkage. Two different motions are possible when the V-shaped linkage is rotated. Since the far end of the links is attached to the green carriage, the green carriage can be driven along the purple sliders. However, if the green carriage encounters an obstacle (like a bucket) or if the green carriage bottoms on the end of the track, then motion of the white linkage rotates the whole purple assembly up around the exposed axle on the right. This whole system results in a 4 stage motion. First the green carriage moves to the right to grab a bucket, then the purple assembly lifts and tilts, then it comes back down, then the green carriage releases the bucket. All of this motion occurs in response to the continuous rotation of the lower white crank. Some tidbits about this module: Because the white gear rotates at 60 rpm, one bucket is dumped per second. The bucket dumper must accomplish its job during the tiny amount of time that the bucket shifter is stopped, about 3/4 of a second. The purple 3L axle sticking out at the left of the image is a down stop to prevent the purple mechanism from pushing down on the bucket shifter and jamming it. The final part of the bucket system is the bucket loader which accepts buckets from the bucket shifter and places them back on the wheel. This module has the most complex motion of any of the bucket system because it must translate, lift, and rotate all in a synchronized fashion. The claw starts by facing the bucket shifter which pushes a bucket into the empty claw. The claw then simultaneously lifts, rotates 90 degrees to face the wheel, and translates toward the wheel. When it reaches the wheel, it moves down to deposit the bucket and then pulls back out the way to begin again. The first part of the system is the "quick return mechanism" shown in orange on the lower right. The 40 tooth gear is driven from the backbone and drives a crank arm made from cams. This crank arm moves a 9L lever back and forth. A long pushord then connects to a 4L crank arm at the other end. This crank is geared up 2:1 to allow a +/- 90 degree movement of the vertical orange arm. This arm drives the white carriage toward or away from the bucket wheel. The white carriage slides on a pair of fixed axles (not shown). When the carriage is away from the bucket wheel, it needs to rotate 90 degrees to point towards the bucket shifter. This rotation happens passively without an active mechanism. The L-shaped 3L black liftarms at the bottom of the claw contact the curved dark gray brick and drive the rotation at the right point in the cycle. The brown mechanism controls vertical motion. The 40 tooth gear is driven by the backbone and drives a 3x3 crank. This crank presses a lever for 1/4 of its revolution. The lever lifts a pedal which is under the black claw, lifting the whole thing. Note that the black claw must be able to slide through the white carriage as it raises and lowers. Some tidbits about this module: When the orange quick return cam connection is at the bottom of the lever, near the pivot, the lever moves slowly. When the cam connection is at the top of the lever, away from the pivot, the lever moves quickly. This allows for slow movement of the claw when a bucket is held, preventing dropping the bucket. But return of the claw when empty happens quickly. If the speed were made uniform over the whole cycle, the claw would move too fast when holding a bucket and drop it. The jaws of the claw can be adjusted to provide exactly the right spacing to lift the buckets. The bushings at the end of the orange pushrod can be adjusted to give exactly the right rotation of the crank. Every portion of this mechanism has to be perfectly timed to synch with both the wheel motion and the bucket shifter motion. The whole module runs at 1 cycle per second, just like the other major assemblies. Now we'll move on to the ball systems. The balls start the cycle in one of two hoppers, either coming from an upstream module or being recirculated from the ball factory. Both hoppers feed the bottom of the spiral lift. The spiral lift functions very simply by rotating against a set of fixed ribbed hoses. The lift drum has 6 flutes each of which can trap a ball and roll it up the spiral. When a ball gets to the top of the spiral, it bumps against a slope which knocks the ball into a nearby ramp. At first it might seem that this module does not need careful synchronization like the other modules, but this is not the case. The module must deliver balls at the same rate as the machine consumes them or it will either form a queue (disastrous) or fall behind (annoying). Unlike the other modules, this one is not driven by a 40 tooth gear from the backbone but by a 24 tooth gear. This means the input axle rotates 3 times slower than the backbone or 100 rpm. A further 5:1 reduction means the drum is rotating at 20 rpm. Singe the drum has 6 flutes, it is delivering 6 balls per revolution for a total of 120 balls per minute, 2 per second. Every bucket takes two balls, so this works out perfectly. The ball lifter accept balls from the spiral lift and pushes them up into the waiting jaws of the ball picker. It operates on two balls at a time. A pair of balls roll down a ramp and drop in front of the blue pusher. The pusher moves them forward and they drop into the recesses of inverted Technic engine cylinders (not shown), a unique parts usage if ever there was one. The white pin joiners, now centered under the balls, then push them up. The red 40 tooth gear is powered from the backbone. The attached 3L crank pushes down on the red pedal which pivots on the central pin axis. The other end lifts the white ball lifter. The white lifter motion is very simple, moving in a guided vertical direction. The blue 4 bar linkage is slaved to the same 40 tooth drive gear. A 2L crank pulls down on the vertical blue axle which pivots the ball pusher forward while it remains level. Note that it does not return via the red powered input, rather a counterweight pulls the ball pusher back to starting position. Some tidbits about this module: The ball pusher could work without the counterweight, but then the system would have to lift the balls and move the blue pusher at the same time. By using a weighted return, the drive system doesn't have to lift two things at once. This reduces power demands on the system. The red gear turns at 60 rpm which means this whole system operates at one cycle per second (two balls per cycle). The lifting and pushing functions have to be perfectly synchronized. The ball picker is a fascinating contraption. It receives balls from the lifter and moves them over to the wheel and drops them into a bucket. the yellow and orange system control horizontal motion and dropping, and are interconnected. The yellow system is driven from the orange 40 tooth gear off the backbone. The 3L crank drives a horizontal pushrod which in turn rotates a 2x4 crank. A connected 4L crank lifts the vertical yellow beam which turns the 36 tooth gear. This is then geared down 3:1 to achieve a +/- 90 degree motion in the final crank. This crank slides the claw along a track made from 12L axles (not shown). Because the crank also goes up and down, it needs to be able to slide along the vertical claw axle. The orange system drops the balls. The claw is spring loaded shut via a rubber band. When the balls are pushed up by the lifter, it drives the jaws apart slightly which then grip and hold the balls. The light gray arm at the bottom right of the claw must be pushed to open the 2 forward jaws and drop the balls. The orange 3x5 L-shaped beam provides this pushing motion. It is driven through a fairly complex linkage by the input 40 tooth gear. There is a towball on the gear which pushes a lever, bumping the 3x5 beam to open the jaws. Some tidbits about this module: The length of the final yellow crank can be adjusted to control the endpoints of the claw. The claw deposits 2 balls per second into a bucket. A large counterweight is used to make sure the ball dumper is never engaged while the claw is translating or the system would jam. It is also needed because the towball can only push and not pull so there is no other return mechanism for the orange parts. The simplest of all modules in the ball output selector. This is not part of Akiyuki's original design but was added by The Rebricker. When the balls are dumped out of the buckets they hit this angled plate and can go either left or right. Tilting the plate right rolls the balls down a ramp and dumps them overboard to a downstream GBC module. tilting the plate left rolls the balls down another ramp to the return conveyor. Having this selection available allows use of the ball factory either in a larger GBC setup or in recirculation mode as a self contained module. I don't know the function of the Plinko style pins on the platform, but they look kind of cool. The ball return conveyor was added by The Rebricker to allow use of the ball factory in recirculation mode. It accepts balls from the bucket dumper and returns them to the input hopper. Because it travels up a significant slope, it cannot just use tread links because the balls will slide down to the bottom. A series of 7 cleats are made from 1x3 plates and tiles and affixed to every 11th tread. Each cleat carries 2 balls, and the timing works out nicely such that no queue of balls is produced. Now that you know how the whole thing works, what is it like to actually build this thing? I found it a real joy. None of the building techniques are very complicated in and of themselves, so the actual assembly is pretty simple if you are following the videos. The timing, on the other hand, is another matter. In some cases, being off by a single gear tooth is a problem, so every module has to be synchronized with every other. I found this process enjoyable, but others may find it frustrating. You won't see an official LEGO set anything like this. Let's take a look at the massive pile of parts. There are about 3100 parts here, but note that no motors are technically required so the cost does not have to be super high. Although this is a technical model, most of the parts are still standard bricks and plates. Here are all the modules built and arrayed on a table. At this point I had already completed the build and run the factory for a few days, but I found that sometimes a ball would drop down inside. The studs of the base plate would hold the ball and make it very hard to extract since the access is so limited. To combat this problem and also to improve appearance, I added 1200 tiles to make a tile floor. It worked great on both fronts. In all I spent a couple of months building the LDraw file, collecting parts, building, and troubleshooting. My family has never been so fascinated in watching a LEGO creation, and that's exactly the reaction I was going for when I decided to build this. The build is not for the faint of heart, so I recommend it only for those who feel the technical achievement is worth the effort. But if you are one of those people, this is as good as it gets.

Finished my second module. Simpler mechanics this time, but I haven't seen this particular variation anywhere.

Great Ball Contraptions are fascinating and I designed two GBC modules that use LEGO slides for getting the balls up and down. The first uses a ball pump to push the balls up through the tower. The balls then roll down a double helix: The second modules uses the double helix for an Archimedes Screw. This is a very effective method of lifting balls up.

- Gbc: because Lego can't pretend it doesn't exist - Marble Run: because Lego can't leave it to competitors - Rube Goldberg Contraptions: because The Incredible Machine made of Lego parts would be a natural fit There is a life beyond forklifts and cranes.

Hello everyone! This is my first post, so comment on any questions and request for GBC modules. Just a few days ago, I was on Rebrickable for a little bit, and thought of finding GBC modules. Well, I wasn't very lucky, because the only one I could find was a back-forth style lift. It was made using the First Responder set. I did not even have that set, as my largest Technic set was Street Bike. I decided to get my Street Motorcycle set, and make this:

Here is a GBC module built using a conveyor, and the older "Racer" track. The theme is based on the song of the same name. The conveyor is powered by a PF-M Motor, and the Sweeper is using a PF-XL motor.

Hi. I’m a long term Lego fan but only just getting into GBC and need some help. I want to build one of Akiyuki’s modules (strain wave gearing) and not that there are instructions and a link to a bsx parts list. I have successfully managed to take xml format parts lists and copy/paste into BrickLink to manage parts buying under my wanted lists but I don’t know how to use BSX? I have researched that I need brickstore/brickstock or possibly Rebrickable but when I click on “parts list” link in eurobricks it opens a new web page with the bsx text and seemingly no way to save down or export this other than copy and paste the text. My question therefore is this: how do I export or utilise the eurobricks parts list (which states bsx forms) into either brickstock/brickstore or Rebrickable in order to be able to create and import an actual .bsx file into BrickLink? Sorry if this question seems stupid but I’m really struggling to find any guidance for this seemingly simple task and would greatly appreciate the help. Otherwise I’m stuck manually looking at the pictures parts list page at back of instructions and manually finding the parts one by one in BrickLink which is easy and doable but naturally takes A LONG time. Thanks in advance for any help on this. James

This Lego great ball contraption module uses mechanism with the transparent food covering type pieces (I have no idea what they are actually called) It is a reliable module, even though it looks like it is flexing a lot in the video. The tightness of the mechanism that holds the balls is able to be adjusted very easily to make sure that they pick up the balls each time. I have (as you can see) finally got some proper GBC balls to run my modules with. This module can hold one layer of them in the input bin before they get stuck, I would guess that that is about 30 - 35 balls. Like most of my recent modules it is compatible with my power sharing standard. The LDD file is on bricksafe here.

Hi All! Long time lurker first time poster! Happy to have joined the community! Im an avid lego fan (albeit a bit of a lego hoarder) and I have been collecting lego since the 90s. I really enjoy working with the technic theme theme, creating random machines and creating GBCs, however working with classic bricks also works for me. I have approximately 100k pieces available at disposal (mostly sourced from bricklink), which is probably not as much as what you guys have :) I’ve also recently started a youtube channel to share some of my creations, please have a look and subscribe! Technic Master’s Youtube Channel Looking forward to sharing more of my custom creations. Louie