Gum ball or candy machine movement pattern

[dehrlich]

Anyone made a pattern for the movement part of a gum ball or candy machine that works? I have come close but it is inconsistent. Not sure what I'm doing wrong. Any help appreciated.

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[bergerud]

Do you have a picture of the problem area?

[JoeinWestMich]

I like that design. Did you come up with that yourself. Are you considering marketing the .mpc when you have the "bug" worked out because I would be interested.

[SteveNelson46]

Here are the plans to make a gum ball machine that I found on the net awhile back. Someone with more ambition than me could convert the .dxf files to the Carvewright Designer.

[oscarl48]

Steve, nice. I did a quick search and came up with a dozen different projects some with free patterns and others for purchase. I did see a super cool one using gears to move the gum release mechanism. Only problem the site was super iffy aka "Ted's woodworking plans". Great way to get my computer sick so deferred downloading. Did that once and had a heck of a time trying to kill that virus/malware.

I may give it a go at designing my own pattern for it though. Maybe a rack and pinion design.

Darren, sorry for going on a tangent. The problem may be just the depth and size of the drawer. It needs to be shallow enough that once it is full it will stop further candy from dropping and allow the drawer to move forward without catching on a piece of candy.

[bergerud]

I have made mechanisms for flowing marbles (Quincunx) and the problem is always jamming. Funnels, for example, do not work. I would like to see how the gumball is separated from the rest.

[oscarl48]

I don't have the time right now but sometime in the future I may play more with this. Here is a quick over complicated design for a gum ball machine using a rack and pinion mechanism. It should work at dispensing a single gum ball at a time. The block at the end of the rack has a hole drilled the same size as a gum ball to ensure only one gum ball is released and to ensure minimum blockage. As it moves forward it clears the bottom stop block where the candy will fall in the tray. Nice mental exercise on how to arrange the gears and suspension for the rack. Should be able to be done with the CW and basic tools.

Loaded the gears and rack needed for this design if anyone wants to play with it. Invert pattern, outline, delete original pattern, apply cut path.

Haven't played with it at all on the machine yet so use good judgement when playing with the pattern.

[SteveNelson46]

Steve, nice. I did a quick search and came up with a dozen different projects some with free patterns and others for purchase. I did see a super cool one using gears to move the gum release mechanism. Only problem the site was super iffy aka "Ted's woodworking plans". Great way to get my computer sick so deferred downloading. Did that once and had a heck of a time trying to kill that virus/malware.

I may give it a go at designing my own pattern for it though. Maybe a rack and pinion design.

Darren, sorry for going on a tangent. The problem may be just the depth and size of the drawer. It needs to be shallow enough that once it is full it will stop further candy from dropping and allow the drawer to move forward without catching on a piece of candy.

I think Ted's Woodworking is okay. Awhile back I had a subscription to his site but received so much spam from him I cancelled it. He does have a lot of pretty good plans but I don't think there are any for CNC carving so they would need to be revised.

[SharonB]

Here is a slightly different gumball machine I carved back in 2012. You have to kick the gumballs out. The grandsons got pretty good at it.

[dehrlich]

Hey all, thanks for the comments. Sorry for the delay, flu season you know. Anyway here is a pic of the slide in the one completed machine. As you can see I made kind of a tapered slot behind the hole. This is so all the other balls can slide back up and just the two that are in the hole slide out. I had to order gumballs online since I couldn't find them in any store and they are small, like 1/2" diameter so two fit in the hole. This design works ok but the balls don't always drop in. It took a lot of trial and fine tuning to get this one to work. I have tried to simulate it on the machine but so far no good. I think I'm going to try a bunch of different versions in one carve and see if one will work.

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[DickB]

Why not try a hole sized for one only" Seems to me that two could jam up once in a while.

[Scooby]

I have made a few gumball machines and dehrlich has the right idea. It isn't that the candy gets stuck in the hole, they jam up at the point they drop into the hole. There is a "bottleneck effect" at the point of entry. The taper helps the candy fall in line.

[bergerud]

The taper could be what causes the jam. If I were to design a gumball machine, I would make it to totally control the gumballs. For example, have them all in a row (around a spiral or ...) so that each comes to the hole one at a time.

[dehrlich]

Update on this, I believe I have solved the problem. My balls weren't big enough.. (pause for laughter). In fact, the gumballs I was using were too small. I had designed the original to work with the 1/2" balls I had found and, because the material thickness was 3/4" and two balls would try to fall in, I made the hold and taper to work with that. Then it occurred to me that if the slide is 3/4" thick perhaps if I used balls the same size it would work better, and so far that has proven to be right. A few more tweaks on my design and I think I will have it licked... or chewed as the case may be. As for selling the pattern as someone asked, perhaps. Then again, I'm more likely to just share it since I have used so many patterns that were freely shared on this forum. More to follow...

[CarverJerry]

That would be nice, think I'd make one of these for my grandkids. :) yeah it does help to have bigger balls sometimes... :)
Thanks in advance for sharing.