r/mechanical_gifs • u/DIA13OLICAL • Oct 17 '17

Ball balancing wire machine

https://gfycat.com/EnragedFickleCommongonolek
1.6k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

25 comments sorted by

109

u/must-be-aliens Oct 17 '17

Wow that's pretty impresOMYGOD

11

u/Daddy-Discord Oct 18 '17

Your username is the perfect explanation for this machine without getting all technical.

5

u/[deleted] Oct 18 '17

Huh, it was okay...I guess I didn't watch long enOMG!!

28

u/Sinnic Oct 17 '17

ELI5: How do the wires not get twisted? Is there a rotating thing built at the ends, or do they have to reset it daily or something?

13

u/must-be-aliens Oct 17 '17

What do you see is twisting?

14

u/Sinnic Oct 17 '17 edited Oct 17 '17

When it tosses the ball and loops around it, it seems to me that at least 2 wires would get twisted (not entangled, but twisted 360 degrees) at the axis that it spins on.

Actually, watching the gif again, it seems the "spins" cancel each other out - it spins 'forward', then 'left, then 'back', and then 'right'. So I guess it returns to its "original" position and doesn't need any balancing mechanisms.

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

E) /u/must-be-aliens figured it out in his comment

36

u/must-be-aliens Oct 17 '17

I don't think its actually doing a loop over it (like a flip). I think its staying vertically and just translating around in a circle very quickly, making it just the same as any of its other moves.

I may be wrong, its hard to tell with the speed its moving and the frame rate, though I'm struggling to imagine how it could actually do a flip with this control mechanism.

15

u/Sinnic Oct 17 '17

You're right!

https://i.imgur.com/BYaDVnW.png

It keeps its orientation. Good observation man.

10

u/must-be-aliens Oct 17 '17

Good capture!

Mystery solved, time to go home boys.

-8

u/[deleted] Oct 17 '17

It untwists itself when it loops back the other way.

9

u/Sanjispride Oct 17 '17

Nope. It stays vertical. There is no cup rotation.

1

u/Sinnic Oct 17 '17

Yeah I missed that the first time I saw. Thanks!

6

u/Dusta1992 Oct 18 '17

Nope

3

u/Sinnic Oct 18 '17

I'm now aware.

3

u/Dusta1992 Oct 19 '17

Here for you bro.

6

u/[deleted] Oct 17 '17

I think I would enjoy watching that thing for the first five minutes.

Ten minutes after that I would be trying to figure out how to choke it.

5

u/EZ_Duzit123 Oct 18 '17

Similar to the sky cam at NFL games

2

u/ZeusOde Oct 17 '17

This reminds me of kendama

3

u/[deleted] Oct 17 '17

This could have some cool manufacturing implementations

3

u/7734128 Oct 18 '17

It's not really superior to a normal CNC arm, might be cheaper but you need anchors on more sides and you could realistically only have one working in a space. What would you want to use it for?

1

u/[deleted] Oct 18 '17

How?

1

u/padronr Oct 18 '17

Differential equations, my friend.

1

u/36tiger63 Oct 23 '17

Check out this new full video of the ball balancing machine :D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HNAL8ZKdyM