This is the seventh in our series. It was inspired by a similar lifter built by Graham Jost. Graham used rods to hold his spanners in place, I chose to take a much more involved way of bossing each square spanner used. This method allows me to alter the climb angle of the spanners to achieve a smooth result. The coloured discs are to cover the rather sharp points of the spanner so as to avoid unnecessary scratching to the balls. The balls are collected from the base and lifted on the blue end of the spanner. At the top they descend a chute into a boiler section to return to the start. Power for the lift is provided by a MO type motor with attached gearbox running at 3v. A belt drive ensures that should a ball jam the belt will slip and avoid damage to the motor.

Ball lifter built in January 2010