Ramp Based Rapid Marble Swap - Marble Clock Seconds Display Pt.1 

I feel there is a strong correlation between marble projects and madness. Based on a sample size of 2 youtubers I love...

Now do ms🎉❤

Grande. "I lack the knowledge to stay alive" is a great line...

Someone please buy this poor guy a clock.

Man, when this clock is finished, it needs to be on display somewhere for public viewing; it is fantastic.

8:07 "That's not a process, that's a lifestyle choice." I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. Bravo.

There are some smart corners that could be cut for this project. Firstly, there are 5 marbles that will always stay black or white (chrome) through all digits. The two black marbles in an 8 will always stay black, and three marbles in the right most column; the top, middle, and bottom, will always stay white. Secondly, not all marbles change from one digit to another, but many marbles stay either white or black. The numbers of changing marbles for each transition are: 0 → 1: 7 marbles 1 → 2: 8 marbels 2 → 3: 2 marbels 3 → 4: 4 marbels 4 → 5: 4 marbels 5 → 6: 1 marbels 6 → 7: 7 marbels 7 → 8: 6 marbels 8 → 9: 1 marbels 9 → 0: 2 marbels This has an average of 4.2 marbles per transition, instead of 15 marbles for a full update.

lol that coloring process... The level of sanity this man is willing to sacrifice at his viewers' behest!

how can we make the marble clock even louder? ah yes, electromagnetic solenoids and metal balls lol

I'm getting some Wintergatan PTSD. 🤣

I can't wait until he realizes he needs way more than one number.

"And that's why I shouldn't be trying to do thi- (cut) And that's why we need to find another way..." Your dedication to making this project work is ridiculous in all the right ways. I love it

One advantage of the design you discussed around 2:14 is that you could build it without making any sorting mechanism. Just keep the marbles in the same channel and loop them back up to the top. It would effectively work like a flip clock.

Whenever I get fed up and bogged down in a project, I think of Ivan and his inspiring perseverance.

So, I've started painting minis again after many years, and I was feeling discouraged at how long the process can take. Then I found out how long it took Ivan to make black marbles. I'm no longer discouraged and am going to go back to painting, now. Thanks, Ivan, for your .. genius.. madness.. perseverance is probably the right word, honestly. I wish you luck with this, as I know soooo very little about engineering. I'll keep watching, though!

I love the way you think "That's impossible to do" "That's impossible to do THIS way"

Imagine having this as an alarm clock 😂 you would never even fall asleep

If you can control the lip at the end of the final ramp, you could have only marbles in the positions of the digits. Hopefully that idea helps prevent you from having to blacken any more of them!

Just when I think my own projects are getting a bit difficult, I come here to be reminded that there are projects out there that are orders of magnitude higher than my own, in terms of insanity-making capacity. Genuinely floored by this project, and your stubborn determination to see it through.

It gets crazier and crazier with every episode. Give me more!

This is the level of procrastination that men achieve when they're supposed to be doing the dishes or taking out the trash.

You're a maniac, mate. Love it. Idea: since you are now using steel balls, could you use the electromagnets directly? In other words, dispense with the actuator rod and spring on the solenoids and just use the magnet directly as a stop/release mechanism for the balls. Magnet on - ball stops and is held in place; magnet off - ball is released. Cheers from Geoff in France.

And when I thought the marble clock project is done, this video pops up randomly in my feed. You earned my subscribe 😁

16:19 wow this is so satisfying! it feels like a physics simulation, but this is even better because it's done in real life. It's truly beautiful!

Mark Robber eat your heart out too. This guy actually builds it. Not a fancy team sponsored by us.

Engineering the rotary selector would have been pretty easy with solenoids. The neutral position is kept with an spring in both ways. now add a solanoid on the right and one on the left. On activation of one of the solenoids you push the selector to one side which selects the corresponding marble. Now use a spring to bring back the selector to the neutral position and release the marble. Greetings from a swiss mechanical engineer ☺️

I admire your persistence in designing and building these monstrous projects! Keep going, you inspire lots of people.

I have an idea for turning the bearings black. Run them through an abrasive tumbler to remove the chrome, then dip them into blueing fluid.

I love how 3d Ivan and human Ivan tilted when the machine tilted at 1:30

Well, that's the idea I just told in the Pt4 from the previous clock! You are way ahead of me! lol

If you pay close atteattention to, you can see him slowly losing his marbles as the project continues. Joking aside, this is absolutely incredible. I love watching these videos. I can’t wait to see how this project turns out. Hopefully you can maintain your sanity as you make all those black marbles.

You put so much work into this designing each track multiple times and programming, not to mention coating all the marbles. I appreciate it as it inspires me and keep up the awesome work!

The amount of dedication to this clock. I like the process of trial and error.

Amazing! A suggestion for coloring the marbles: Baked-on electrostatic powder coating. A suggestion for the magnet-sticking issue: Brass marbles, if they even exist. Also, an idea for a future project, now that you are dealing with multiplexing: A marble display using colored marbles.

Get exited to see his videos pop up. The best parts are the trial and error process and his explanations. Plus he is a great teacher

I have an idea that can help the clock go faster. Prebuild all digits from 0 to 9 with maldes. Like that you can change the digit every second and you dont have to wait until the the next number is made

Every step is a little more amazing than the last. You are brilliant, sir. And your tendency to consider the advice in the comments just adds to the value of your videos! Thank you!

You're an absolute chad for even trying, really cool project.

I'm thinking somewhere down the line you can set up your clock to have a buffer, so that the next second is always primed, and the second before that pushes the previous second into the primed position, since it looks like you'll be using all 15 spaces continuously. I do not envy the work you have to do, but it is very cool, I can't wait to see what you come up with next time :) Glad I found your channel!

Dude, I’m half way through this and the insane understanding and skill to accomplish all this is top notch! Incredible!

This man has grit, I appreciate the level of patience and determination it takes to not give up or rage quit.

Ive been trying to think of a simpler way to sort the black and white marbles other than optically as was done with the other marble clock. If you could use a slightly smaller marble for the black marbles, you could sort them mechanically via a sieve.

Muy bueno, Iván! Deseando ver la continuación del proyecto...

I thought it was done BUT YOUR ADDING SECONDS! YOU ABSOLUTE MAD MAN! Mad respect

I love that the marble clock series is continuing like this! I'm curious to see how you will fit the digits close to one another when the unit is so wide...

You'll get no criticism from me, I just love seeing your awesome designs and I appreciate all of the work you put into each build. I also appreciate that you don't sugar coat any of the obstacles that you run into. It is great to see you overcome them so you can "make something"

I have a few suggestions: 1. Just use a single colour of the marbles, so you do not need to combine/seperate them. 2. Use several layers of the externally printed marble gates for presetting the next numbers to come up. Every second all gates are moved and the new number is displayed in the front. 3. Just exchange the digits that change from number to number. 4. Use some kind of a release (drop, poke out etc.) mechanism to remove the marbles on the display level 5. Think about which digits change from number to number, so you just have to remove/add a single marble (5 to 6 or 8 to 9) 6. If you keep using the glass marbles, you will not have any magnetic issues.

This just keeps getting better

The entertainment value you bring while guiding us through your thought and build process cannot be understated. Thank you for your efforts and creations!

I LOVE watching these videos. Thank you for showing your thinking, fails, adjustments, and successes. I can't wait to see the next steps!

THIS ! is the wildest thing on this planet !

I don't comment on videos that often but I just wanted to let you know that I came across your Marbel Clock project and I love the way you present your videos and how easy they are to understand. The scene with the making of the black marbles just made me laugh so hard that my wife asked me what I was watching... after that I had to explain why I was watching videos of a guy building a marble clock who now wants to display seconds with it. 🤣

Thank you so much for making and sharing your journey with the marbles. Utterly fascinating 🙂

I think I have an idea for feeding the marbles to the reserve channels. You'll still have the down ramp to a recovery pool, but a) lifting involves something that's basically an Archimedes screw to lift the marbles to the distribution point to three different chutes - one for black, one for white, one for return to pool (to account for the possibility of all of one color's channels being full at any moment). From there, just have the black and white runs set up to lock out full channels and round-robin the reserve channels with accommodations for channels with fewer marbles - and counts of marbles can be had with a few optical sensors. This will simplify the distribution of marbles, but the idea I have is going to create more than just a bit of complexity, and more than one sorting elevator to maybe help speed things along.

Nice to see that the track length timer for the marble machine X is coming along nicely :D

I'll be honest, this is probably the most interesting and pure channel I watch. I love every second of this, you are a damn genius, I'm in awe.

Awesome project! The main thing that bugged me is the fact that you approached as if it works the same as the big clockface, where ALL marbles have to be refreshed on every update. Here, only some marbles have to be updated, and ALWAYS from white to black or vice versa. So technically you wouldn't even need a colour selector for each "pixel", as long as you make sure in the (to-be) sorting process that the marbles in the queue have alternating colours. Then you only have to select which "pixel" to update each second, possibly removing a lot of complexity from that system. As a bonus, fewer updates each second means fewer marbles to sort in a second as well :)

Hey I got an idea for the vertikal marbelclock. You don't need to discard the displaced marvels. Just use them again in that exact order. And build a loop. But your more chaotic system approach might be more fun :)

This is super satisfying to watch

Dude is just insane, can't wait to see the next video

You can cut down the number of black marbles by not using the centre column 2nd and 4th raw. Non of the digits use them. Also, having 2-to-1 merging channel at the digit release step, takes away one solenoid valve movement (so 1 instead of 2 for each change) thus giving you more time to select the right marbles and queue them properly. One the other hand, why not have a separate selecting solenoid valce for the left-right selector? This way you could have a separate color marble queues. Great work! The front to back digit change is a great idea!

This rapid testing with prints is absolutely my jam, great work

Genuinely an inspiring amount of effort goes into these projects, love watching these updates

I cant wait to see this part working alongside the other minutes and hours

😮😮😮I love the overengineering being done on this channel! 🙂

Haha, you presented the solution in the first few seconds. When the marble has to much impulse it clears the stage. No marble no dot in the matrix. Single color marbles fine. Just two main registers shifting all at once an one solenoid + guided wire for stopping individual marbles on the higher position for more impulse. :)

Tenacity. OCD. Self flagellation. Borderline genius/insanity. This guy has them all. Kudos - fascinating, next level engineering, educational and entertaining. I would've just dropped the ball bearings in sharpie ink. :)

If you intend this to work every second, I think you might want to add a second set of gates so you have a second buffer. You have the displayed digit. The next digit which is ready to swap. And a staging digit after that which is being loaded by the ramps. This will give the marbles an opportunity to dissipate their kinetic energy coming down the ramps, so that they’re not bouncing and ready to immediately slide through the gate into the buffer position.

You should ask around at some local metal working shops about the marbles. They could probably upscale what you're doing and get what you need done in a day.

A couple things to improve efficiency: there are six slots that don't need switching at all; and since you're ejecting from the rear, ejecting the entire matrix isn't strictly necessary - just the delta.

Honestly, this is a genuine work of art!

Never has the word marble sounded so wobbly… 😂 Love this video!

Engineering and humour all in the one video!

An observation that might help, though I don't know how yet: each individual segment of the marble display only ever needs to switch from black to silver or vice versa. This could mean for instance that you could have only one ramp feeding each segment, or maybe it could reduce the number of solenoids needed.

If another marble-based RU-vidr had been this positive, friendly, and strived for simplicity, perhaps that infernal machine might've got finished (after he'd used all the Patreon money to buy a lovely house then bugger off)

Hi Ivan, very inspiring work, love it. I am wondering, since the tracks are already black and your steel marbles are shiny, why not just send marbles to the tracks where you need them to show the next number. Use the aluminum bracket you have, paint it black and use it to stop the marbles at the front. With a solenoid move it down to release these marbles when changing seconds and a second to arrange the next number before releasing them to the front. This way you wouldn't need any black marbles at all. You wouldn' have to change change much an the marble selector, just put plug in the track so no marble can be released in the black rows, so your work so far isn't wasted. In case you fear the environment being to bright, print a cover to be installed around the frontmost 10-15cm. Just thinking. Two thumbs up for your enthusiasm.

This is so cool! I’m wondering two things that might make it difficult to actually read the digits though. 1. The black vs silver marbles have low contrast 2. The marbles bounce back a little bit once they land in their spot

I love that this is back!

I can't wait to see this progress.

Just some ideas: The first style of marble selector gate which is three position could be held the center position with spring force and a mild detent. A spring attached to the armature of a push-pull solenoid holds the armature in approximately the center position. A mild detent (such as a ball detent on the armature shat) can provide positive centering if necessary. The armature can be actuated as pull to move the gate one direction, and actuated as push to move the gate the other direction. Two regular pull solenoids can perform this push-pull task by arranging them back-to-back with the armatures connected. In this case the control circuitry is simplified by connecting the two coils together as a single center-tapped coil. The center tap is connected to the positive supply and each end of the coil is connected to ground through a switch (relay, MOSFET, etc.). The mechanism can then be actuated in 'pull' mode by activating one switch, or in 'push' mode by activating the other switch. A snubber diode is necessary to control coil inductive kickback when the switch is disconnected. The solenoids can be connected to the gate with a light-weight Bowden cable (the thin sort used in RC model aircraft) so that the solenoid size would not affect the geometry of the gate mechanism. This setup requires one push-pull solenoid (or two pull solenoids) and one or two control lines per channel (with a few external components per channel one tristate output can handle both push and pull switches). For a 3x5 matrix that is 15 push-pull solenoids (30 if using two pull solenoids as a push-pull) and either 15 or 30 control lines. If the matrix is simplified for 7-segment display then 11 push-pull (or 22 pull) solenoids and 11 or 22 control lines are required. If control lines from the microcontroller are scarce four 74HC595 8-bit cascading shift registers can be used to convert a serial bitstream into a 32 bit parallel output (some cheap AVRs with a simple program could also handle this task). That's a lot of solenoids. It would probably be cheaper, smaller, and require less electronics to use hobby servos. The servos can be controlled with an ATMega or a PCA9685 16 servo control board. As a bonus small hobby servos are compact enough that they could probably be mounted directly on the gate. The main advantage of this would be speed. All elements of the matrix can be actuated at the same time.

Just another idea in case this one doesn't get to the speed you require. Thinking about a "mechanical flip calendar"-like system, where flipping the front block immediately shows the one behind. Marbles would be filling from the top, and once they flip, released in the same way, from the top, now inverted. The numbers would be drawn as they are on the queue behind the shown one, with plenty of time. Theoretically you wouldn't need to release them and just show the proper one, but then it wouldn't be fun or a marble clock. In order to draw the numbers, what about one line at a time while in motion? Like an assembly line, moving to the next station one second at a time. I'm sure it could be somehow more compact, and given you'd be working in vertical, you wouldn't have tracks that delay the process.

4:04 That is really satisfying to watch 😀

My poor guy, you're insane. I understand. And i watch everything, enjoying it.

wow the dedication you give this project is insane!

I appreciate you documenting your decent into absolute madness

Thanks Mate from Sydney Australia loved your explanation and delivery! Keep it up! Cant wait for the rest of this series and your future challenging projects. Carl

I’m interested in seeing how you separate the colored marbles and position them back in the queue.

an impressive amount of work Ivan

I'm sure a million people have said this already, but you'll never need white marbles in the middle of rows 2 and 4, so these channels could be left out completely and save yourself a bunch of black marbles. That said I love your dedication to the cause - great work. Looking forward to seeing more :)

Couldn't understand a word but guess I didn't have too. Well done sir.

Absolutely outstanding. Good luck 🤞

There's a video about bluing steel from Clickspring, he does it really consistently using some self-made bluing trays and it always look amazing.

Great idea. Love the video. You started off strong but as a mechanical engineer, I could safely say there are a lot of inefficiencies with this design. Looking forward to seeing how you solve them in the next video.

I think the display in the front would work much better, if it were pre-loaded with multiple marbles. Then when a new marble comes from behind, it will push one marble off the front. That way the front marble would be much more stable and not wiggle around so much.

I am a game developer and watching another person suffer like me, makes me feel better. Your videos are like a pain relief for me. 😅 Thank you.

Haha just have this do this 5 more times and figure out how to conveyer belt the marbles back up to the top again each time. Can’t wait to see how you do it! ❤

Really awesome. First video was amazing and each video you kick it up a notch!

To sort them after they're replaced, half could be non-magnetic and drop down to where they're stored while the magnetic ones roll along a suspended path above as they go to their storage space. In addition, there could be a second sliding part that moves in the opposite direction of the other, using the same solenoid, to drop them out as the new set takes its place.

such a creative solution

I love Ivan's Engineering design and testing!