How To Choose the Right Bearing - The 8 Step Method by SKF 

Can I add one extra suggestion for your third marble machine? Built the "music machine" first then focus on the power input (for a next world tour or for last in case you still have energy to spend on that). Why? 1- because if you just use an electric motor as power input (as all current church organs use), then you reduce "the fail chance" to complete a third machine. 2- because in order to design a manual power input that can play tight music, first you need to know what is the power loss by friction that you will have, which you can not know until you complete the music aspect of the machine. 3- The tight music mechanism that you want to use, like gravity, inertia and drag, all of them behave and scale different with the size, some of them depends on density (cube), others on area (square). At the end you can have a mechanism that requires so much weight and parts that could be unpractical to a world tour, or maybe they may require a lot of energy from your part to keep the machine moving, that would not allow you to concentrate in the other aspects of the machine while you play. Final, trying to reach the final design would be like chasing your own tail, because the first parameter that you need to know to design the power input, would be designed for last.

As a fellow tinkerer, I LOVE your bearing design! And it's very affirming to hear an expert say that yes there are questions that it can answer. Some of the world's most famous inventions happened as a failure to solve the intended problem. Some just need a little time to become more than an "ugly baby." I found a Time Magazine article from 2017 that lists QR codes as a "failure" at the time. Ha! Still, I applaud your willingness to learn and grow! You're doing great!

Will the MM3 be a piece of art or a showcase for professional engineering?

Don’t be discouraged about creativity in engineering. It’s just that as we find out more and more ways to do things, it becomes harder to find new ways as effective as the ones already found and people need more expertise on the subject

can i go too?

On top of that you have entertained millions of people with your Marble machine journey and music

Iteration on a design. The important part is for each design to be better than the last. It’s only a problem if you don’t improve it after many attempts.

yep, success is paved on the bumpy cobbles of failure. I hope you have good suspension and tires.

No he did fail, and that's fine. He had a goal for the MMX and was unable to meet that goal. He failed in completing that project to a satisfactory level. Now he is starting over with a different perspective, hoping that this time he will succeed.

​@@rudie2902I want to second that. Martin has not failed, he has learned a lot on his journey and has shared that knowledge and passion with millions of people. He also has significantly boosted the maker community and made it more connected. And I wouldn't be surprised if he has enspire lots of young people get Into it. Plus, he has probably introduced many more engineering focused people to music and art and how it connects to tech.

An important principle, which I encounter often in software engineering. 😂

I think the not-getting-emotional is key, especially when collaborating with others on a team. It’s important to not lab a design “Martin’s bearing housing design” instead you call it the “Version 1 bearing housing design”. Then if it needs to get revised or scrapped, the individual doesn’t feel personally attached.

@@atorrance That's a great point.

The engineering mindset needs to be divorced from the artistic one for the purposes of creating a functional object. Artists, by their nature, are perverse & contrary. Engineers are hegemonic and 'by the book': oil and water, without an emulsifier, for the most part.

In writing this process is called "killing your darlings." You obsess over some phrase or paragraph or metaphor so much the writing piece is worse for the labor you put in to keep it.

True, but it's hard to know what "tight" is when you don't have a machine yet. For the power system, "as tight as possible" is a good goal, because the rest of the machine is going to introduce inconsistencies, but you want to start with a power system that is very constant and easy to operate. Martin's current approach of "how tight can I get it?" is a good first start to prototype and test out different designs and compare them. Step 2 should be: "How tight do I need it?" and step 3 "Is it feasible to get it as tight as I need it without getting overly expensive or complicated?"

@@AdelaeR He has a level of tightness in mind or the MMX wouldn't be considered a failure. His reluctance to define "tight" is leading to a rabbit hole of prototyping without ever knowing when it's good enough. There's wasted effort in trying to go tighter in all areas if it's not necessary. Including the power system. If a power system is easier to use but isn't as tight, he won't know if it will work better vs the tighter/harder to use system. It would disregard any benefits from alternate systems if they aren't the tightest. Currently, no matter what they build, they won't know if it's tight enough to use or not. Martin knows how tight he wants it. It just needs to be translated into a measurable goal.

@@hundredfireify Tightness is not in exact numbers though. Nobody cares whether it's 60bpm or 61, as long as it's a nice constant bpm.

@@AdelaeR It is a number though. Martin measures the standard deviation whenever he tests the timing. What is the minimum/maximum allowable deviation? Determine that number and compare the parts of the build against that number. To better know when to adjust the design if it's not tight enough. Or we can accept it will never be complete or go on tour. They're not the only options. But since MMX "died" it's all just channel content, not a tangible goal. Why do the goalposts keep moving? The first step in the process is no longer defined. It's a philosophical idea of "tight." Look, I just want him to keep it real. Either build it with intent, or quit leading everyone on and just admit it's all for the channel now.

@@MisterBrickalew We're still in the initial prototyping phase of the MM3. A time in which various things can be tested and major decisions can be made. For now, a relative "tightness" is enough to continue. Once the design gets more concrete, surely Martin will get more specific with requirements.

When somebody praises a 5-star Michelin chef for their dish, even if they've followed a recipe, they don't say, "oh it wasn't me, I did nothing, it was all from ingredients." And that's not entirely an ego thing, either. It's about _how_ you combine things, _which_ things, in _what_ way. Look at music - there's nothing original under the sun in terms of base elements, but there's still an infinite amount of ways to combine them.

So much wisdom in this thread, I couldn't agree with both of you more! The proof of the pudding is in the eating, until then it's just ingredient's waiting to go off.

And the bearing housing will be almost invisible on the MM3, so using off the shelf parts for critical parts like holding the flywheel is not a compromise from an artistic point of view. The art lies in the overall appearance and concept.

That's true, but if you look at it from a certain way, we only know that for sure because we (or Martin) went through all the process of trying all the different ways beforehand. Hindsight is 20/20

@@faithful451 Absolutely this! It's not as though there's a wealth of existing knowledge on the timing consistency of different ball drop mechanisms. Besides, the various testing and experimentation are what keep this series so interesting. If it boiled down to _"I hired an engineering firm and this is what they designed"_ I'm not sure I'd bother to watch.

You can learn more from failures than you can from successes.

​@@petercolquhoun2086for me the goal is to learn. Ether way, you learn. 😊

It helps to review the project at certain points with trustet experts which can be designer, engeneers or operator. The imput you get from all needs to be take in acount.

@@petercolquhoun2086 Fail early, fail cheaply. That's the way.

Indeed, the made works fine till you can get the right size, but sometimes you don’t know what size to get till you make it

More like, a lot of people put time and money into supporting his second machine and he didn't even play a song on it. Now he's doing it a third time and seeing him cut corners in random ways is frustrating to say the least. Kinda wish he'd go back to making music with slide projectors and legos and such.

I kind of have the exact opposite experience, where I so often do DIY solutions because I can service my own specific needs so much better than professionals can offer at reasonable prices or even at all. _But,_ that's generally in the context of prosumer-grade end products and/or professional labor - not components. Finding components that perfectly fit into my DIY solutions is deeply satisfying and actually happens semi-regularly.

@@ssl3546This comment makes no sense. People who supported him were frustrated… so he needs to go back to Legos??

@@CzarinaHarris I don't know about the Lego's but he is talking about the huge and unexpected U turn he did by cancelling MMX. People who trusted his commitment were let down... So, having been burnt once, are varying degrees of impatient and sensitive (IMO rightly so). Picture this if you will: you've been following someone walking across the desert with the promise of great reward at journeys end. After many many miles of enduring the path you start to see something in the distance and it looks so good! Then this person suddenly stops and says, "oh sorry but I went the wrong way...", turns around and walks back the way we just came. Just imagine your thoughts; are you going to want to follow this person anymore? Do you have the same feeling of confidence and hope? At what point do you say, "I've had enough!"? Is he committed to the destination or just the journey??? If Martin is committed to the destination then there is hope but if he is just leading us around going nowhere then I would feel frustrated and annoyed...

@@musicbro8225This is (his) life, not a Disney movie. To me, his journey now is more real, deep and interesting than ever before.

In a century or so, I'd imagine that industrial suppliers will actually have things like that in their calculators, when we have an industrial base in space, on the Moon and Mars :)

@@Robinlarsson83 moving our industries and pollution to mars and the moon is such a "human species" way to deal with our problems lol.

In 1965 a Tasmanian scientist, R. Foster, went on Australian news and proclaimed the moon to not be a physical rock but a plasma based phenomenon. Nobody landed on the moon because it is not something that can be landed on. If the American government's lips are moving they are lying to you.

@@lambertstarr1218 Do also consider that industrial production would be *far* cheaper, both monetarily and in terms of waste, if gravity wasn't a concern. Especially if the materials used are collected/processed on-site

@@Roger44477 i'm all for hiding all our industries, garbage and pollution in the dark side of the moon.

Facts. It rained a little bit even today 😅

...butbutbut... how do you CTRL-F with a hardcopy?

Yes, and I must admit I have scrolled through their 1152 page pdf for quite a bit longer than I’d like to admit. 1152 pages on bearings! Amazing.

It's very interesting and universally informative.

@@josseman omg... a rabbit hole I feel i could get amazed within... As I think about it how many of us became mesmerized by the little silver sphere because of the original Marble Machine (blessed be the... hail ma... ... oh sorry that was meant to remain in my head 🤦🏼‍♂️) lol anyway this was a former engineering student's (me) most inspiring video of the week; yay - hope yours is good too

@@henryD9363 loved it, it was very well orchestrated and interesting indeed - cheers

The collet locking system on the bearing is neat.

Yes indeed. I had no idea of the issues of mounting a shaft that's not going very fast and would expect that such a simple analysis would do. It was enjoyable for me.

Music Machine Mondays showcased some of the most elite engineering to make exquisite music. Too bad they didn't have video to document their journey from concept to application.

I don't know a single engineer who sees these videos and thinks they've gained an education.

Huge shout out for SKF for wasting their very valuable time to pre-elementary educate, without success, a half crazy musician.

We don't. We call them failures.

Such a good way to put it.

@@thomasbecker9676 It's only a failure if you give up. They were unsuccessful prototypes, not failures.

Alpha worked. But made a mess. Beta worked well. But we found flaws in marble management which would have limited music production. Which was deemed unacceptable and set aside. Now working on Delta. Almost put an experimental bearing on a high speed flywheel. Thankfully the support team pointed out that might be a point of critical existence failure, and received outside consultation to be secure in our decisions. Continuing development. None of these machines are a failure. Failure would imply they never accomplished your primary design objective. Entertaining the public, making music, and sharing with the world. You already know Success Martin. You are complaining you aren't winning harder, because you didn't work smarter when you didn't stand a chance to understand the scope of your task at the outset. In engineering we call that learning the job by doing. Marble Machine 3 may still have defects. But 4 will improve upon those flaws. Perfection is only needed for mass production, as that will introduce its own imperfections, so ironing out the ones you expect needs to be done up front! If you don't believe me? Look up C&Rsenal. Firearms were produced in their millions, and yet they bring them in for repairs or even redesigns every few years as they worked out the kinks of FINISHED DESIGNS.

@@MorningDusk7734 No, in *real* engineering design, prototypes are defined as prototypes early-on.

Martin isn't an engineer.

Maybe the pride of the engineer can a bit much sometimes 😂

@@thomasbecker9676 Well, he certainly is on the way of becoming one. He already has more engineering skills than some people employed as engineers I have met.

@@EdwinSteiner Trust me, he's not. He's a tinkerer, aping at sticking things together without understanding why things are designed the way they are.

@@EdwinSteiner He's not even close to becoming an engineer.

I'm pretty sure this was filmed in June, judging by the flags outside. And martin has already used the lessons he learnt here in his last video, too, so it's been weeks at least either way.

@@Arkios64 they had those flags the whole last week to. they circulate between different countrys where skf has factorys and sometimes they have pride flags. Like the whole pride moth. But allso on random occasions. And sometimes they have blue skf branded flags. Once they had a ukrainian flag on half pole since the skf factory had been bombed in ukraine. They circulate flags like daily

Wonder who they pay just to take up and down flags every day

@@Arkios64 The roller coaster accident that Martin mentions happened on 25 June, and he says that was one week ago. I'd guess it was filmed in late June or early July

Keep consooming and don't question his "progress."

@@thomasbecker9676 I’m here for the journey and for what I may learn along the way.

@@thomasbecker9676 Says the man with the mental age of 7 that spends hours replying to comments under all of Martin's videos.

@@justsomeredspy Okay, kiddo.

I am going highschool there. So i have been there many times since i vegan this year. But yeah.a beutiful place. Atleast for nerds