Designing a "belt + roller" conveyor for balls

[Gdeaver]

One off the constant recurring problem with intakes and conveyor belt lifts is jamming and the resulting fried motor. Especially with the RS series. In 2014 we added a ball clutch to our ball intake system. If we had not developed this we would have had bins of fried motors. We used and AM 9015 with a banesbot planetary. Took a solid .5" shaft collar. Drilled six holes radially in the shaft collar and broached it for the BB shaft. The holes were drilled so that a .1875 ball bearing would sit just below the midpoint. A Martin #35 sprocket that is about .375 thick was then drilled with holes matching the shaft collar. These holes were drilled so that the ball bearings would sit above the midpoint. The 2 are put together on the BB shaft followed by a series of spring bevel washers. The number and pre-loading of the washers determine the clutch release point. The whole thing was done by hand on a drill press and worked amazingly well. We had investigated magnetic and friction clutches. The ball clutch performed better. So my advise is that adding a clutch to a intake or convoy is a really good idea. May be able to dig up some photos if any one is interested.