Ball collector Materiel

[JesseK]

We went for the high speed/somewhat slippy method that make contact with the ball at 5-6" off the floor. We simply used the sturdier non slip drawer lining found at Lowes.

[s_forbes]

The final version of the NERDS ball magnet uses wedgetop conveyor tread, as seen here:



The frame member the ball sits against is set back 3" and covered in felt, the idea being that the roller sticks to the ball and the ball slips on the carpet and frame member. Ideally the ball is touching all three surfaces at once.

Something to keep in mind is that these devices are very finicky (at least from what I've seen/heard). You need to play with the dimensions a lot to get optimal performance out of the mechanism, and even then it can be easy to loose the ball while turning.

There are some more pictures of 1726's device in this gallery: http://photos.project1726.org/

[Wayne TenBrink]

For those of you who are getting backspin on the ball:
1) Are you pinching the ball between the roller and floor, or just getting approximately simultaneous contact on the roller, backstop and floor without significant interference fit (pinch)?
2) If you are not pinching the ball, how do your magnets work with high speed pickup? Does the ball bounce out?
3) It sounds like you should be able to back up rapidly without losing the ball. How well does that work for you?

[waialua359]

We chose a pool noodle with some simple "stuff" on it, since it wasnt as rigid as pvc with a sticky material. A hard roller was worse, IMO, because it caused the ball to bounce at times and fall out of place.
We did two major additions that now allow us to move full speed forward and back and never lose the ball.
I dont know what 148 did (doesnt appear to have spin), and its not apparent how effective they are moving backwards (not that they need to or not).
But for us, having the ball spin better was highly effective for us.
In summary, we have only one point of friction (relatively speaking) preventing the ball from spinning.....i.e. the carpet.

[rsegrest]

Originally Posted by JesseK

We went for the high speed/somewhat slippy method that make contact with the ball at 5-6" off the floor. We simply used the sturdier non slip drawer lining found at Lowes.

Yep, we visited Lowes too...HURRAY FOR SHELF LINER!!

[Jeffy]

Dave Brown Lite Flite airplane wheels. Enough said.

[DonRotolo]

We went with latex tubing that sticks out like a vacuum cleaner brush. It whacks the ball when you get close, putting backspin on it, letting the ball follow you backwards if you go slow enough. The roller is about 2/3 the height of the ball and spinning pretty fast. When the ball gets too close, the tubing folds against the roller and acts more like wedgetop tread on a cylinder.

[Jonathan Norris]

For our ball manipulator its a combination of Hockey tape, rollers with a gap in the middle, and some allowable movement of the height of roller. So all in all its a little complicated and has required a lot of prototyping, testing, and tuning.