Hoody

Most people just recognize only a few abbreviations. That is no problem. You just need to know about the important ones: Si = silicon (german = Silizium) and O = Oxygen - some kind of glas is made from those.

Hi Pete, welcome also. First to your idea of using the solenoids for dispensing. The idea is great and simple. The problem on the inlets is immanent to all funnels and alikes but I am a little bit surprised that the marbles falling vertically block the entrance. It seems that the pipe leading to the locking mechanism gives a marble drop of roughly one or so marble diameter? Does the blocking also occur when there is no pipe below the hole? From experience I know that at every place where marbles coming in parallel on a wide surface getting forced into a single lane there is such blocking. Depending on the result of the "without the pipes" experiment I would suggest to reconstruct the inlet section. Just drill a hole in the board, its diameter shall be not more than the pipe or hose inner diameter, a little bit less is of no problem. Have a thick hose or a pipe with not more than 1+ 1/4 marble diameter go down nearly vertically (really steep!) and then lead it over to the dispenser in a narrow or wider bend. Do not assemble the pipe as a sharp corner because there in the corner might be blocking action again. Some of this large clear plastic hoses will get smoother for bending when heated with a hot air gun or in boiling water (attention to your hands). If you do not succeed, it might be an idea to have a rope/string driven by a motor push some marbles back or aside. This might be a more silent way than a hammer. But I think that this is not necessary. Feel free to share your experiences with us. One other simple idea is to mount a wall from left to right so that it crosses the hole's centers. This wall has a half drill at each hole, of course, to allow one marble to pass into each hole. Maybe you can try this with a piece of cardboard cut in shape on one hole first. But there is no guarantee that there will be no blocking with this. The geometry is crucial anyway.

Hi Jay, nice to have you here. I am one of the Europe guys. I am located in Germany. Your 2000 marble test run looks nice. One of the machines that does not care for marble size. Some fine day I will try to make such a wooden construction myself. Thinking on lifting devices there is one fine site - available in german version only - that gives some overview and details: http://www.kugelbahn.info/deutsch/haupt/rauf.html Even if you do not understand german language it might be worth to click through the collection. There are lovely animated gifs to show some lifting principles. But feel free to find your own one. I think you are best of with the belt lifter system yellowmarble uses on some of his runs. Have a look and feel free to ask him on the construction details. His belt lifter has the ability to lift up hundreds of marbles per minute. The more marbles you want to run, the more marbles you need to lift up. I think you already know him and he gave you the hint to this fine place here. Thanks to yellowmarble. Jay, what is Algodoo? @Steph: I think there are run-makers around all over the world. For some reason they seem not to organize somehow. There has been something called "The Rolling Ball Web" but it stopped being hosted anywhere and is just available in pieces on some archive servers. Might be that there are not so many professional run-makers around and even fewer hobbyists. For most people marble runs are simple toys, not worth to worry about when building one and even no need to talk to other people about construction details. Marbles roll down a slope and that's it.

Hi Steph, as far as I know there are not much new arrivals there. It might be that one or two synthetically bread elements were introduced. Check your knowledge against the actual version of wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periodic_table

Hi, since I am nosy about "panache" I tried to find out which part of a fan it could be. I have no glue. Even wikipedia does not use this word: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand_fan Maybe it is the art that is printed or painted on the fan? I do not know. HAPPY NEW YEAR (at least in germany we are already in 2016)

Merry christmas everybody. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lS4wTuvR7Ik Its a german traditional - just listen and sing along if you like, its the karaoke version. Oh my god, in germany christmas is just over now

The problem with the "zap" is that it is no joke. It really can kill you if things go worse. Some circuits (maybe not yours) are working with DC voltage as high as 200V and capacitors might keep their initial charge for hours after powering off. With limited electrical knowledge it is a hard and dangerous thing to fix a non working tube amp. But since you wrote of "one of the channels" I suppose it is a stereo amp and so you have a reference for checking, at least the power supply section seems to be all-right. The problem can be anything from a broken solder connection (but looking okay when inspecting it visually) to damaged tubes. Maybe it is just a resistor that fails with "open mode" - giving inifinite read on an ohm meter. I think it is not possible to guide you remotely through a debugging session without having any common understanding. A schematic is a need for getting started anyway. What I think you can do yourself is to check all the wiring, maybe just a wire has left its terminal. If so solder it back into place and try it. But please take care that the amp has been powered down for at least 24 hours before you inspect it from its inside due to the risk for getting "zapped". And DISCONNECT IT FROM MAINS BEFORE EVEN OPENING THE CASING!!!

Would you like to share some of those shocking stories with us? If it something about technical stuff maybe we can confirm or rule it out?

oh, look there - I just found the astronaut, too.

Yellowmarble made it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVhv34NMvxI Very fine and cool job!

Why not celebrating not-birthday each day? I am the mad hatter...

May I put your attention to a spot for a famous whiskey brand? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2caT4q4Nbs

Which kind of input do you think of?

Oh, I see. Thank you for the informations, kbobam. You are perfectly right about the different usage of the german word. For some reason it is more socially accepted to use this word on my side of the atlantic ocean. I will try to respect it.

Oh, I've got such a plant at my office desk. From the front it looks like an open mouth waiting just to snatch some unwary fingers coming too close. A colleague really asked if this is a kind of carnivorous plant - and I told him 'YES' ... now he always keeps some distance. Need to make a reminder for 1st of april next year: put a warning sign near the plant.

Hi, I think the linguistic origins are not related to each other - unless you omit their roots reaching back to the grunting of the cavemen thousands of years ago Similarity in sound not necessarily means similar meaning. I just think of 'laugh' and 'love'.

Your research yields pretty much what the dictionary told me. Nice to read how the words evolve from which languages. But I do not get the idea behind your question.

Oh sh**, my guess was wrong.

Pretty much I also thought this renown is being known as Steph pointed out. So I had a glance to http://dict.leo.org and look renown = fame / reputation but being known = best-known, well-known So this looks for me like a different meaning and might be the cause why there is no 'k' in renown. It is just a different word and meaning, or am I getting meschugge?

Okay, here is my guess: Trees without leaf.

So glad to follow the experts here. I just gave the ebay auction a glance and found only one of the pictures to be really sharp. And there I see those little craters in the surface. On the defocused photos there is also at least one small crater. Not that I thought of bidding for a marble, just for curiosity... Are those craters the cause for your opinion or is there more like the title of "Akro-Agate"?

schtick Well, it seems I am also not from the right locations. Having a look into our german "bible of words" the Duden there is no match. My favorite dict.leo.org at least has a similar spelling 'shtick' claiming it for a yiddish origin: http://dict.leo.org/ende/index_de.html#/search=schtik&searchLoc=0&resultOrder=basic&multiwordShowSingle=on I am not sure if I get it right in the meaning of fad or scam? Trying to follow the chain of meanings from the german Masche (ugs.) back to possible other translations: http://dict.leo.org/ende/index_de.html#/search=Masche&searchLoc=0&resultOrder=basic&multiwordShowSingle=on Schtick => shtik => Nummer = number / count leads me to a total wrong understanding when referring to dict.leo.org. But what https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shtick tells me seems to be the real meaning of kbobams 'schtick' here. Just plain music without interruptions by annyoing advertisings, comedy, talking and so on. Right?

Could the price give a hint? I read in the other thread that the complete vending apparatus is tagged $15 including those 700 marbles. The apparatus takes its share for sure. I have no idea how much its manufacturing cost would have been around 1930. Neglecting this I estimate roughly 2 cents per marble and we are just below the break even point. My question is: 2 or even 3 cents per marble around 1930, is it a high price or is it pretty cheap for a boy or girl? What has been a realsitic price for a standard marble to buy at a shop in those days? In my opinion such a vending machine needs to be produced and filled at the cheapmost price to earn money with. So might it be that the cheapmost marbles that were around have been put in? Maybe some of a manufacturer you do not know for some reason? Or already known companies sold their "scrape" for this purpose? Sorry for using "scrape", but I think the marbles filled into the vending machine were not the pricey high end ones and they were also not the mid range ones. To consider their origin it might be that you need to dig deep into the trading habits around 1930 to figure out if foreign marbles could be an alternative even when shipped across the ocean? Todays chewing gum vending machines do not include quality products. And the jewels and toy cars mixed in as special attraction to the boys and girls are really cheap scrap. Just some ideas from a madcap...