Wheel Lifts

These lifts involve a wheel or set of arms that rotates a continuous 360 degrees. Even though some may look more like an arm lift, isn’t a wheel lift just a bunch of arms put together? The wheels can get pretty large, but keep in mind that powering the wheels from the center axis will cause unsmooth movement.

Mill Lift


These use 2 or 4 spokes on wheels that are linked with gears, and they all typically turn in the same direcion to lift the ball up a track or chute. The most popular version was made by Kairah for Metropolis, which uses smaller wheels and a vertical chute that’s easy to integrate into towers. The lift can be made as tall as you want, as long as there’s enough motor power.

Half Height Mill Lift


These use a larger arm that rotates to lift the balls up a curved track, and they exit at the same level as the wheel’s axis. There can be two sides to the arm or one side, with the other being a counterweight. One can also have the arm slide to whatever end is lifting the ball, like in sandroknexmaster’s version here.

Full Height Mill Lift


Similar to the quarter turn mill lift, these take the ball higher up, usually using track pieces placed close to the axis. The one issue is the movement gets unsmooth when the ball exits, since it’s essentially being squeezed upward. To avoid that it can be made with Motorized Madness track pieces, like sathothy did in this version.

Stacker Lift


This lift stacks balls on top of each other in a chute with a small wheel at the bottom that lifts balls one by one. There is also a rod that keeps the balls from falling back down. This is a simpler way of making a pump lift, but with the same disadvantage of using up a lot of balls.

WARNING

Don’t make the wheel too fast or a ball could get stuck between the wheel and the entrance track.

Rotating Arm Lift


There are a wide variety of rotating arm lifts of different sizes, but they all differ from mill lifts in that they pick up the balls rather than push them up a track. The balls exit at the top with an inline track right above the arms.

TIP

It’s easier to have the balls enter parallel to the arm’s rotating axis, rather than inline. Lifts that use an inline entrance track often need a gate system, and the other method works without a gate.

Rotating Arm Lift (offset exit)


The main difference with these lifts is how the balls exit at the top. Usually they are pushed to the side to an offset track, which can be easier to build than an inline exit track since those need to be at an exact level. There are also exits that use arms to catch the ball and release it off to the side, such as the large rotating arm from Wipe Out (in this case smool’s version mentioned previously is the easier way to make a large arm lift). Another method is sandroknexmaster’s ferris wheel lift, which uses carriers that tilt to let the ball exit.

A different design by sandroknexmaster, the Spinning Freefall Lift, picks up the ball and drops it at the top after it goes down the freefall of the arm to the other side. Here’s the instructions. A similar yet larger design is the separating arm lift, which takes advantage of the freefall aspect by having the ball exit at different levels on each arm. So, this is both a lift and a path separator. There are 8 levels that can lead to different paths. The only downside is that the balls, especially the paths closer to the wheel’s axis, lose a lot of height.

Cardan Gear Lift


This lift uses a mechanism that operates like a cardan gear to have one arm on the end of another, and they rotate at the same speed; at the top and bottom they are colinear. This not only looks cool but saves space to the left and right, since it doesn’t need a full arm radius 360 degrees around like a normal rotating arm.

Wheel Lift


These are similar to full height mill lifts, except the balls are held on the outside of the wheel, making for a smoother exit. A popular version was the one used in Cataclysm, which has been built with slight variations over time. However, this one lacked important reliability features so it was later improved with a smaller version used in Citadel (video below). When using smaller wheels there are often multiple wheels linked with chain or gears/rods. Like with the rotating arm lifts, it’s better to have the balls enter on a track that’s parallel to the wheel’s axis of rotation, to avoid needing a gate.

Internal Wheel Lift


Rather than the balls being held on the oustide of the wheel, in these lifts there are holes within the wheel that carry the balls up, and there is a tilted track to let the balls out. Other ways of letting the ball exit include tilting the whole wheel, like the original in Wipe Out, or having the wheel be thin enough for a piece up top to push it to the exit track, like this one by KneXtreme. An advantage of these is that there doesn’t need to be a curved track going up, and it’s more reliable. But you do need some way of keeping the balls inside on the way up, usually done with a wall that follows the curvature of the wheel or something on the wheel itself on the back. These lifts are often small but they can be made as large as desired. Here’s a larger one made by Sorunome. A different design by TheFoofinator has the balls scooped up and dropped up top, with the scoops being on the inside of the wheel. Instructions for this version are here.

Ring Lift


This is an internal wheel lift, but without a center, which means it can be made larger yet not take up as much room. It has to be secured into a strong tower structure for it to run as smoothly. Chain runs around the outside and grips the wheel, and a motor at the bottom turns the chain.

Spiral Wheel Lift


This is a wheel that turns, and a spiral track is on the inside. The balls go up until they reach the center, where they exit the wheel. The original version uses roller coaster track, but a second version by KneXtreme uses normal tubing track. The only issue of these lifts is the ball exits at the center of the wheel rather than the top, so they take up a lot of space in relation to the height that the ball can be lifted.

Revolving Ball Machine Lift


This internal wheel lift has parts of a ball machine on the inside that the ball goes through as it rotates. It can be made in any way you want, with elements and tracks on the inside; the video shows three examples. It can also be used as an element or a ball machine just by itself.

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