Marcus Vending Machine from Borderlands 3 - full scale

[SentencedToBurn]

Decided to redo the bearing mounts. The original ones were a bit too flimsy, and tightening the bolt stopped them spinning so they need to be clamped from all sides to be held in properly.

Used a 3mm thick pipe with ID that was about 1mm less than the OD of the bearing, cut a slot in it and welded a square M6 nut and a filed down washer. Seems to be strong as, is adjustable so I can lock the bearing in there and it still spins through great.

Will be redoing all of the bearing mounts like this in the next couple of days. Takes a bit longer but it'll be worth it when I need to keep the chain tight and I can be confident nothing will pop out.

 

[SentencedToBurn]

Took a while to make up 10 more bearing mounts, but was worth it. This has to be strong as hell.

So far only the main 8 are mounted. The next 4 will sit in the middle on the front, but I have ti make a separate set of mounts for that.

I'm having serious doubts about these homemade sprockets I made. Might have to go and find 8 more proper ones. But will test my ones first.

 

[SentencedToBurn]

Sorted out the left chain today. Just missing the tensioner. Surprisingly my sprockets are holding up, and everything seems to work how it's been in my head for the past couple of months, so this is looking very promising!

 

[SentencedToBurn]

Finally got a few hours to align the sprockets (having bolts as axles was the best idea since I can individually adjust them to be in the exactly the right spot) and put together a tensioner bracket.

The chain needs more CRC through it as some links are still a bit tight from all the rust that didn't come off. But this side is working so next is to replicate it when making the other side.

 

[SentencedToBurn]

After a bit of thinking I've decided to give the chain setup a 3rd go and use what I've done so far as a proof of concept.

• Keeping the H frame - that's the only part that I'll keep from the chain setup
• Redoing the bearing holders for the 3rd time (there is still minimal play that annoys the hell out of me, and I want this thing to be indestructible) so I'll be using this tube I found which I'll mill out to match the OD of bearings (it's only 1mm off at the moment). The wall is 4mm so plenty of space to play with.
  
  
• I ended up buying 14 new solid steel sprockets and 4.4m worth of chain - it's a T8F chain which is used on small dirt bikes which is hell of a lot stronger than the bicycle chain i've been using

So it's a bit of a step backwards as far as the build goes, but I think the end result will be worth it.

 

[LabApe]

This is pretty awesome.

 

[SentencedToBurn]

Found a new and by far the best of securing the bearings with absolutely 0 play. These bearings originally come in sprockets, and as part of a maintenance process the bearings and sprockets are rejected (which is how I get my hands on them).
Since the sprockets are made to fit the bearings they have no play at all plus there are circlips which hold the bearings in place:

So the idea is to grind off the tops of these sprockets and weld them to the frame as bearing mounts:

Aligning the sprockets to bars is easily done with the welding magnets. I tested this on one of the 4 arms of the H frame - the sprocket brackets definitely give it more of a borderlands feel too. I was going to grind the teeth off initially but going to leave it like this just for the looks. So in the coming week I'll have all bearings mounted this same way.

 

[SentencedToBurn]

Finished up the tops and bottoms of the H section. Every bearing mount is lined up, the bearings are in there solid as - just need to borrow the needle pliers again (or finally get a set of my own) so I can get the circlips in there to secure the bearings.

 

[SentencedToBurn]

Was a bit of a mission to try and align everything together, I ended up being a mil out here and there but I think the tensioners will help sort that out.

Had to break a few welds and reweld them to try and get everything as even as possible, but I think the end result is pretty good.

Before hooking this inside the machine, thinking ahead a bit. I'll need ot power the lights on all of the ammo slots. Having the left side grounded and right side as the positive will make this doable. This means I have to cut the H section in the middle and connect it using an insulator of some sort. Also one of the sides will need to be mounted on an insulator rather than hooked up using steel.

So the idea is that the left chain will then be grounded and the right chain will be +. Then it means that every ammo slot will have it's left and right connectors as ground and + as well. Hoping to get some of this done in the next week as I have 1 more week of holidays left before I go back to work.

 

[SentencedToBurn]

Have finally got the insulators sorted. Using wood for now as a placeholder, but will switch to a plastic or something similar that's strong and won't track but is also an insulator.

The idea behind this is to keep one side of the H frame grounded, and the other side of the H frame as +. This way every slot will have power coming to it through the chain, so one side of the shelf is grounded, the right is +. Ill just have to make sure every shelf has an indulator somewhere too but that should be pretty straight forward.

 

[Gearhead]

Love the detailed build log, and what a great idea for a set piece. I've never seen another full-scale variant built before, so I imagine there will be a lot of folks asking for a picture!

 

[SentencedToBurn]

Love the detailed build log, and what a great idea for a set piece. I've never seen another full-scale variant built before, so I imagine there will be a lot of folks asking for a picture!

Hey thanks! Although I do want to get this done sooner rather than later, I know that rushing through various parts of the build will cause problems down the track so taking my time, especially with the mecnanism itself - can't have these ammo shelves jamming up or the chain falling off etc.

 

[SentencedToBurn]

Added the bearing mounts for the other 4 bearings which will change the direction of the chain and tilt the ammo slot same way as in the game.

Was a bit of a mission trying to align them but everything seems to be pretty close, within about 1mm or so. I'm hoping the tensioners will help me overcome these slight differences in distance. Plus the ammo slot mounts will have to be mounted using heavy duty flexy tube as insulators (or similar) so that flexibility will help too.

Also in the process of measuring it up realised that the insulator part will have to be redone completely. I didnt realise how much play wood has, since it's such a key structural point it'll need to be a lot stronger. There is another way to mount it using plastic sleeves for bolts and plastic washers, so that'll be my next problem to solve.

 

[SentencedToBurn]

While i've been sorting out the insulator I had all parts for the new chain setup arrive. So I'm hoping to get the H frame completed and insulated pretty soon and I'll then be able to assemble both chains and start working on the shelves.

Just over 4m (13') of chain

14 sprockets to match the chain (loving how thick they are, none of this flimsy bike rubbish)

And I've now got inserts into bearings which I'll match to the sprockets. The sprockets just need to be drilled out only slightly and they'll slide onto these inserts. Also the inserts already come with a threaded hole through the middle so I'll be able to bolt them up with the bearings.

 

[SentencedToBurn]

It's taken a while but Ive taken all inserts down to fit the sprockets and worked out the combination of bolts and washers to make it all hold together with the bearing. Simple solution in the end but it was a bit of a jigsaw. Here is the first one assembled without and with the chain.

Note: I will be replacing the phillips head with a set of matching hex bolts, this is just to work out all sizes etc. Feels solid as hell! This is what I was hoping for.

Here are the inserts ready to go once I get all the new bolts, washers and nuts.

 

[SentencedToBurn]

Got all the bolts/nuts/washers today so was able to assemble it. Stoked with how good it's working, was worth spending hours lining everything up.

Feels solid as, can adjust the tension to be super tight so will have to see how tight I'll need it once I put some load on it. Also decided to ditch the back bottom sprocket since the tensioner acts as one anyway so no point in running another set.

Next on the list is to make an axle, install it and then sort out some sort of a drive for it.

But totally stoked with how well this come out, was absolutely worth spending the extra few weekends redoing this properly.

 

[SentencedToBurn]

Have moved the tensioner and I think at this point the chain setup is finally done.

The next steps is to hook up the axle between two sprockets and have some kind of a hookup to an electric drive, and then start on the ammo slots. There are a few ideas on how to do this, hopefully I won't have to redo this 3 times like I did with the chain drive.

 

[zapwizard]

Keep it up, looks like you managed some good precision.

 

[SentencedToBurn]

Thanks mate, its probably as close as I can get it with my tools and with my basic metalwork knowledge. The good thing is that this time before getting into the drive build and shelf mount build I got my father to come around (he's an actual engineer doing precision work daily) and got his advise on how he'd do it given the tools and materials I have available. So now I have a pretty good idea of how to build the drive and the shelf mounts which will mean that hopefully I'll only have to build them once lol. But we'll see, I'm happy to break stuff down and redo it if needed as long as it ends up working properly.

 

[SentencedToBurn]

The drive is sorted! Using a Nissan windscreen wiper motor, the speed is close enough to what I'm after and the drive is very strong, plenty strong to lift up the shelves with whatever weight they'll carry.

For the axle I used a 1/4 flexi extension as a universal joint with a socket that fits straight onto the bolt that holds the actual sprocket in place, so there is no play of any kind.

The only thing the joiner that I made seems to be slightly off centre so i'll make another one to make sure there is no wobble, otherwise it feels pretty good.