Perpetual Ping Pong
Built by Alan Wenbourne in September 2023
A variation of a model by Gerald Griffin featured in the June 1980 issue of the North Midlands Meccano Guild Newsmag that is supposed to keep a ping pong ball on the move, rolling from one end to the other — and back again — along the crank handle grips.
However, this turned out to be fraught with problems:
- The ¾" Sprocket Wheels referred to will not mesh at 1” centers!
- Substituting 1” Sprockets would not mesh freely either!
- The suggested method of setting-up causes the contra-rotating Crank Handles to collide!
- Any required post-construction adjustments necessary are a nightmare in trying to access the grubscrews of whatever gearing is adopted!
I decided to use 1”, 38-tooth gears, which do mesh, of course, but because of issue 4, I fitted slip clutches to each Crank Handle rod to make adjustments easier — then ran out of time to fiddle with trying to make it work!