A Stepper Motor Driven Ferris Wheel (Version 3 Compiler required)

Here's a simple and effective modification to the Meccano 8257 Ferris Wheel Kit.

Build up the basic model, but invert the main shaft hanging triangular plates so that they are above the apex of the supporting 25H strips.

Make up a 9:1 reduction gearing as shown, to connect the small Meccparts Stepper motor to the main shaft.

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Then use the following code to make the wheel move around to each car in turn to load on the patrons, then run a couple of times around before starting the loading/unloading again:
 


;===========================================
;
; Ferris Wheel Automator, using Stepper Motor
;
; Using 48 step per rev stepper, geared 1:9
; to the ferris wheel.
; So a full circle is 48 x 9 = 432 steps
; Each car position is 432/8 = 54 steps
;
;===========================================

Declare 

Boolean Stepped
Declare Byte car

Begin Program

; the StepAgain event fires whenever a Stepsequence finishes
; use this to "wait" for the end of the stepping

SetEvent Stepper1Event

,stepagain
Enable Events

Loop

    ConfigStepper 060

,100,2

    Stepped 

= False

    Wait 500

    

; position each car at the loading platform
    car = 1

    

Do
        DisplayNumber car
        Stepped = False
        SetStepper 1,"F",54
    
        Do
        Until stepped = True

        Increment car
        Wait 500

    Until car 

= 9

    

; now do some complete circles
    Stepped = False

    DisplayChars 

"O","-"

    

Wait 100
    ConfigStepper 030,100,2    ; go faster

    SetStepper 1

,"F",864    ; 54 x 8 x 2
    
    Do
    Until stepped = True

End Loop

End Program

;==========================================
Declare EventHandler stepagain()

    Stepped = True

End EventHandler
;==========================================