FilaCoaster - Filament Marble Rollercoaster by Kit Crafters

Kit Crafters

Toys & Games>Board Games

Print Profile(2)

All

X1 Carbon

P1S

P1P

X1E

A1 mini

Full Set - A1/P1/X1

Designer

7.6 h

3 plates

4.7(20)

Full Set - A1 mini

Designer

8.5 h

3 plates

4.3(3)

Boost

673

1032

878

639

Released

Description

Marble Rollercoaster with Filament Rails

Hey all! When I was a teenager, I was gifted a kit called SpaceRail where you assembled a rollercoaster for marbles. It consisted of metal rods and a roll of plastic wire that formed rails. I recently, remebered this and thought it might be interesting to 3D print it and use filament as the rails, so that the whole kit (minus the marbles) can be made at home!

The FilaCoaster consists of several block types, connectors, and a board to assemble everything on. Everything is put together with 3D printed screws and threads; a screwdriver model is included in the set to help with assembly. The marble sizes supported are 14-17 mm marbles (the Bambu Lab Marble Run Kit comes with 14 mm marbles).

Parts:

Blocks:
- Riser - PLA - These blocks screw together to create supports to hold the rails up
- Rail Holder - PLA - These blocks go on top of a stack of Risers and hold the Angled Rail Connector
- End - PLA - This block goes at the end to catch the marble
Connectors:
- Angled Rail Connector - PETG - This attaches to the Rail Holder with a pressure fit and can be attached at an angle
- Floating Rail Connector - PETG - These are attached intermittently between Angle Rail Connectors to keep the rail a consistent width
Board Pieces:
- Board - PLA - This prints upside-down; use the Board Screws to attach Risers
- Board Screws - PLA - These connect Risers to the Board
- Screwdriver - PETG - This assists in screwing in the Board Screws
- Rails - PETG Filament - Raw PETG filament is used for the Rails

Here's the parts labelled in the slicer:

The parts connecting to the filament rails should be printed in PETG. PLA worked okay in my prototyping, however they broke very often when snapping in the filament while PETG allows for very easy assembly. If you must use PLA, I recommend a PLA+ or PLA Meta filament that is more flexible and stronger. The filament rail can also be raw PLA filament, but be warned it's harder to shape for the rollercoaster than PETG, and again, PLA+ or PLA Meta will be more workable than PLA.

Build Instructions

After printing all the parts, here's how you can assemble your custom FilaCoaster.

Step 1:

Put a screw in the desired hole of the board, from underneath.

Step 2:

Hand screw or use the printed screwdriver to screw a Riser Block onto the Board.

Step 3:

Attach more Risers to increase the height of the coaster support tower.

Step 4:

When you're done stacking Risers, screw on a Rail Holder to the top of the tower. The whole support tower can be rotated to angle the Rail Holder however you'd like.

Step 5:

To finish the support tower, press fit an Angled Rail Connector onto the Rail Holder. The Angled Rail Connector can be angled side to side to better fit your custom coaster path.

Repeat these steps with shorter towers each time along your custom path. When the support towers are done, you can begin snapping in the filament onto the Angled Rail Connectors to create the rails. The filament rails can be snapped in by hand, but using simple pliers can make it much easier. Use the model image as a guide on how often to put Floating Rail Connectors along your track. Finally, screw in an End Block to the board at the end of your track and your FilaCoaster will be complete!

For those with the Bambu Lab Marble Run Kit, I've also created a Spiral Lift machine that turns your rollercoaster into an endless ride!

Check it out here: Spiral Lift

Comment & Rating (56)

@JimmyFallin

Boosted

You can even print the marbles here on a web site called FullControl by clicking on the "Pin Support Challenge" setting the shape mode to sphere setting the size to 10mm then on the left side in printer parameters set the desired nozzle and bed temp per your build plate and chose the Bambulab X1C printer and print the pin challenge. Very interesting other things to pint out there at that site too. See photo of balls you can print out that would work perfect for this and I plan on printing this out and will come back and post a make of the marble rollercoaster too.

@user_2885977772

i want to print the blob challenge on fullcontrol but i dont know how to use gcode

@JimmyFallin

Boosted

Replying to @user_2885977772 :

That's the file that goes into your printer. You normally can't even open it in the slicer. Make sure on the site www.fullcontrol.com you pick the right printer you're using and he hot end temp probably 220c and 60c for the bed and download the gcode.

@JimmyFallin

Boosted

Replying to @user_2885977772 :

After you get the gcode downloaded you put this on a memory card and put it in your printer and print the gcode. I have printed almost every model in many variants on fullcontrol on both a CR-10 and on my X1C printers. Hope this makes sense and if you still don't understand just let me know and I'll try again. ;-)

@JimmyFallin

Boosted

Had to come back and post the make. Tried printing my marbles out but they were just to light and even tried using a eye dropper to put water into the spheres but when I restarted the print the top would never adhere to the previous layers. Probably were getting them wet with the eyedropper as the marbles have to be no bigger than 15 mm to fit in the Filacoaster. Thank you so much for posting this and the guy that posted the motorized lift was great too. Fun build but got a little tedious when doing the filament rails. Well at least for my big fat fingers and hands. Very rewarding in the end though to see it working flawlessly. I'm trying to post a video but don't think the Bambusal's will let me. Going to try to post a link to the video in my Google account and see if this works. Video Link : https://photos.app.goo.gl/G7kFpwTCGQUsreHG6

@ZacharyL

use heavy infill

@user_397905952

Replying to @ZacharyL :

or get 5x as many actual glass marbles with the proper mass on Amazon for the same price.

@ZacharyL

Replying to @user_397905952 :

lame

@Sibes

Print Profile

Full Set - A1/P1/X1

fun and great for kids, do not use the main print profile it’s garbage make your own and put the walls and infill.

The designer has replied

@KitCrafters

Hey there, what would you recommend for changes to the profile? I haven't run into any issues but would love to understand what's not working for you

@Sibes

my 5 year old nephew snapped almost every one of these on the stock profile and even I had to be beyond carful to get them to not break. I uppped to 5 wall and 50% gyriod infill and arcane walls not classic, now they are very strong and the kids can take them apart and put them together into any configurations they want and they love it. the design is fantastic it’s just for kids you need it to be semi bulletproof

@Sibes

Replying to @KitCrafters :

can I say how refreshing your response was every time I’ve voice to concerned or suggested something people just attack call you a dumbass and then start piling on you. It’s unreal. It’s even funnier because I’m an engineer so I tend to know stuff. I worked on this one a lot with my nephew and was harder than I anticipated the only good way to do it that didn’t take up enormous print times and tons of element was to do it with PA6-GF nylon ASA has some good showing, but the Pa6 is the clear winner again, I gotta tell you how much I love your idea and your design, my niece and nephew never get bored of it I printed off six tiles and stuff to make it so they could change it up a lot. Got your modular design awesome you have talent for sure

(Edited)

@WalibiWonders

it's easy to make (the instructions are verry clear). I love to watch it running, you need to print this!!!

@user_397905952

The Filacoaster concept is great, it reuses the concept of Japanese Spacerail from Bandai originated in the 1990s and the basic functions - the rails don't even need to be printed, literally. But it does lack the variety and scale of pathing and obstacles all the other totally-incompatible marble run systems people have built for 3D printing; like catchers, slingshots, funnels, see-saws, etc. It would be great if the designers of Filacoaster, Bambu's own Marble Run, Gravitrax, "Modular Marble Run" and independent sites selling designs like OutOfMarbles.com could actually make a platform that integrates and expands infinitely with a standardized base plate, risers and mounts for the features and track that supports multiple types of functions. Starting with the marble returns - a battery powered auger or elevator is too small, too weak and mostly too short to scale properly. There needs to be a manual crank-powered version and second, a much longer/larger scale volume loader to return marbles to the start of the run.

(Edited)

The designer has replied

@KitCrafters

Thanks for sharing, I hadn’t heard about OutOfMarbles before but I’m very glad to see it now. The modular design is a great idea that I’ll try to implement.

@user_397905952

Replying to @KitCrafters :

While crawling around the 3d-printing web, I also found another commonality marble-run makers should share - the baseplate/sizing. And I've found a preexisting platform that may be a bit too large, but could be scaled-down, or integrated with resizing pieces; https://www.multiboard.io/ Multiboard seems intended as a "tool wall"/mounting bracket for walls, office desk space and kitchens but would probably work great for marble run pieces stacking and climbing up walls or furniture whereever they are located. I don't know if it would be rigid and solid enough in a vertical mount, but horizontally as a baseplate it looks like it would be great, and provide a larger footprint for mounting brackets and fixtures of the run. Probably changing to ABS, ASA or Nylon would be beneficial for those parts too. STANDARDIZATION STANDARDIZATION STANDARDIZATION STANDARDIZATION STANDARDIZATION 👍

(Edited)

@KitCrafters

Replying to @user_397905952 :

Thanks for sharing even more, having something like the multiboard standard could prove quite versatile. I've been looking very deeply into OutOfMarbles and am printing some of their stuff now and can definitely see how great the modularity of OutOfMarbles is and how it could be pushed even further with the multiboard style standards

@PoisonedMelons

this is cool but I forgot I don’t have marbles so now this is just sitting in my office

@ZandeeB

Print Profile

Full Set - A1/P1/X1

Strength Issue:Had problem with the pole threads breaking open and some breaking off completely, Needed more infill. printed 2 sets of rail supports and a lot of them broke when putting the filament track in them. Also, making the track with filament that wants to curl from being on the roll, made it quite difficult to put together. Had to tie some lengths down but made it work.