After looking online, I am yet to see any ball striking clock which uses Roman striking. Just in case someone is unfamiliar, it's a fairly basic concept where instead of the amount of rings equaling the value of the hour (e.g. 12 o'clock = 12 rings), Roman Numerals are used with two separate rings, one low-tone bell and one high-tone bell. With this set up, 7 O'clock is represented by a single ring of the low-tone bell followed by two rings of the high-tone bell. This of course refers to the Roman Numeral, VII. As for the 10th-12th hours, I figured two strikes of the low-tone bell followed by 0-2 strikes of the high-tone bell would work nicely. Basically a Roman Numeral of VV, VVI, and VVII. This is merely to avoid needing a 3rd bell for the value of X.
Now on to point of this thread, I scratched my head on how exactly to make this setup. I originally figured a cam or two could determine which path the marbles take (each path leading to a different bell). This would work in theory but I soon ran into some very complicated problems needing to be worked out. I stopped working on this solution in favor of my current solution. It is this proposed solution in which I'd like to hopefully discuss. Instead of a series of cams to calculate paths, I designed this conceptual ratchet :
The idea behind it is that for every 12-hour cycle, there are 34 rings in total of both low-tone and high-tone combined. Because of this, the ratchet has 34 segments that are either present or removed. As a marble rolls near this ratchet which faces perpendicular to the track, it first rolls over a lever which rotates the ratchet by one tooth. At the time of passage, the marble either goes through this ratchet unhindered towards the high-tone bell or collides with a present tooth and is redirected to the low tone bell. The next bell to be struck (depending on the hour) is already determined by the ratchet so as long as the ratchet succeeds in rotating one tooth, the design is relatively foolproof to my understanding. I'm not sure if words really do this design justice though. I can see it clearly functioning in my head but I suppose I want have any more specific media until the setup's actual construction.
If anyone has any thoughts on this topic I would like to hear them. In my mind, this is the simplest solution but I am always open to suggestions.
