If it's done in time (guessing it will be) I would love to see about putting this board to use in the e-Brutus variant since it'd be much much smaller than almost any board out there with the option of running a smaller battery as well.
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If it's done in time (guessing it will be) I would love to see about putting this board to use in the e-Brutus variant since it'd be much much smaller than almost any board out there with the option of running a smaller battery as well.
Finished the initial layout and the final dimensions actually shrunk. It occurred to me that I don't need a dip switch I can use the bottom connector for that, with a jumper, for stuff like tournament locking and loading firmware. Maybe a jumper on the USB header or something.
I still have to give it the once twice three times over before its anything me a rough first revision, plus double and triple check the BoM resistor values, placement, and all.
Two things that concern me, first is I am not adding a shunt diode to this design on the power circuitry. Normally a shottkey diode is placed in parallel with the load to absorb the back emf when an inductive load is de-energized, but the. MOSFET I am using indicates it has that diode built in. I had a big honkin diode on the original morlock and the mini, but it takes up valuable real estate where I can least afford it, between the fet and the header.
I will build the circuit up and test it with some big solenoids to be sure it can stand up.
Also, the regulator I am speccing can take a maximum of 18 volts, where the older morlock could take up to 30.. That means dual nine volts are out, new they generate more than nine, like up to ten. This means no e mag.. I have looked for another component but there just isn't one.
How necessary is it that I support up to 20 volts? Emags even exist anymore?
-Curt
I would have thought that with the e-mag boards being harder and harder to find (as they get damaged and need replacing) that one of your opportunities would be the E-Mag crowd. They are very limited in solutions right now.
I'm not understanding the whole servo control bit. Can anyone explain that to me?
Sorry, I thought I could live with 100% approval moderation but I can't, its too annoying. Several of my posts have not shown up here at all. I am moving this development blog to http://northarc.com/dna/
The approval process, is not intentional, it was an automatic thing because you had less than 5 posts and were posting links off site... it should be de-activated now. Quirks of this VB software, that I still need to get worked out.
I hadn't even realized it was happening as I could see the posts and was replying to them... sorry about that.
I double checked and all of the posts are up and visible.
Servo control? Sure, I'm talking about the do-all ubiquitous servoes used in everything from small robotics to R/C (primarily R/C). They are driven with a simple pulse to indicate position, and have a rather standard .1" 3-wire plug. I am putting one of those plugs, properly wired, on the DNA so it can run a single servo in stock configuration.
I am also designing an expander bus to run, well as many servos as you want. 16? 32? whatever you want to program for.
-Curt
Curt, thanks for explaining the servo control. I was more getting at having no clue what they could be used in a paintball marker for...
However, with the servo and an input from the barrel mounted chrono we were sort of working on, could make a feedback system controlling the HPR pressure...
I thought about self-adjust between shots earlier, problem is that it would throw velocities even further out (as inconsistencies are mostly the fault of paintballs themselves & the regulator). For small changes it would be better to adjust dwell and not pressure, as the regulator chamber would need to be emptied for the pressure change to take effect.
I could see a stepper motor/servo controller being used with a hopper to get the paintball inside the marker "just in time".
It would be cool (but unnecessary) to have an automatic chronograph cycle though, just push a button at the start of the day and it will modify dwell/pressure to get to 280.
Would also be nice to have secondary dwell settings, so on something like a DAM when you pull the FS lever it activates a microswitch and uses different dwell timings, letting you shoot both hopper and FS magfed at the same velocity.