I've already tried the google cache and wayback. It was a personal page on the northarc servers titled "Cheetah Development Blog" or something like that.
Absolutely fantastic read for any paintball tinkerer
I just tried and came up short... do you know what it was titled, or better yet the URL?
Ever so many citizens of this republic think they ought to believe that the Universe is a monarchy, and therefore they are always at odds with the republic. -Alan Watts
I work for the company building the Paragon
I've already tried the google cache and wayback. It was a personal page on the northarc servers titled "Cheetah Development Blog" or something like that.
Absolutely fantastic read for any paintball tinkerer
Looks like the motor should output about 8-10 bps with ~3V (2x AA) straight into the motor. I made a simple circuit that looks like this (not 100% sure it's drawn right, it may spin the drive cone backwards; just reverse polarity. I was never very good at electrical engineering):
The circuit to the right is what I'd like to do for an end product but didn't have any resistors available (blew up one LED seeing if it'd work anyways)
The lever would be located in the raceway similar to Simon's original patent.
Operation (basically all at the same time):
1.Circuit is turned on via switch/pushbutton
2. LED turns on indicating hopper is on.
3. Drive cone spins until a ball pushes the NC lever switch closed.
4. Motor stops spinning until raceway area is clear.
5. NC lever switch opens which turns motor back on.
6. Repeat Steps 3-5 ad infinitum.
It would be cool to see if the LED could change colors depending on if there's a ball at the lever or not or if batteries are low, but then the KISS solution gets more complicated.
Team Akkadian Paintball Squad
B.S. Mechanical Engineering UW-Platteville 2012
Originally Posted by neftaly
Guess this is still thinking not drive speed but reliability... As without a constant force on the ball stack (spring tension, magnetic force, etc) its not a 'true' force fed hopper...
Just my .02. Why I like Empire hoppers so much.
Simon, Lurker, do you guys remember RIOT's banshee? Could a mechanical loading system be implemented similar to that, without a crazy difficult setup of course.
Edit - skibbo, your LED could be wired in with ease. Use the micro switch to determine the pin the current is applied to.
Also, your LED will require something like a 1.2 V drop across it. Each color is different... I just can't remember off the top of my head what greens value is.
Last edited by new ion?; 05-23-2013 at 06:00 PM.
Yeah. I just have to figure out the voltage drop. Shouldn't be too hard but I just don't care that much since it's still proof of concept at this stage.
I'm just looking at drive speed, reliability seems suspect since the motor requires a bit of force to turn the drive cone. Wouldn't be too bad to wire 2 3.7 V Li-Ion batteries since they'd still be smaller (height and thickness) than a 2x AA holder with about 2.5 times the voltage output.
Team Akkadian Paintball Squad
B.S. Mechanical Engineering UW-Platteville 2012
Originally Posted by neftaly
Few more ideas/things to consider:
A. Top/bottom Split shell with tool-less disassembly (like the rotor or spire)
-I can't find a specific patent but I would bet there's one out there.
B. Changing the angle of the catch cup/drive cone like in this patent:
C. Do away with the catch cup and just use the drive cone which would require a redesign of the loader to include a catch cup/place for motor and other components; which could also be integrated together similarly to the rotor, spire, and other loaders.
I'm sure more ideas will come up when Simon and others post new designs as well. I'll keep plugging away to see what I can come up with.
Hopper design is hard starting from scratch!
Team Akkadian Paintball Squad
B.S. Mechanical Engineering UW-Platteville 2012
Originally Posted by neftaly
I thought something similar, but was intrigued as to how it performed real-world.