Re: Ball Pitcher Hood Design
 

Have you thought about using 2 FP's to power the thrower? That would get you double the power, thus allowing double the torque for a set speed. That should reduce the time between shots. I know you were concerned about needing another FP somewhere else, but per the game design rules (R48) you're allowed 2 FP's and 2 AndyMark motors, which are relatively the same in output. Hopefully this should mitigate any hesitation for using both allowed FP's.

Re: Ball Pitcher Hood Design
 

We have thought about it, but having speed control will still be an issue...battery voltage fluctuates during a match, etc. It looks like a single FP motor is powerful enough.

Re: Ball Pitcher Hood Design
 

Jim,

Are you running your present set-up at full voltage? Or did you do your testing at, say, 9 volts, to leave some headroom for a speed controller in case you needed it?

Re: Ball Pitcher Hood Design
 

Has anyone tried a Colson as a shooter wheel? We thought their greater mass near the edges would make it a decent "natural" flywheel.

Re: Ball Pitcher Hood Design
 

We tried a 4" Colson in our lab. Gripped the ball well. Speeds started to get a bit crazy though in terms of RPM to get the shot we wanted with a 4". I imagine they'll work just fine for a shooter, among other things. ;)

-Brando

Re: Ball Pitcher Hood Design
 

We have it on a speed controller, and we can get sufficient distance running the motor below full speed. I dont know how much it is below full speed yet.

Re: Ball Pitcher Hood Design
 

Neat. We're using 6" colsons extensively on our robot this year, but haven't gotten them all plugged up and ready for hex yet, so it's good to have a positive review.

Re: Ball Pitcher Hood Design
 

Has anyone tried to use the BaneBots wheels on their shooter? I have a feeling that their softness may result in marks.

Re: Ball Pitcher Hood Design
 

We used BaneBots wheels in 2009. Never had any issues with them marking the orbit balls. Now obviously these balls are different, however I wouldn't expect the wheels to leave marks on the balls. Taking chunks out or pulling skin off? That's another matter that you would have to determine through testing.

Re: Ball Pitcher Hood Design
 

I'm new at this, but have a couple mentors who built a decent shooter for Lunacy. We made a prototype 4" ABS pipe shooter wheel, lined with 3M grey tub grip tape from Ace. It is very gentle on the balls, yet very grippy.

Our prototype has 1" compression against two curved 1/2" EMT conduit rails spaced 4" apart for the top of the shooter ball path. This gives the ball a trough to roll in, which makes for very accurate azimuth control of ball path.

I'm thinking of using a 2012 orange-ring Fisher Price motor with ~4:1 reduction, but we'll see what's possible to make in a short time. McMaster Carr sells 32 pitch nylon and metal gears that should mate with the FP motor pinion, if my math is correct.

We also plan to try the Jaguar speed control feature. It should provide hours of amusement to get that working well.

Re: Ball Pitcher Hood Design
 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvnbttY_4Ks
Video, heres your proof.

Re: Ball Pitcher Hood Design
 

The other day I had together a 4 wheel/2 motor Banebot (550s) with 4:1 ratios. We were using the wheels that came in the new KOP and we could easily launch it starting at a height of 0 and hitting the wall 30' away at 5' up.
But in front of the shooter it looked like someone tried to make orange snow from the foam basketball.
We plan on trying the grey rubber wheels or the plastic lunacy wheels.

Re: Ball Pitcher Hood Design
 

We too had issues with the shooter "spraying orange snow" with high speed but realized that it was a function of a too low friction cooeficient between the wheel and the ball. The wheel we used was the AM Performance with the grippy tread. We realized that the "tips" of the grippy part of the tread was acting like a chain saw blade and having its way with the ball. Rather than slow down the wheel or change the tread, we increased the cooeficient by squishing the ball into a smaller confine. BINGO. 27 foot shots and NO SNOW! All other variables remained the same.

Re: Ball Pitcher Hood Design
 

The 2012 kit wheels basically destroy the balls. We had one prototype with those wheels and now the ball that tested it is known as the "bad ball". It barely bounces any more.

Re: Ball Pitcher Hood Design
 

my team intends to use a material called wacky wood which is basically a plywood with a layer of rubber in the center this makes it extremely flexible the only problem is that it is hard to find but if you live in New England than we found ours at Boulter Plywood in Somerville, Mass. they also have a website to