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ball "fuel" hopper sorter
Have any of you come up with a fast and reliable way to sort a hopper full of balls into a single file feed for your shooter?
We have experimented with what the boiler mechanism is using but in the confined space of what we have for a hopper we are not having much success getting more than 2 balls/sec reliably. Spin the sorter to fast and balls just bounce around. Somtimes the balls bind against each other in the strangest of places and wreak havoc. Thanks |
Re: ball "fuel" hopper sorter
I am sure some teams have, but I think you will be limited in how much info many teams want to share, this type of device/design will be a big differentiator.
I would recommend looking at some 2006 robots. 254 and 1114 (and their associated twins/triplets) had large hoppers that ran well without jamming. 217 also had a memorable system for sorting balls and feeding them individually, I heard it described as both a revolver, and a gumball machine, depending on your frame of reference. |
Re: ball "fuel" hopper sorter
thanks
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Re: ball "fuel" hopper sorter
if you look at hoppers of professional paintball guns that might be a good idea
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Re: ball "fuel" hopper sorter
Take a look at some of the Ri3D teams, specifically the Greenhorns, and how they did it. Many had to solve hte same problem.
I'll be honest, we're in a prototyping stage of 2 shooters, and a hopper that is a pyramid in the center, causing balls to go either right or left, with agitators on both so we don't get a jam. Lowers our capacity a bit, but the speed might make for it. Prototype! Always prototype, regardless how crazy! |
Re: ball "fuel" hopper sorter
I really think the best way to do this is to not have to sort your hopper into a single feed. In 2009, the last volume scoring game, lots of teams trapped themselves into this paradigm early on and found their scoring potential harshly limited.
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Re: ball "fuel" hopper sorter
The hoppers have a blender in them use a mini cim or bag motor to attach a verticle shaft and attach pieces of Lexan or metal and you have yourself a jam free hopper
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Our plan is to start prototyping this week once we have our drive base done!
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And, many teams did shoot high in the air, they just converted their shooters to shoot down so that the ball landed in the goal sooner after the shot was taken. Accurate repeatable arc shots with multiple ball wide shooters were clearly demonstrated, just suboptimal for that game. Don't knock it before you prototype it. If your shooter "wheels" and/or backboard are a uniform thickness / speed / etc, isn't the shot consistent across the shooter width? |
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Shhhhhhh. :cool: |
Re: ball "fuel" hopper sorter
We have been working on a design based off of a gumball machine. We are doing a 14" disk with 3 5" holes along the perimeter and rotating that at the bottom of the hopper. It feeds the ball into a channel under the hoper very cleanly and in a nice cadence. This is not a trivial issue. It's much harder in practice than in your head. We have learned that the hard way
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