Quote:
Originally Posted by cmrnpizzo14
...this really is not a sound idea...the ball would have no rotation as it flew through the air creating a knuckleball effect ...any further than about 1 foot...
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Hi cmrnpizzo,
All excellent points. You identified serious drawbacks of this concept and I appreciate the feedback. My son's team is going w/ a spinning disk method. I have my doubts about the accuracy achievable as I helped them build the first prototype. I'm doing this separately as my own investigation. I'm working on an unrelated project with many of the same elements (low pressure, large volume, fast acting, momentary air push).
My counter to your concerns:
- I'm not sure how significant the knukle ball effect will be. Has anyone worked with this? I found a patent for a paintball gun barrel that has small holes in a line on the top side of the barrel to force the ball to roll at the top of the cylinder
- I have shot the ball 10 feet in testing with only part of the force I intend to apply. Note: I'm using a diaphragm system and gave up on the blower idea.
- I hope that the air bypassing the ball (leaking by) will create an "air slide" with consitent drag and compensate for dimensional variations in the balls. This would improve trajectory and velocity precision.
- The components as currently concieved, would be light relative to other "pusher" systems.
- Most imprtantly, I think I can build it.
