Quote:
Originally Posted by GeeTwo
Independent of the look and drive, a few safety and engineering tips:
- No PVC. Use plumbing rated for air pressure. When PVC fails under air pressure, the shrapnel is terrible.
- Relatively large pipes and hoses. Ours has 1-1/4" carrying air for 2 barrels, 1" after the split. The solenoid valve is 3/4", and if we were buying today, it'd be 1".
- Relatively low pressure - 40-50 psi.
- Large barrel - ours is 3" i.d. much easier to shoot with the low pressure/high flow.
- Short burst of air: I think we settled on 30 ms; at 50 ms we sent t-shirts over the press box.
- Offboard A/C compressor, large tank: I don't remember the numbers, but a 1 cfm compressor would have to run continuously unless you only shoot a couple of times a quarter.
- plan for rain. We wound up putting our electronics inside a rubbermaid tote.
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We understood the safety risks of this bot, and it was one of the reasons we disassembled it to make a new one that uses components that are fit for use with air pressure. It had no onboard compressor, so we pre charged it with an offboard one before shooting. The new design will be much safer than what we had before. Thanks so much for the tips. We'll consider these through our design and build process.