Pistons not extending fast enough?

[TheHolyHades1]

Originally Posted by azcalg

As mentioned, you should really be using a solenoid for each piston, we found that attaching them directly to the shooter worked better. Additionally, you may want to move your pistons farther towards the pivot point and start the catapult at a lower position. It sounds like a weird thing to do but when the catapult requires a greater amount of force to move initially it causes the air to build up in the piston first, basically doing the latch thing without an additional mechanism. Here's a video from our first prototype, we currently have two pistons that I believe are the same size that you guys are using. You may also want to check out 842's design, they have a great pneumatic shooter.

What do you mean by directly attaching them to the shooter?

I will be working on modifying the catapult so that it starts in a lower position and the pistons are closer to the hinge point. I'm also going look into 842's design a bit more, thank you for pointing that out. It seems they're using the same size pistons as us; if they are having no issues shooting, maybe we'll be able to do the same.