11th Hour Question about pneumatic catapult piston arrangement

[lgphoneeric]

We have a setup similar to the bottom one and it is working very well for us. We have the pistons just shy of parallel to the arm of the catapult. We found that the angle actually allows pressure to build up before firing, giving it a spring action. We can get the ball to go 10 or so feet vertically (haven't actually measured) and through the goal from about 15 feet based on the angle we have ours set at. The ball itself goes about 23ish feet. Feel free to message me and I can send you a picture of our setup. Hope this helps.

I have seen launchers with vertical pistons, but I don't have experience with them.

[hzheng_449]

Our team has the same 2-pistons quasi-parallel to arm setup that the previous post mentioned though we have slightly less range and height.

I don't have any pictures of our setup offhand, but if your interested I might be able to dig up a few.

It's worth noting that our design requires a high flow solenoid in order to get enough power to the pistons in order to make a shot. If you don't have any, a work around would be to have one solenoid feed to each piston and have them fire simultaneously in code.

[TheHolyHades1]

Originally Posted by hzheng_449

Our team has the same 2-pistons quasi-parallel to arm setup that the previous post mentioned though we have slightly less range and height.

I don't have any pictures of our setup offhand, but if your interested I might be able to dig up a few.

It's worth noting that our design requires a high flow solenoid in order to get enough power to the pistons in order to make a shot. If you don't have any, a work around would be to have one solenoid feed to each piston and have them fire simultaneously in code.

We actually have a high flow solenoid feeding each of our pistons, though these just arrived today and were not used in obtaining the numbers for the test above; those came from 1 of the old grey solenoids from 2006(?) feeding each cylinder.

[IndySam]

Please people they are not called pistons, they are cylinders!

[Oblarg]

Originally Posted by hzheng_449

Our team has the same 2-pistons quasi-parallel to arm setup that the previous post mentioned though we have slightly less range and height.

I don't have any pictures of our setup offhand, but if your interested I might be able to dig up a few.

It's worth noting that our design requires a high flow solenoid in order to get enough power to the pistons in order to make a shot. If you don't have any, a work around would be to have one solenoid feed to each piston and have them fire simultaneously in code.

Harrison: the design actually doesn't require the high-flow solenoid to score (it was working in prototype-phase with a standard KOP solenoid); in fact, it's quite robust to decreases in flow rate, which is why we don't need any downstream tanks with it. We put on the high-flow solenoid because we had purchased it and figured it couldn't hurt, essentially.

[BeardyMentor]

I would like to thank everyone for helping out TheHolyHades1. With your help team 1257 was able to construct, install, and test a pneumatic catapult during our last event before Regionals while never missing a match and finishing the qualifying rounds ranked 18th!

Thanks again for the help, and great job TheHolyHades1 and your build team. I am sure pictures and a video will be coming soon.

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Solenoids still need to be a maximum of 1/8" NPT under R77, C.