Indexing

[Grim Tuesday]

We finished the final version of our shooter today and noticed a problem we had not observed in our prototypes: As our CAM running on a VEX 393 comes around the back to push them out, it seems like the discs were bound together and stuck on the front wall of our hopper. We investigated and it appears that as we threw them in at a 30 degree angle to mimic the feeder station, the discs were stacking at weird angles and getting caught up in eachother.

I remember earlier this season seeing a team use little plastic spurs to separate discs and nullify this problem. However, right now I can't seem to pinpoint the thread. I'd be much obliged if someone could point me in the right direction.

What are some ways you guys have found to keep the discs from getting misaligned and binding together?

[lcoreyl]

Originally Posted by Grim Tuesday

We finished the final version of our shooter today and noticed a problem we had not observed in our prototypes: As our CAM running on a VEX 393 comes around the back to push them out, it seems like the discs were bound together and stuck on the front wall of our hopper. We investigated and it appears that as we threw them in at a 30 degree angle to mimic the feeder station, the discs were stacking at weird angles and getting caught up in eachother.

I remember earlier this season seeing a team use little plastic spurs to separate discs and nullify this problem. However, right now I can't seem to pinpoint the thread. I'd be much obliged if someone could point me in the right direction.

What are some ways you guys have found to keep the discs from getting misaligned and binding together?

I remember the video you're referring to, and i think those spurs would help if the weight of the stack of discs was the problem, but it sounds like your problem is the angle the discs enter. Have you tried loading one at a time vs a bunch at a time? If you can repeatedly load one disc successfully then try loading 4 at a time but slow enough for each disc to settle before the next one enters.

And as always--pictures are worth a thousand words... My advice is based on a LOT of assumptions here

[silverD]

I think this is what you are referring to
post #9

[billbo911]

Originally Posted by Grim Tuesday

We finished the final version of our shooter today and noticed a problem we had not observed in our prototypes: As our CAM running on a VEX 393 comes around the back to push them out, it seems like the discs were bound together and stuck on the front wall of our hopper. We investigated and it appears that as we threw them in at a 30 degree angle to mimic the feeder station, the discs were stacking at weird angles and getting caught up in eachother.

I remember earlier this season seeing a team use little plastic spurs to separate discs and nullify this problem. However, right now I can't seem to pinpoint the thread. I'd be much obliged if someone could point me in the right direction.

What are some ways you guys have found to keep the discs from getting misaligned and binding together?

We refer to this as a "nesting" problem. Maybe that's because we always seem to have "bird" theme, we are EagleForce after all.

What we use as an "anti-nesting" device is simply a screw that we adjust to allow one disk to fall in place, ready to shoot, but will not allow a second disk to drop until the first has been cleared out. It's basically a geometry issue.

We have a similar issue. The second disc in the hopper would slide over the front of the bottom disc, creating a jam up in the exit slot. Our hopper is rolled .080 Aluminum with an outside diameter of 11.50 in. We placed some duct tape at the rear bottom going slightly up the rear hopper wall. Bascically smoothing out the corner between vertical hopper wall and bottom. This causes the bottom frisbee to slightly push forward through the exit slot. This in turn allows the rest of the stack to follow the same path and shoot freely ( for us anyway) . The duct tape seems like a weak fix, but it works and we may keep it.

[Ty Tremblay]

Here's 319's indexing solution.