Our team is currently in the discussion of a dual railed shooter versus a single backing plate. We have prototyped both, but I was looking for input from other teams and what they may have found.
Could you describe the setups in greater detail? What do you mean by “dual rail” and in what orientation? Drawings, even MS Paint ones, would help immensely here.
Of course sorry about that. The dual railed system is like this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ty9qpTeYAWA
The other design would be a simple flat plate along the back. Both are curved.
This is a decision your team has to make for yourselves. Both carry inherent advantages and disadvantages, but the real difference comes in how each one fit into your design. Dual rails offer the ability to vary the compression by changing the lateral distance between rails. A flat plate offers the advantage of being a consistent backing even if the ball doesn’t follow the exact same path every time.
What shooter wheels are you using, and in what setup? If you’re using two shooter wheels with a gap in between, I’d probably avoid the dual rails. While in a perfect world this would be fine, the system would be very sensitive to inconsistent loading. But ti all depends on the rest of your system and what you can produce.
This. We’ve done both styles (even within a single year), and though I’m sure it can be done well, in my experience it can be a mess in terms of accuracy. The key is that you don’t really care if the balls come out in exactly the same position. The +/-x mm of variation there won’t really matter. What you do need is balls that come out at exactly the same angle. Over the distance that they’ll travel, small differences in angle (especially horizontal) will add up, and that’s what makes all the difference. It can have its downsides depending on your design, but flat backing and wide wheel will take a ball and send it straight forward every time.