Open Source Paintball Board (OSPB)

Updates updates! Since the wife has been out of town I have had a lot of time to dedicate to the project!!

Ive almost completed the schematic for the arduino/daughterboard interface.. I decided to go the route of tall and skinny for the board in the hopes that I might be able to make a set of grips where the board is actually embedded in the rubber. This would make it truly universal since you wouldn't need any space INSIDE the frame.. Feedback seems to be that this wont work, but I'm gonna give it a shot. If it doesn't its minimal work to re-shuffle components to a different form factor. I think the one thing that will have to change for this project is the USB port soldered directly on the arduino. The solution is to take the connector offboard and for Raceguns this is great because I think I can route it to the hole where the old LEMO connector was. If you were to use the board in another project.. Well.. Creative routing of the cable would be needed!

Now I was working on my schematic and got to the frame NRO sent me (thanks again!). Whipped out my multimeter to read what pins controlled what button. Since they are RED/BLK I thought, well this will be easy.. One pair per button/LED.. NOPE.. For posterity sake, here is the pin out for anyone down the road.

From left to right looking at the TOP of the connector (you can see little silver bits through the white plastic).

Positive for Down Arrow

Positive for Main Power Button

Positive for Up Arrow

Positive for LED color (Unknown)

Positive for LED color (Unknown)

COMMON GROUND (NEGATIVE)

If someone could get me a picture of the back of a button board, I want to make sure there isn't any switching electronics (without tearing my frame up!!) so if you have one out of a gun and could take a GOOD pic I would appreciate it!

In the end how Race did it makes sense (common ground) but I wouldent use red/blk combos because of the mistake I made in IDing each pair.. Oh well!

Aside from that been working in EAGLE alot to get the schematic rockin and rolling and have made alot of progress.. I'm wiring it all up, and once that's done I will be able to homebrew my first PCB. I cant believe it but radio shack actually still sells the copper clad PBC and etchant (ACID!) so I went and grabbed some. Some of the nerds on the Internet devised a method of using a laser printer to transfer the traces to the PCB and for prototyping this will be the quickest method of getting everything down on a circuit and test fitting it into the gun.