Sunday, January 22, 2012

Open Source Paintball Board

Well, I know its been some time since my last update and Im sorry for the long delay in updates..

While I was making my first prototypes I made some mistakes in parts ordering and ended up wasting a lot of time (8-10hrs) and that really bummed me out on the project since I was on a roll. So with life creeping up I had to take a break from it. On the flip side, ive slowly been working away, and made some progress.

Ive made 3 printed circuit boards (with MISTAKES!) as well as ordered the wrong transistors and that set me back alot.. What I have made is one good prototype board, with the button pad interfaced, both solenoids interfaced. Im currently working on getting the eyes interfaced, but I made a mistake on the board (eyes are on ALL THE TIME) and thats a waste of battery. I have to re-work the board to change the connections and make them switchable.

As well, I think I am going to change the board type from the Arduino Pro, to the Teensyduino. Why you ask? SIZE! The Teensy is only .7 wide, and 1.2 long, while the Pro is .7wide and 1.6 long. Inside a frame every inch counts and this will help with some wiggle room!

Not much progress has been made on the programming front, but being completely honest, the programming is the easy part for me!

I included a video as well if you want to see what progress I have made with the board.

http://youtu.be/mgARRVW4CL4