Feed rate was still low and gravity-like as well. Presenting enough of a "speed bump" to stop the rounds from rolling on the baseplate was mutually exclusive with having them reliably file out the feed port and not be bounced upward into the top of the port, causing a jam. Modifications to the paddles including shortening and chamfering corners did not address the issues. This modification increased feed rate, but the paddles crossing the tangential feed port at a low and asymmetrical level tended to lift balls into the top of the port where a massive multi-round jam would develop. Owing to the shear problem, force-feed operation was not yet in play - centrifugal force was to send the balls out the tangential feed port at a high rate once rotation occurred. This was more to provide the rotor with "texture" or purchase on the rounds than to absolutely force them to rotate, while hopefully avoiding creation of a pinch point at the feed port. Next, short paddles 1/4" tall were added to the plate at its surface. Like many paintball loaders, this element is used inĪchieving pre-sorting of balls into a single line to be fed. Positive movement of the rounds, instead tending to roll them as if on a 2: Late iteration of the tangential feed engine prototypeįirst tested was the bare rotating baseplate. This rotating baseplate in turn avoided the application of any unnecessary shear forces to the rounds being rotated (only the outer housing part of the raceway itself presented such shear which proved to be minimizable to a useful extent) and thus there was no need for special paddle designs to avoid "running over" balls and jamming severely.įig. The raceway took a "volute" like form, vaguely similar to a centrifugal pump or fan housing.Īmong the reasons for tangential feed was that the lack of any port or opening on the floor of the raceway allowed said floor to rotate. The initial loader prototype was a tangential feed design, inspired by the tangential feed of many paintball loaders such as the Halo, Pinokio, VL Vlocity, etc. There is no "muscling through it".ġ" Schedule 40 PVC pipe was identified as an ideal feed tube/feedneck stock, permitting HIRs to flow through readily. The violence of HIR wedge jams could certainly break parts and tear apart the HIRs themselves. In testing of some of the following designs, the drill I used to turn the rotating assembly nearly ripped itself from my hands when a jam occurred, even when there was no physical edge or discontinuity where the jam happened, only a smooth surface. The ball can easily wedge itself in place to the extent that huge forces are created. The soft foam tends to stick to such moving surfaces, and the friction force will cause the foam to deform and compress, increasing the contact area, which increases the friction force, which causes more compression and more contact area and more friction. It didn't take much screwing around to figure out that shear forces applied to HIRs (such as by a paddle moving the ball across a surface, as can be done with paintballs and the like) is a huge source of trouble. I hit up the surplus vendor for some likely parts, grabbed my heat gun, dremel, PVC pile and Devcon, and got to it. It didn't have to be ideal on the first go-round - it just had to work, and rip, and not jam and the absolute nature of the last point cannot be overstated. I wanted to break that barrier and make powered hoppers work. That is where I started, determined on whipping this problem real good. Nothing however existed which handled HIRs, supported reasonable ROF, and fed automatically without shaking. BadWrench (Donald Wester on Facebrick) attached a gravity hopper made from a plastic container or funnel to a semi-auto Zeus. 68 caliber Reballs (rubber reusable paintballs) using a gravity paintball hopper, a sweep pipe connecting the feedneck to the breech, and a powerfeed device made from half a Hasbro.
90 caliber foamball format was very new, and the one question on everyone's mind involved hoppers and high-capacity bulk loading systems which the new spherical ammo begged for.Īirfeed, as popularized by outofdarts, Radiosilence187 and the "HIRricane" lineage, had not been invented/discovered yet. I only recently happened across a cheap Zeus and bagged it and its cage, complete with flywheels and stock 360 motors, to replace the problematic parts in this from past experiments without spending much on it and thus, I unfroze this thing.Īt the time, Nerf Rival and its pioneering. This was actively being developed about a year ago.
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