This project is much simpler than my first : "Build Your Own Goggle Fan", but requires a little more patience, some nerve to do a little cutting on your pistol grip, and some ingenuity and imagination on your part.
I never liked the idea of a loader that uses an infrared sensor to tell the agiator when to turn on. It seemed to me that it could be seriously improved upon by making your trigger tell the agitator when to run. That is exactly what my design does.
Now before you begin I want to warn you that my pictures show a very ugly prototype of the finished product. You can use plexiglass, Radio Shack project boxes or whatever you'd like to enclose the components when you're finished, but I haven't finished mine off yet because I wanted pictures to go with these instructions.
- VL-200 Loader
- 3/8 or 7/16 inch dowel rod
- 9-18VDC or 12VDC motor
- Small piece of sheet metal (can be purchased at a hobby or arts & crafts store)
- 1-1½ inch pipe clamp
- 9V battery
- 9V battery holder
- Small wood screws
- Small guage hook-up wire
- Male & female headphone plugs (non-stereo, open circuit type, 2 conductor)
- Epoxy
- Dremel tool (or something that can cut the sheet metal into strips and grind/sand wood)
- Soldering iron, solder, paste.
- Drill w/small bits
- Volt/ohm meter (VOM)
Some of the above can be found at the followwing places :
- Radio Shack (or other electronics stores)
- Paintball store
- Hardware store
- Hobby shop
- Home improvment warehouse (Lowes/Home Depot)
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Lets start by building the agitator itself.
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Attaching the Battery Clip
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After attaching all this, I epoxied the battery clip and "L" brackets down to the loader so a random paintball wouldn't rip the components off.
You may also want to drip epoxy on the pointy parts of the wood screws inside the loader or put electrical or duct tape over them to protect your paintballs.
This is where you may have to get imaginative. There is no set way to do this for every paintgun. This is how I did it on an Autococker.
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If you look closely, I cut a strip of sheet metal and epoxied it to the inside of the trigger assembly with a rubber insulator (one of those rubber feet you stick under a lamp so it doesn't scratch furniture) under it. I soldered a wire onto it that will connect to a plug later. The other lead is just stuck under the spring. |
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Notice that when I pull the trigger, a part of the trigger touches the strip of metal which completes the circuit. |
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I used a dremel cutting too to etch a groove in the grip so the "swtich" leads would fit thru. |
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Wire the components together according to the schematic |
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When wiring the whole assembly, you will want to solder your female headphone plug on the leads coming from the battery/motor and the male plug on the trigger leads. This way you can disconnect the agitator and take the hopper off the gun for cleaning, maintenance, or whatever. (Mine is backwards from what I just told you...it was a mistake that I will soon correct) |
You can try using a small pushbutton inside your trigger to make it work instead of my homemade job.
I would suggest enclosing the whole thing somehow using plexiglass, PVC, sheet metal, or something to protect the components from rain, paint, paintball hits, etc...
Try wiring up a second motor in parrallel with the first on the front of the hopper.
Try using a rheostat, potentiometer, or volume control knob to limit the voltage to the motor to slow it down.
Sand/grind the rough edges of the dowel rod section so you don't turn your hopper into a paintball blender. Pureed paintballs make a helluva mess!!!
Good Luck!!!
