I thought I'd share a project I've been working on.
My local club has a Juggs bowling machine, which they don't mind me borrowing from time to time. It's great as long as you have someone else to feed it, and help set and pack it up, as it's fairly heavy.
Of course when you're on your own it's completely useless, and an autofeeder to suit is $1200. I thought I could do one cheaper and better.
I decided to make up an Autofeeder for it, and as part of that process, made up a platform on wheels for the operator to stand on, that could easily be rolled out of the way when not in use.
The autofeeder has 4 pipes that each hold 14 balls, so it can be used to fire 14, 28 or 56 balls per cycle.
It is controlled by an "Arduino uno" board, and as such can be programmed to the limits of my imagination. Learning to code C++ was not without it's challenges, but it's amazing what you can learn from the internet!
I also built an app so you can control it via bluetooth, but am waiting for parts to arrive to implement this. Also waiting for parts so that the 'traffic lights' will work on the 3-2-1 counddown. It's been well over a month!
Currently it has a buzzer that sounds on the 3-2-1 countdown, and has 4 switches for operation.
Run will fire 60 cycles, Delay has a 15 second delay (to let me get down to the other end) then fires 60 cycles, Fire 1 fires one ball then stops, and Stop ..... well you know what that does
Works really well. The original stepper motor I bought wasn't up to the job, but the same motor with 19:1 reduction is perfect!
It's mostly made from recycled stuff I had lying around, apart from the electronics and the galv RHS the platform was made from.
Here's a short video of it in operation.
https://youtu.be/SJGlFycK5hE Originally I wanted to make it also control line, length, speed and swing, with randomization and programmed overs, but decided to learn to walk before running.
Is there anything else I should be adding to it?
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Topic: Home made autofeeder bowling machine stand (Read 4080 times)