What's a PaintDrone?
The PaintDrone, once complete will hopefully be an unmanned miniature paintball tank, and the world's worst case of mission creep. The entire project started out as an attempt to build a custom Infer-Red remote control receiver for the doors that hide my flat-screen. The Single Board Computer I bought was so cool I started thinking about other uses, I don't know why I didn't think of a paintball tank until I saw someone joking about using the board for just that. Then I stumbled upon a super cheep welder on EBay and that was all it took!
Here's a Video of it as it stands now. I blew out a motor driver the other day so I only have drive to one wheel, new driver board should be here tomorrow. I had the trigger working, but the circuit was on breadboard and I tore it down to build the final version so it's not working now. The main drive is two scooter motors, supposedly able to propel 200lbs. at 10MPH each. The Gun tilt is the drivers seat position adjustment motor for a Mitsubishi Eclipse. You will notice the gun tilt mechanism looks really flimsy, that's intentional, I needed the slop to prevent the nut from binding on the Acme screw. As the Gun Platform rises it moves on an arc, the nut needs to be able to slide, and the motor needs to shift slightly in it's bracket to keep things running smooth. Same design principal as an AK47, leave a lot of slop in the parts and nothing binds up!
The rotation is still very sloppy as well, but that will be corrected. I'm using a very small gear motor with a friction wheel to rotate the turret, I tested it with over 100 pounds on the turret and the added weight didn't even slow it down!
The main feature will be the remote control, no silly joysticks and ungainly wires, the entire thing will be controlled by an Android app, I knew I built FingerRobics for a reason. Just like a marker the Drone will have multiple firing modes, and will fire as quick as you can tap the screen. I'm channeling my fire signal through the guns trigger rather than going direct to the solenoid so I still have eye function. The current Android App is bare bones, the final app will likely be laid on a carbon-fiber background and will include a battery meter, and estimate ammo/gas gauge. I'd like to have a real gas gauge for the H2 tank, but electronic pressure gauges cost a fortune! Currently it's all controlled over a blue-tooth connection, but that will likely change shortly.
If you have any cool ideas for the paint scheme, design or function of the Drone or the app post them here ASAP! The farther I get the harder things are to change.