Infinite Recharge Shooter Blog
The project began in mid-September with the basics: laying out the geometry for motors, pulleys, belts, and gears while staying within frame perimeter constraints. Early work focused on plate layouts and making sure there was enough space to mount hardware without interfering with the belt runs. By late September, we finished the hood plate and met my first real challenge: problems with gear meshing. This would become an ongoing theme. In early October, after some research on Citrus Circuits' shooter design, we had made the ambitious move to try and copy their gear by hand. This. did not go well. We learned quickly that precision gear geometry is not something you "eyeball." October brought a major breakthrough in using GearLabs and a Kraken gear profile to make a reliable mesh. The lesson was reinforced in all caps: DO NOT EYE BALL OR HAND MAKE GEARS. Once appropriate gear geometry was in place, we could proceed to complete the 3D printed part studio and further refine the geometry. By mid October, talking to mentors and running calculations through ReCalc showed us that we had drastically underestimated RPM requirements for the shooter design. In other words, it was time for a change—big changes. We revised the 3D printed hood to decrease the minimum angle [...]