Hey, BSoD!

I returned to my PC partition and started playing around with various games. One download came up as a virus on the scanner so I deleted it. Unfortunately, something went wrong. Several more virus alerts came up as well as strange IE8 ads so I closed down the ads and deleted the viruses. So I thought, "Hm, I better turn off the new BCM94321MC Apple Airport Card I installed in my laptop for Wireless-N in the Mac Partition," and did so. About 3/4 of a second after I hit the wireless switch, the laptop freaked out and went BSoD on me. Rebooting had no effect.

Several options:
1. AntiVirus Boot CD scan -- in progress.
2. Uninstall custom BIOS needed for new wireless card and replace with authentic - maybe.

It may be that the new wireless card's driver is interfering with something -- dunno what. The two different BSoD errors I got on two separate reboots seem to be pointing to a driver problem. Oh well. I gotta remove the viruses first. So far, scanning for 2 hours came up with 7 alerts (some of which are kinda dubious).

Interesting.

Given Up

I gave up the homemade nerf gun project. Too much money wasted, and with the looks of the new breech, it would have cost just as much to buy a normal Nerf gun. So I bought a Recon CS-6 and modded it according to here and here. Except instead of pipe cutters, I used a Leatherman knife with the handle bent in a way to hold the bolt in place while I rotated it. Now instead of the 25' range I got, I got around 40' of range! But the gun is too powerful, apparently, as the Nerf darts now fishtail and curve off around 30'-35'. I am working on that.

Nerf Gun: Construction Five

Considering installing a new breech, because current modified Unknown breech has the following shortcomings:

1. When the dart is inserted, it must be pushed inwards a little bit to create a seal with the barrel.
2. 1/2" PVC doesn't hug the dart too closely.
3. The seals on the breech are a tiny bit too tight. That makes for hard reloading.
4. The hole through which the darts are loaded is just terrible. :P No possibility for interfacing with a gravity-fed magazine as formerly planned.

Reason #1 had the most impact, as a breech was supposed to make loading easier. It's hard to do something that exact while running and dodging darts and tracking targets at the same time.

So back to the drawing board. Partially. Air tank and hose nozzle seem to be very effective, though. On retrospection, picking a small air tank to be refilled after every shot was a good choice, as the hose nozzle had only two settings: all sealed or all released. No way the airflow could be controlled consciously.

So new design: If 1/2" CPVC fits smoothly inside 3/4" PVC, then I will cut a semicircular cross-section off of the 3/4" PVC for a breech, and "cone out" the inside of the 1/2" CPVC. Because the hose nozzle requires a 1" PVC pipe to attach to, I'll need a 1" --> 3/4" PVC adapter as well. Back to Ace Hardware, hopefully for the last time.

Nerf Gun: Construction Four

Almost done.

Air leaks were sealed by using some of the inner tube where I got the tire valve from. Surprisingly, two layers of the stuff gave a perfect seal. Here's a closeup of the seal. It was sealed across the bolt slot and in rings on the ends of the loading slot on the smaller pipe.

Closeup of end of air tank with new tire valve installed. Tire valve was cut out from an inner tube.

Full view of the gun. In all its glory. :D

One thing left to do: mount the bicycle pump below the Unknown breech and connect to tire valve. That screw connection that connects the air tank to the hose nozzle needs to be glued up, too -- that's as leaky as the sound-proof practice rooms in the NBTHS music department.

Ciao for now.

Nerf Gun: Construction 3

ARRRGG air leaks.

Nerf Gun: Construction Two

Update 2:

Cut some holes in some of the pipes.

You can see the hole cut in the 1" PVC Pipe connected to the hose nozzle -- that's for that bolt over there to pull the barrel (the smaller PVC pipe) forward and back to reveal a hole for loading Nerf darts. That ring on the smaller pipe is for sealing the barrel mechanism as well as possible.

That hole there is for loading Nerf darts.

View of the barrel itself. I actually came across a problem, where the air would leak around the pipe. So I'm going to line the hole with electrical tape until it seals.

The little hole for the bolt on the bottom. I'm going to expand the hole, once I get the drill back from the neighbors.

Nerf Gun: Construction

Here we go, went to Ace Hardware, spent freaking $37 on connectors and pumps and the like. Not even for the pipe (which I already had and i think was less expensive than the connectors). Anyway, PICTURES!

What I've got so far: the handle with O-ring and half the air tank on the bottom there. My plan for the air tank is to cut the valve from a bike tire and place it in a pipe endcap and cement that on.

This bunch of connectors attached by PVC cement.

O-ring connected to tip of hose nozzle for better seal with barrel. How did I get it so centered? Well since you asked...

I used a bit of 1" PVC pipe to center it by screwing the pipe onto the hose nozzle's tip.

I then put superglue onto the metal ring on the hose nozzle and slipped the O-ring in and doused it in more glue.

The barrel's design is the "Unknown Breech", which will screw directly on to the hose nozzle. A few changes, though. Instead of 2mm foam sheets to fit the barrel with the breech, I'm using several rings cut from 1/2" PVC pipe endcaps filed down to fit. And an O-ring between two of them. The tip of the barrel to be contacting the O-ring that was glued above will be filed down as to facilitate a better dart loading mechanism. I'm also working on a magazine to go on top of the Unknown Breech.

More updates to come as progress continues.

New Design V2

Air tank. Pump. Garden hose nozzle. Unknown's breech. Maybe a gauge.

Power.

Nerf Gun: Design Change

Creating a new design that will be pneumatic powered. With an actual trigger system. It should be a lot easier to design, implement, and build.

Leaks in the Air Pump

Title is self-explanatory. There seem to be leaks in the air pump. School is restarting and robotics season is kicking up so this will probably be worked on over a long while. T_T