Well, its done, the hoppers are on the tank. The hoppers are routed to the makers, and the balls are "force fed" to the guns. with all the work done, i now have to tell you about the hidden work. When I first mounted the hoppers and ran the tubes to the guns i susppected that the hoppers had enough push to force the balls to the guns. Uh, yeah, not likely. The hoppers are made to run continuously and has a soft rubber paddle in it for agitation. this works well for what the manufacturer intended, but poorly for my intentions. To get what i needed out of the hoppers i decided that different paddles wer needed. I did a quick search for different paddles on the internet and came up empty handed. So, like i said in my first blog, i started tinkering and thinking. My solution for the need, was to make my own paddles and mount them in the hopper. Basicly, i played coppy cat again, taking the original paddle out, tracing it on a piece of 1/8 inch plexi glass and then using a grinder to remove the excess material. It took a few tries, but i finally managed to make and attach the new paddles to the spindle for the motor. Once i got the paddles attached it was down to test and trial to see what all i needed to do to get the defects out of my opperation. The only flaw i found what that instead of there being only 2 ball between the paddles, it was catching 3. I know your asking what the difference is, so i'll elaborate. Using the rubber paddles allowed for the motor to free spin as the rubber paddles slipped past the balls when movement stopped. by switching to the hard plasic paddles, i made it so that the balls could "jam" more easily between the paddle and the wall of the hopper. Two balls wouldnt jam, but three balls would. In essence i had to remover more material from my paddles to make the three balls feed without jamming. When the balls failed to jam, the system worked near flawlessly. On occasion a ball would stick in the tubing, but it was only because i pinched the tube too tightly with the zip ties i used to hold it in place. The only thing i have left to do at this time is make the brackets for the bulk hoppers that will attach to the top of the roof. oh, and i have posted pictures of the set up if you wanna see.
