Almost finished powered shooting machine..

Andy!

Active member
There's some more bits to finish, like the bow mount and release mount, but at least they're straightforward.
The control circuitry is left to finish working out the logic, but it is at least fun to do.

It can break 180kg rated accessory cord, so it at least has enough power to draw any man operated bow.

It's only going to be a little bit dangerous once all the safety switches are fixed and the operational checklist followed to set it all up.

For even more fun, today I proved that it will work with solar power, so I probably will have the only solar powered shooting machine on the planet when it's finished.

[video=youtube;S3pmSQVWQ44]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3pmSQVWQ44[/video]
 

Andy!

Active member
That looks really well made and a lot of fun :)
The engineer/machinist who put it together shot a 1398 at an open Competition as a Junior a few years ago. He's the same guy who was making 800 dollar fletching jigs.
He simplified a lot of my concepts to make it easier to make and totally designed the motor mount, the sliding nut system to allow the slide to turn itself off while achieving a constant endpoint and the hard stop mechanism.
We discussed how to cheap out things with bearings, while I selected drive methods.
Essentially, it would have looked very similar without his input, but would have been about a third as good and nowhere near as precisely made if anyone else had done the fabrication.

I've got photos of almost every other shooting machine put onto the internet and had feature input from the worlds foremost archery physics researcher.
Hopefully, it will let me do things a lot faster than regular designs with a bit more flexibility while being as good as the best of them. Most don't have a precise enough travel stop.
 

Timid Toad

Moderator
Staff member
Supporter
Fonz Awardee
Ironman
You'd think that the last place that archers would make stupid statements about harming people with bows would be on an archery forum. Obviously not.
You would think that someone building a lethal remote controlled powered weapon wouldn't post it for the world to see. If you aren't serious, neither am I.
 

Andy!

Active member
You would think that someone building a lethal remote controlled powered weapon wouldn't post it for the world to see. If you aren't serious, neither am I.
I am almost absolutely without words about the level of stupidity that you seem to want to go on with.

I did have a reasonable amount of respect for you, but apparently it was totally misplaced.

I expect that Spott Hog will be thrilled to know that their power draw hooter shooter is considered a "lethal remote controlled powered weapon" because this exactly replicates the same function.

You should probably stop involving yourself any further in this discussion because you're going to find it incredibly hard not to come off as an ill informed uneducated hysterical ####.
Someone standing out of frame pressing forward and reverse buttons doesn't make something "remote controlled"
Hooter shooters, Sniper-X's shooting machine and Coop's Bowsmith along with countless other homebuilt testing and shooting machines have long been established as testing devices around the world. Calling it a "weapon" is a rather long reach in an attempt to justify yourself and try and head your point off in another direction.

So you have a choice. Cut your losses, or continue on.
You're heading towards a corner and you appear to have a decent supply of paint.
 

Mark31121

Member
Ironman
If it's an automated shooting machine then of course it's a lethal weapon, what on earth do you think bows are? And yes, controlling something from a distance counts as remote control, change for a longer cable, IR sender/receiver, Bluetooth all pretty much the same thing.
Take the post as what it was, TT making a f*****g joke...
 

Andy!

Active member
If it's an automated shooting machine then of course it's a lethal weapon, what on earth do you think bows are? And yes, controlling something from a distance counts as remote control, change for a longer cable, IR sender/receiver, Bluetooth all pretty much the same thing.
Take the post as what it was, TT making a f*****g joke...
See. That's the problem when you jump in and mouth off without thinking.
I feel like I'm at the station selling tickets to Moronville.

Who said it was automated? Apparently you. Congratulations on your straw man argument. (That's where you retell a point that wasn't made, and soundly defend it.)

See in the title where it says "powered"? Did you somehow totally skip that bit?
Where did you get the idea that it was controlled from a distance? Oh, did you not actually think about what was being shown as well?
How do you think that a bow gets mounted?
How do you think that the string gets hooked up to the release?
How do you think that the arrow gets placed on the string and the rest?
How do you think that the knobs on the back get rotated to correct the windage and elevation?
How do you think that the release gets activated?
How does me being out of shot and pressing buttons to show that the slide moves back and forward without requiring manual activation like all the other unpowered ones that exist, make this "remote controlled"?
Every single one of these actions has to be carried out by someone in direct contact with the device.

I've had a quick look at the online definition of the term "remote" and all of them pretty much describe conditions where two objects are far apart in relative location. The power cables are 1.2 meters long.

I'm willing to bet that in the court of public opinion, you're going to find it hard to argue that 1.2 meters is "far apart" but I'm quite willing to watch you attempt go down that route.

I mean, the entire idea of supporting an argument isn't to make yourself also look like a complete tool, unless I'm missing everything and that was exactly your point.
If it was, I mean, congrats. You succeeded.

It's not an automated shooting machine.

If Timid Toad wants to make jokes about shooting people with a bow on a forum devoted to sport archery and you want to support her doing that because you feel it's okay, that's your choice.

When the train stops at Moronville, that's when you get off.
Welcome to Moronville.
Population, 2

It appears that there's a special deal today on tickets there. Does anyone else want one?
 

Whitehart

Well-known member
The name Sheldon comes to mind.
Well done for designing and building something that you are passionate about.
Thank you for correcting and belittling people - the world must now be a better place.
Perhaps your energy would be better spent explaining to the uneducated masses why this is so much better than what we already have today and what tests you are planning to do to advance the understanding of our sport.
IMO I guess Compound Bow tuning might be one of those, although it only helps to create a starting point for which fine tuning is then required because humans are not machines and lousy at doing repetitive tasks, find it hard to not torque a bow etc etc.
Humans still out shoot a machine over a WA1440 because a machine still requires a human to do the aiming especially if it is windy. So the value of a shooting machine still has its limitations.
 

Andy!

Active member
The name Sheldon comes to mind.
Well done for designing and building something that you are passionate about.
Thank you for correcting and belittling people - the world must now be a better place.
I've been on this forum correcting and belittling people and explaining things for over ten years. The world IS a better place because some people on here have stopped continuing to regurgitate information which is now known to be wrong.
There's a massive difference between not being able to read or interpret interpersonal interaction (Sheldon) and often not caring (Me). I established that a 100% satisfaction rating is unachievable decades ago, so stopped worrying about breaking a few eggs.
Besides, one of the most effective ways to get people to read things is if it makes them angry. The world's newspapers have known that for years.

Perhaps your energy would be better spent explaining to the uneducated masses why this is so much better than what we already have today and what tests you are planning to do to advance the understanding of our sport.
IMO I guess Compound Bow tuning might be one of those, although it only helps to create a starting point for which fine tuning is then required because humans are not machines and lousy at doing repetitive tasks, find it hard to not torque a bow etc etc.
Humans still out shoot a machine over a WA1440 because a machine still requires a human to do the aiming especially if it is windy. So the value of a shooting machine still has its limitations.
There's virtually no point expending any energy explaining to the uneducated masses at what I'm planning to do.
There is already published research available that they can't be bothered reading NOW.
The uneducated masses typically ignore the research because they have anecdotes to disprove it.
The publications of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part P: Journal of Sports Engineering and Technology already has heaps of archery based research that few archers bother to read and try and understand. This isn't the case with International Teams, however.

The difference between this particular machine and what is available today?

It is faster to operate than a manually cranked one and the commercially available hooter shooter. (It's also cheaper.)
The less the machine is disturbed, the more reliable the results are.

This machine is designed to be modular so that a dead parallel arrow draw can be achieved for the purposes of studying the effects of recurve tiller and testing for nock travel variation in the last few centimeters of compound draw.

It has moveable, removeable and reversible support legs so that clearance can be obtained if required for unusual stabiliser configurations. Elevation of up to 45 degrees can be obtained so as to enable long distance testing and drag comparisons of arrow configurations, including fore and aft FOC comparisons. This requires arrows to be released in as short a time as possible to minimise condition change variables.

It has one of the most solid drawstops that I've ever seen on a shooting machine.

It will have the facility to generate force/draw curves automatically at some point in the future.

The educated minority care, because they're the ones who are already putting in the work and are at the point where the small advances made in testing equipment can make a difference. When an arrow's level of straightness can be proven to lose points, it's worth confirming you have an optimum performing set.



One of the world's foremost archery researchers has stated that shooting perfect ends at 90 meters gets boring, so wherever your information comes from that a human will outshoot them, is at least six and possibly up to ten years out of date.
A modified commercial hooter shooter was used to test the computer modelling of wind drift in the Monash University Wind Tunnel, so the wind drift component of various top level is well known and understood.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1754337111418876?journalCode=pipa

The last thing that you'd use a shooting machine for is tuning compounds, but they do make a handy draw board.
There's nothing stopping me bolting some fittings to this and use it as a bowpress either.
 

geoffretired

Supporter
Supporter
The more you tell us about your machine, the more I admire the work that has been put into it and the different ways that it can be used.
It's a bit of a shame that the thread seems to be focussing more on disagreements between posters.
 

Andy!

Active member
The more you tell us about your machine, the more I admire the work that has been put into it and the different ways that it can be used.
It's a bit of a shame that the thread seems to be focussing more on disagreements between posters.
I've had more than a few years to think about it, while looking at photos at what other people have built.

One of the benefits of studying the aquisition of expertise has been the demonstration that one should study everything that has been done as the vast majority of advances are built on previous ones.
I really liked the idea of the linear bearings, and disliked the idea of the effort involved in pulling the bow back.
I've also seen some horribly made ideas as well as brilliant.
There are even extremely well made bad ideas.


This looks great. Can it do recurve?
Yep. Due to the height of the legs, my own bow's limb tips come close to the ground, but the bow mount can move up quite a distance purely by shifting it up that grid of 15mm spaced holes.
The release finger simulator hasn't been finalised yet, but I've been told the basics of what I'll need to get the horizontal displacement off finger releases already.
All that work and research has already been done, so I know what to expect.
It's also extremely possible to make a fixture to velcro my arm (or someone else's) into the machine and use actual fingers in a shooting machine to measure variation. It will require confirmation measurements to establish that the different arm geometry isn't disturbing things too much, but it should be pretty damn close.
 

geoffretired

Supporter
Supporter
I really liked the idea of the linear bearings, and disliked the idea of the effort involved in pulling the bow back.
I understand the reason for having the powered draw. What are the benefits of the linear bearings, with regard to drawing the bow? Is it all about the end point of the draw being more precise, shot for shot?
 

ThomVis

Active member
It's also extremely possible to make a fixture to velcro my arm (or someone else's) into the machine and use actual fingers in a shooting machine to measure variation.
I don't know if I want to be strapped to that machine. For a couple of shots, maybe. But for the dozens and dozens of arrows that need to be shot to get dependable data, no thank you.
I've enjoyed the build log on ArcheryForum, pure engineering p0#n, too bad old pictures stopped working.
 

Andy!

Active member
Linear bearings are just nice, but that's one part of it.
You've nailed it. They're more precise. Everything has become so much cheaper with Chinese manufacturing and the demand from CNC and the 3D printing industry.
What used to be hundreds of dollars worth of recirculating ball bearings can now be bought for less than 20 Australian dollars, including postage.
Getting the rails and bearings cost so little that using anything else seems like a complete waste of time. There are designs floating around that are bits of water pipe over more water pipe.
Technically, they do the job, but there are a few things which are overlooked with shooting machines on the internet.

If you can't put the same arrow into the same hole at the same distance, this indicates that your aiming technique or your machine (or both) are inconsistent.

I've seen video of people showing their homebuilt machines which are absolutely terrible in grouping one arrow. Anyone with a clue should probably realise that something is wrong.

If you couldn't achieve a single hole group with the same arrow, would you then try and test a group of arrows and claim a meaningful result?

What if you were using the same arrow and aiming at the same spot but the arrow still wouldn't go into the same hole? I've also seen people do this online.

Provided that we can be confident that someone with a bow in an adjustable jig can likely point it pretty close, there's a variation going on there somewhere.

People underestimate the significance of drawlength. Nothing is so enlightening than taking a chronograph to a club and inviting everyone to shoot through the sensors. An extra couple of inches of draw can make an astounding difference in speed from the same model bow with similar poundage

So how about if one pulled the bow back and had no ability to sense where the stops were? It's quite possible to give your bow a little bit of extra thrust by pulling hard into the stops and storing slightly more energy.

Currently the hottest accessory in compounds is a strain gauge which can measure the flex of the riser. This shows exactly how much the riser is bending which of course is proportional to how hard someone is pulling into the stops. The idea is to get the indicators exactly the same every time. Jesse Broadwater shows incredible consistency at pulling into the wall using this training device.
Does this seem like random coincidence to you?

The linear bearings provide a very consistent surface to work with. The round rails provide accurate location reference and are excellent to clamp onto with the hard stop.
The two linear bearings align with the edge of the box that holds the drive nut and the hard stop contacts two of those surfaces extremely consistently. I have a dial gauge which magnetically attaches to the frame and I can use the .01mm scale to test if the slide stops in the same place every time.

As the slide comes back, it hits the gauge and the needle stops at exactly the same spot when the slide then contacts the hard stop. It is easily less than the lines that indicate the 1/100th of a mm spacings.

I feel pretty confident that I've designed this to effectively minimise variations in draw force caused by draw length variation. Linear bearings are a large part of this because of their precision fit.

Spot Hog tell you to line up a pencil line on the manually cranked hooter shooter.
I've seen one guy use a paper clip to sight onto a ruler.
I've seen bits of tape.

This doesn't exactly fill me with confidence that these designs are precise enough, so why would I trust the results?

A wise man once told me that it's not what you test, it's how you test.
 

geoffretired

Supporter
Supporter
Heehee, I see the bigger picture now, thanks.
The machine is telling you that it is consistent, because of its design and operation method; as opposed to having to check everything, and faff about each time, once you get close to full draw.
As you say, it will be much more accurate and can perform shot after shot in much shorter times.
 

Andy!

Active member
I don't know if I want to be strapped to that machine. For a couple of shots, maybe. But for the dozens and dozens of arrows that need to be shot to get dependable data, no thank you.
I've enjoyed the build log on ArcheryForum, pure engineering p0#n, too bad old pictures stopped working.
I could put the pictures back, but it's a lot of work.

I wouldn't bother strapping my arm into the machine for hundreds of shots. I'd just do long exposure photos from above the arrow using a thin line of scotchlight tape to measure the deflection during the entire power stroke.
You'd end up with pictures that should superimpose exactly with a consistent release. Once you've capture that information with ten or twenty shots, you can then compare those against a ramped release device.

If the overlays still match, you've just replicated the same arrow flex as your fingers. If not, you adjust the ramp length and angle until it does match.

And IF you had a finger release simulation device, you could actually test claims of "forgiveness" with things like fletches.

If one fletch type is supposed to be "more forgiving" and you don't see any changes of impact between unforgiving and forgiving as you test at different set ramp angles, you'd have some pretty strong evidence that people are talking out their ####.

If this doesn't make sense, say that someone says "My fletches are so forgiving that I can flub my release and still hit the ten" then I should be able to shoot the same arrow with varied ramp angles and lengths and see LESS target impact variation with this miracle forgiving fletch than another "unforgiving" fletch type that was shot in parallel at exactly the same varied angles.

I know that this will upset people wildly because it would expose them to have absolutely no clue.

Would I risk upsetting people by confronting them with cold, hard evidence in public? Maybe in the form of a youtube video clip with some funky beats and actual video of testing highlights being done, referencing what someone had said on a forum post somewhere on the internet?

Would I spend thousands of dollars and wait years just to do this kind of thing?

Well, yes.

But I totally intend on taking some cool photos and videos with it as well.
 
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