Build your own velocity monitor for paintballs

Technology
Build your own velocity monitor for paintballs

Paintball
Our pals at Design News have a new “Gadget Freak” on building your own velocity monitor for paintballs – “Looking to paint the town red (or his buddies at any rate), Nathan Loden devised this simple device to detect if the paintballs are traveling at a safe speed (less than 300 ft/sec). Consisting of sensor circuitry and a microcontroller with a three digit, seven segment display driver, it detects the presence or absence of a ball by measuring the amount of IR energy striking the sensor, causing a voltage swing detectable by the micro. A timer is set to overload if the number of instruction cycles exceeds a limit equal to 300 ft/sec, indicating safe shooting.”Link.

6 thoughts on “Build your own velocity monitor for paintballs

  1. tms10000 says:

    Paintball? Safe? What is the World coming to?

  2. BrK says:

    Sure, but can it detect when a paintball is frozen? THAT makes for a much more interesting game :)

    1. rob says:

      Acually freezing paintballs is a myth. The outside is made of gelatin, which gets very brittle. And the fill is made of Polyethylene glycol not water

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