Things are getting exciting now in the Arduino Nerf sentry gun build! I’ve connected the main components together now — primary Arduino, secondary Arduino, motor, and power for the gun (I decided to removed the six D cell batteries and power it from an AC-DC transformer).
I showed the enclosure for the primary Arduino in the previous post in my Arduino Nerf sentry gun build series. This is the enclosure for the secondary Arduino — the one that drives the MotorShield to sweep the Nerf gun back and forth. It’s a Chameleon case that I slightly modified with a nibbler so I could drop the board low enough to fit the Arduino, MotorShield, and ScrewShield.
For the primary Arduino enclosure, I started with a cast aluminum project box. It has a few holes in it from a previous project, but that’s alright, consider it ventilation. I marked and drilled holes for screwing the Arduino in place, as well as three large holes on the side for wiring, USB access and power plug access.
I designed a stand to support the gun and the distance sensor, Arduinos, and firing circuit. Using some 20mm >80/20 t-slot aluminum and connectors, I built this. It’s not really a tripod, but it started out that way, so that’s what I’m calling it.
What’s an Arduino Nerf sentry gun without a sweeping rotation? I knew I needed to add some motorized rotation to cover a wide field of (foam) fire, but how to mount the thing?
The next step in making my autonomous Arduino Nerf sentry gun is to move the relay circuit from the temporary breadboard onto something more permanent.
I’m building an Arduino Nerf sentry gun. In the previous post, I showed how I wired and mounted the trigger connector. Next, I needed a circuit to fire the gun from the Arduino microcontroller. To me, the most straightforward way to do this is with a small, 5V relay wired to a digital pin and ground of the Arduino.
