There are times in everybody’s life when they feel the need to shoot at things in a harmless manner. For those moments there are rubber bands and Nerf darts, but even then they feel like mere toys. If that is the point at which you find yourself, then maybe [Austin]’s home-made electric disc shooter can help.
Operation of the shooter is simple enough. A stack of 3D-printed plastic discs is loaded into a tubular magazine, from which individual disks are nudged by a motor-driven cam controlled by the trigger. Once the disc leaves the magazine it reaches a vacuum cleaner belt driven by a much more powerful motor, that accelerates the disc to ejection velocity.
The video below the break shows the gun’s construction, as well as a sequence involving the destruction of plenty of balloons, soda cans, and food items. The 3D-printed ammunition seems to us to be the weak link as in our experience it is inevitable that there is a high ammunition loss rate with these type of weapons, but maybe [Austin] has a line on some cheap filament. Either way, his disc gun looks like the kind of toy that could provide an entertaining diversion for many readers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgaQ2l9lc0E
If disc shooters are too tame for you, there is always the Great Coil Gun War.
You could use coins. Not free but, ouch!
Use pennies, probably cheaper than the filament!
Or washer , it’s cheaper than pennies ;)
Or political promises those are free right !!! RIGHT!!!
or knock-off dremel circular saw blades; not cheaper, but certainly more lethal…
Chain saw disks still top my list of most scary tools. I use normal chain saws and angle-grinders, but I don’t even want to own of of these disks.
Let me show you its features…. what? its not him? huh.
No rubber bands here, so yeah, not him.
http://hackaday.com/2015/07/08/cd-launcher-looks-dangerously-fun/
http://hackaday.com/2016/11/30/tesla-coil-powered-film-canister-gatling-gun/
http://hackaday.com/2017/01/10/paper-airplane-machine-gun-v2-0/
Other semi related builds.
Unreal Tournament razor gun
“3D-printed plastic discs”
Why?!
There are lots of ways to get discs that are more durable, safer to use, cheaper and/or faster to make.
You could sharpen a pipe into a punch and stamp disks out of stiff foam, or you could use a hot-wire machine, laser cutter, or CNC bladed cutter to slice disks. You could just slice rings out of a pool noodle and stuff plastic inside for weight, or perhaps you just scour eBay and thrift stores for ring-shooter ammunition.
For example: http://www.ebay.com/itm/160-Soft-Safe-Foam-Disc-Shooter-Refills-for-Shooter-Saucer-Launcher-Gun-TOY-/190685685967?hash=item2c65c0a8cf:g:OikAAOxycSdR0wWU
But but but…3D PRINTARZ!
Blog points
How about hacking a commercially produced toy ring shooter with a more powerful motor to throw laser cut plastic discs?
This could’ve been done with a 555 timer.
This.
$6 100x NE555
$128 20x Arduino Nano
It’s almost like production and prototyping are somewhat different!!
Didn’t realise this was a real thing. Last year Vi Hart live streamed some work she was doing on physics in a VR environment for games. Variable gravity, etc. To demo she used a virtual “peachy ring” shooter! This is the edited version. There’s quite a lot of coding, but if you go in about 14 minutes it gets more fun! https://youtu.be/yULj72Rq4d8
I forgot. She made Virtual Jello!
Don’t forget, Nerf has made more than one type of disc shooter ober the years. Their last version were quite good and spun then disks for accuracyy and distance, plus one could use that to hit opponents around corners with carefully placed off trhe wall shots. They wouldn’t break balloons, but an electronic, full auto with 40 round drum mag was available.
Remember similar toys from my childhood (~25-30 years ago) loaded plastic disk, point and pull trigger… We had tons of fun with those…
Way back, we just shot each other with air rifles…
I loved them and regularly loaded them with Canadian dimes.
Yep I had one in the early-mid 70s. The plastic discs were PE or PP and you just loaded them into the top of the spring loaded magazine. When you pulled the trigger the mechanism just swiped the top disc and sent it spinning out of a slot in the barrel. Loads of fun and pretty safe I seem to remember.