Milspec Teardown: ID-2124 Howitzer Data Display

August 19, 2019 by Tom Nardi 29 Comments

It’s time once again for another installment in “Milspec Teardown”, where we get to see what Uncle Sam spends all those defense dollars on. Battle hardened pieces of kit are always a fascinating look at what can be accomplished if money is truly no object. When engineers are given a list of requirements and effectively a blank check, you know the results are going to be worth taking a closer look.

Today, we have quite a treat indeed. Not only is this ID-2124 Howitzer Deflection-Elevation Data Display unit relatively modern (this particular specimen appears to have been pulled from service in June of 1989), but unlike other military devices we’ve looked at in the past, there’s actually a fair bit of information about it available to us lowly civilians. In a first for this ongoing series of themed teardowns, we’ll be able to compare the genuine article with the extensive documentation afforded by the ever fastidious United States Armed Forces.

For example, rather than speculate wildly as to the purpose of said device, we can read the description directly from Field Manual 6-50 “TACTICS, TECHNIQUES, AND PROCEDURES FOR THE FIELD ARTILLERY CANNON BATTERY”:

The gun assembly provides instant identification of required deflection to the gunner or elevation to the assistant gunner. The display window shows quadrant elevation or deflection information. The tenths digit shows on the QE display only when the special instruction of GUNNER’S QUADRANT is received.

From this description we can surmise that the ID-2124 is used to display critical data to be used during the aiming and firing of the weapon. Further, the small size of the device and the use of binding posts seem to indicate that it would be used remotely or temporarily. Perhaps so the crew can put some distance between themselves and the artillery piece they’re controlling.

Now that we have an idea of what the ID-2124 is and how it would be used, let’s take a closer look at what’s going on inside that olive drab aluminum enclosure.

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Locating Targets With Charm Courtesy Of A Life Size Portal Turret

August 12, 2019 by Maya Posch 6 Comments

What better way to count down the last 7 weeks to a big hacker camp like SHA2017 than by embarking on a last-minute, frantic build? That was [Yvo]’s thought when he decided to make a life-sized version of the adorably lethal turrets from the Valve’s Portal video games. Since that build made it to the finish line back then with not all features added, he finished it up for the CCC camp 2019 event, including the ability to close, open, target and shoot Nerf darts.

Originally based on the miniature 2014 turret (covered on Hackaday as well), [Yvo] details this new project in a first and second work log, along with a detailed explanation of how it all goes together and works. While the 2017 version took a mere 50 days to put together, the whole project took about 300 hours of 3D printing. It also comes with four Nerf guns which use flywheels to launch the darts. The wheels are powered using quadcopter outrunner motors that spin at 25,000 RPM. The theoretical speed of a launched dart is over 100km/h, with 18 darts per gun and a fire rate of 2 darts per second.

The basic movement control for the system is handled by an Arduino Mega, while the talking and vision aspects are taken care of by a Raspberry Pi 3+, which ultimately also makes the decisions about how to move the system. As one can see in the video after the link, the system seems to work pretty well, with a negligible number of fatalities among company employees.

Though decidedly not a project for the inexperienced tinkerer, [Yvo] has made all of the design files available along with the software. We’re still dubious about the claims about the promised cake for completing one of these turrets, however.

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Keep Pesky Cats At Bay With A Machine-Learning Turret Gun

July 12, 2019 by Dan Maloney 32 Comments

It doesn’t take long after getting a cat in your life to learn who’s really in charge. Cats do pretty much what they want to do, when they want to do it, and for exactly as long as it suits them. Any correlation with your wants and needs is strictly coincidental, and subject to change without notice, because cats.

[Alvaro Ferrán Cifuentes] almost learned this the hard way, when his cat developed a habit of exploring the countertops in his kitchen and nearly turned on the cooktop while he was away. To modulate this behavior, [Alvaro] built this AI Nerf turret gun. The business end of the system is just a gun mounted on a pan-tilt base made from 3D-printed parts and a pair of hobby servos. A webcam rides atop the gun and feeds into a PC running software that implements the YOLO3 localization algorithm. The program finds the cat, tracks its centroid, and swivels the gun to match it. If the cat stays in the no-go zone above the countertop for three seconds, he gets a dart in his general direction. [Alvaro] found that the noise of the gun tracking him was enough to send the cat scampering, proving that cats are capable of learning as long as it suits them.

We like this build and appreciate any attempt to bring order to the chaos a cat can bring to a household. It also puts us in mind of [Matthias Wandel]’s recent attempt to keep warm in his shop, although his detection algorithm was much simpler.

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Auto-Trickler Gently Doles Out Powder To Assist Reloading

May 2, 2019 by Dan Maloney 41 Comments

Do you even trickle?

[Eric] does, and like everything else about reloading, trickling is serious business. Getting an exact charge of powder to add to a cartridge is not a simple task, and very tedious when done manually. This smartphone-controlled auto-trickler is intended to make the job easier, safer, and more precise.

Reloading ammunition is a great way for shooters to save money and recycle the brass casings that pile up at the end of a long day at the range. It can be a fairly simple process of cleaning the casings, replacing the spent primers, adding the correct powder charge, and seating a new bullet. It’s all pretty straightforward, but the devil is in the details, especially with the powder charge. A little too much can be a big problem, so tricklers were invented to allow the reloader to sneak up on the proper charge. [Eric]’s auto-trickler interfaces to a digital powder scale and uses a standard cell phone vibration motor to gently coax single kernels of powder from a hopper until the proper charge has accumulated. It’s easier to understand by watching the video below.

The hardware behind the trickler is pretty standard — just a Raspberry Pi Zero to talk to the smartphone UI via Bluetooth, and to monitor and control the scale via USB. [Eric] has made all the code open source so that anyone can build their own auto-trickler, which we applaud; he did the same thing with his rifle-mounted accelerometer. This project might have applications far beyond reloading where precision dispensing is required.

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An Airbag Charge To Launch A Projectile

March 16, 2019 by Jenny List 49 Comments

It’s not particularly easy to buy small explosive charges. At least, it’s not in the UK, from where [Turbo Conquering Mega Eagle] hails. But it is surprisingly easy to get your hands on one because most people drive around with one right in front of them in the form of their car airbag. In a burst of either genius or madness, we can’t decide which, he decided to use an airbag charge to launch a projectile.

As you can see in the video below, he launches straight into dismantling the centre of a Renault steering wheel before seemingly abandoning caution and taking a grinder to the charge inside. It’s a fascinating deconstruction though, because it reveals not one but two differently sized charges separated by a space which appears to contain some kind of wadding.

His projectile is a piece of steel tube with a turned steel point, spigot launched over a tube placed in front of a breech in which he places the charge. The launch tube has a piece of metal welded within it, he tells us to render it legal by being unable to launch a projectile from within it. Upon firing at a scrap jerry can it has enough energy to easily pass through both its steel walls, so it’s quite a formidable weapon.

He assures the viewer that with the spigot-launched design he’s not breaking the law, but we’re not sure we’d like to have to explain that one to a British policeman. He does make the point though that while it’s an impressive spectacle it’s also quite a dangerous device, so maybe don’t do this at home.

If ripping airbags to pieces isn’t your thing, how about making one from scratch?

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Palm-Sized Gatling Gun Has 32 Mini Elastics With Your Name On Them

February 13, 2019 by Donald Papp 15 Comments

One thing 3D printers excel at is being able to easily create objects that would be daunting by other methods, something that also allows for rapid design iteration. That’s apparent in [Canino]’s palm-sized, gatling-style, motorized 32-elastic launcher.

The cannon has a rotary barrel driven by a small motor, and a clever sear design uses the rotation of the barrels like a worm gear. The rotating barrel has a spiral formation of hooks which anchor the stretched elastic bands. A small ramp rides that spiral gap, lifting ends of stretched bands one at a time as the assembly turns. This movement (and therefore the firing control) is done with a small continuous rotation servo. While in theory any motor would do, using a servo has the advantage of being a standardized shape, and therefore easy to integrate into the design. A video is embedded below in which you can see it work, along with some close-ups of the action.

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A Trove Of Cosplay Prop Making Tutorials And Blueprints

February 9, 2019 by Anool Mahidharia 5 Comments

[CutTransformGlue] recently posted a build video for “Making Rey’s Star Wars Blaster“, embedded after the break. The construction uses layered MDF sheets to build up the blaster, and it’s a treat to see it taking shape, ending with an amazing paint job. It’s a good way to learn about the techniques used to bring such props to life and help you hone your skills. But digging deeper led us down an awesome rabbit hole.

[CutTransformGlue] got plans for Rey’s Blaster from the Punished Props Academy – a prop and costume making team from Seattle committed to “transforming passionate fans into confident, skillful makers”. These folks have built a wide variety of projects ranging from guns, weapons, costumes, props and more, and are obviously extremely skilled at what they do. But they aren’t keeping those skills to themselves and in a series of posts and videos they are sharing with us such varied skills as Foamsmithing (gotta love that coinage), Molding, Casting, Painting, 3D printing, Vacuum Forming and electronics. If you’d like more information about supplies, check out the Tools and Materials section. And if all of this has given you the itch to build a Skyrim Wuuthrad or a Halo4 Sniper Rifle, head over to the amazing Free Blueprints section for a treasure chest full of downloads.

Like we said earlier, if building such stuff is your thing, it’s a rabbit hole from which you’ll find it extremely difficult to extract yourself. Have fun.

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