Building the Impossible | 100 Dart per Second Nerf Gun - Part 1

100 darts per second, from a single magazine and single barrel. Is it possible? I have no idea, but it sure won't stop me from trying. You may be surprised at just how quick it can get.
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In this video, I begin work on the core of my 100 dart per second nerf gun. The concept uses a rapidly spinning magazine to feed darts into a custom belt drive system and propel the darts forward. In this video, I fire up to 8 darts at a maximum rate of 50/second, but it should only take a little more development to turn this into 80 darts at 100/second. It's going to be insane, that is guaranteed.
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[@thedevilinthecircuit1414]

Very cool! Always wear heavy gloves when snapping acrylic on a score line. It can shatter in a jagged manner; you will slide your wrist over the sharp points...and you'll be calling 911 if that happens.

[@lucasjohnson5803]

I was about to do this for a project, great tip

[@lordbored2706]

The real LPT is alwys in the comments

[@madxenomorph]

I have a nice scar on my thumb from when I was doing that with glass mirrors, so yeah, gloves.

[@kalebnelson4569]

Wear green socks so if it’s st Patrick’s day you don’t get pinched.

[@hugegamer5988]

If the scoring does nothing and you can’t break it for the life of you, that’s not acrylic but polycarbonate. As far as making things that bear any load when you’re not solely using it for optical clarity, just hit that unknown piece with a hammer. If it’s acrylic it will shatter instead of do nothing and you shouldn’t have used it to begin with.

[@tomallo99]

Okay, wow... at the start of the video I thought the goal is practially unobtainable, but the magazine idea is so good... I'm blown away to to see it working as well as it does. Ingenius, super stoked to see the next video! Only a bit of a shame that the whole magazine will be empty in less than a second lol

[@3DprintedLife]

I want to add a fire rate and burst amount selection so it'll be possible to not drain the whole mag in a second. But where's the fun in that?!

[@samuelschurman3762]

@@3DprintedLife You should talk to the guy who's currently working on a blaster called the MOAB. It's basically an m134 minigun but as a nerf blaster and it's gorgeous. The thing is insane and besides having multiple firing modes can unload darts at a ludicrous 3000 darts per minute.

[@TrabberShir]

@@samuelschurman3762 100 per second which @3DprintedLife is going for is twice that firing rate. 60 seconds * 100 darts = 6000 darts per minute. I hope the uploads come a bit more often than past videos on this channel, I foresee major and possibly expensive engineering challenges associated with accelerating the darts to 40m/s in 5ms. The drag force on those pins looked high enough to gouge most ramp materials and/or shear the pins at 8000 m/s/s of average acceleration.

[@samuelschurman3762]

@@TrabberShir yeah i know the fire rate he's going for is higher. The blasters themselves are also fundamentally different. This is technically a drum fed flywheeler with a single barrel where as the MOAB is a belt fed multi barrel springer. That's right a springer with that kind of fire power. What I was getting at though was that he has his blaster hooked up to a display that shows his current ammo and let's you change the fire rate and mode on the fly. Maybe he could provide some insight on that front.

[@FGC292]

Gotta make an auto-loader to reload it in 1 second now.

[@SpencerPaire]

Nice! This build is so dope! I'd add a suggestion of putting the ramp that pushes the darts to feed forward on a solenoid, so that when you want to fire, the solenoid pushes the ramp down so the pins engage and push the darts forward. That way you don't have to shoot at a low ROF as you spin the magazine up to speed. And you can put an encoder of some kind on the drum so the ramp isn't pushed into the pins. Also, for the feeding ramp, I'd suggest putting a strip of steel on the faces that feed and return the puns; I'd be worried that at the speeds and forces you're using, the pins will destroy any plastic control surface. I cannot wait to see the next part of this build!

[@3DprintedLife]

Great minds think alike, I had something very similar to that in mind! I definitely want to empty the entire mag in under 1 second which won't be possible without a pre-spin.

[@IAteALightbulb]

I was legit about to comment that

[@kg-Whatthehelliseventhat]

​@3DprintedLife hello I would like some help with a project for my new kitten. I can't afford much but I would like to pay for the guidance, I could probably do the building of the project. Please reply. I thank you in advance

[@TD-er]

"Also, for the feeding ramp, I'd suggest putting a strip of steel on the faces that feed and return the puns;" In other words... "pun intended" :)

[@Illyclone]

@@3DprintedLife Preface: Idk anything about anything Would it be possible to have a ramp that you actuate sitting behind where the darts rest. So the belts for firing and the drum spinning are both running off the same trigger pull, and then pulling the trigger to engage the ramp starts the firing? Like you push the ramp into place behind the magazine, and the darts are like the piston with the ramp being the camshaft. Without using pins extending out of the magazine. I assume this is all already completed and am looking forward to seeing how you handle it in the future video.

[@SamanthaStra]

Really makes you appreciate the engineering that goes into high rpm miniguns. The way the magazine's rotation chambers the darts reminds me of that handheld m231minigun

[@MaxNippard]

Just a tip for cutting clear plastic sheet products. The plastic with the purple look to the edges is polycarbonate and is much less brittle than PMMA often just called acrylic and sold under many brand names like Perspex, Plexiglas etc. It's often easier to score both sides of the cut line before snapping on the edge of the bench. Scoring with the back edge of a snap-off blade knife can help get the score line deeper with repeated cut strokes. This helps avoid snapping the tip of the knife in the narrow score line as you try getting in deeper. Also wear gloves if you want to avoid cuts if the plastic doesn't snap nicely on the line and leaves jagged sharp bits. I don't remember the gloves most times and the good news is skin is self healing!

[@timehunter9467]

I’m using acrylic sheets but going overkill with a dremel, snapping plastic will always go wrong for me no matter how deep I score it 🤣

[@superslash7254]

There's also lexan, which is even less likely to shatter.

[@fancygiraffe3340]

Yeah, I saw him using his bare hands on that plexi and winced a bit. Would highly recommend gloves.

[@MattOGormanSmith]

@@superslash7254 Lexan is the DuPont trade name for polycarbonate. DuPont's special skill is making up cool names for stuff.

[@EgorKaskader]

A quick suggestion with the WAGOs: put the power input cables into the centre slot and the loads into the closest ports first, higher load closer to the input. This shortens the path across its contact rail and can help reduce voltage drop, which, in my personal experience, allows a bit of a better performance on low voltage DC and protects the Wago itself from being overheated by high currents DC requires (it is meant for AC use, after all). It can be marginal depending on how many amps you're drawing, though. EDIT: you can also use drilled out and reamed brass insert nuts as bushings for the rods, which should offer a bit less friction than the metal on plastic setup.

[@Skinflaps_Meatslapper]

Silicon bronze bearings come in all the shapes and sizes he'd need, reaming out threads on a nut seems like extra steps

[@3DprintedLife]

Good tips thanks!

[@Email1212xxpl]

i'm a software developer who just started his journey with robotics and man... you are like a final boss of robotics :D Such a great way to figure out possible solutions for very complex problem. Subscribed for more content. Great job

[@Sillybutts]

Awesome! I've been wanting to try belt-flywheels for a few years, super cool to see it finally in practice.

[@cosmocorner]

Such a cool build already! Super excited to see it progress! Would be hilarious to take the final build to a nerf war; Practical? Obviously not. Terrifying? Hell yeah.

[@3DprintedLife]

The intimidation factor makes up for the absurdness of it!

[@komilover1]

put a flame at the tip and flame darts maybe

[@komilover1]

joke

[@Nugcon]

Bro is gonna be laying down suppressive fire

[@ttgydddsd6305]

"My motivation for this is not really clear" wow this is relatable 😂. My wife often asks why am I building X project and 9/10 I can't really explain why

[@fastweirdo]

If you get stuck on the action mechanism for the lever arm, I'd suggest getting a curved pusher bar to push out and push in the round. It should have something like a 60 degree angle when laid flat, but curves around the drum to ensure an even force as it transitions from fully out to fully in.

[@AirzonesBlasters]

If you consider an afterburner, keep it brushless. Very high ROF on brushed motors will lead to headaches. Even with that, running actual crush in the flywheels will cause a pretty significant stress on the ESC's, so make sure you use good ones. It is very possible to de-solder the mosfets with high ROF demands... Done it a few times lol. Secondly for a ROF claim to really count, it needs to be measured. It's a lot easier to measure when you're driving the pusher directly, so you may need to look at something like a light gate or something of that nature on the barrel. Plenty of people showing off "50dps" blasters with small n20 gearboxes with a simple division of it's rpm on a nominal voltage. Having sensors in the blaster will also help identify bottlenecks and issues. It's very useful to have, even outside chasing numbers. You already know, you are chasing milliseconds... Lastly, you gotta field it. There are "big numbers" blasters, and there are fieldable blasters with big numbers. The latter is the most impressive. Good luck.

[@thesoupin8or673]

This was so fun to watch! It's a really cool design challenge. I'm excited to see the next video!

[@3DprintedLife]

Thanks glad you enjoyed!

[@devdanielrs]

With a drum that large spinning that fast you could adjust the loader to just use centrifugal force. Reverse the curve direction of the slots, and you can keep them pushing outwards using some small weights. This will have a much higher density and a simpler loader will make it more reliable. To further simplify you could also switch from a belt drive to a CO2 launcher, triggered much faster by the drum itself, and saves you having to "poke out" the darts before firing, if you fire the air from behind the drum.

[@nachgebaut4176]

The Problem with Co2 is that you need more tools and maybe make custom parts out of metal. I'm having my own Project with an Co2 airsoft and I only have a 3D printer at hand, it's very difficult I would say😅

[@davisdiercks]

I had an idea for a hyper-fast blaster when I was a kid, but mine was going to use air power and simply rotate a big drum which puts each new dart in front of a constant air stream. SO COOL to see an even better idea coming to reality!!!

[@crutchgecko]

I was thinking the same! Pneumatics often simplify everything. I feel it would last longer and be less jam prone. Could even use a co2 cannister for that to keep it light. Maybe the bullets could even feed in with the same power source somehow? Now that I think of it, why load sideways? You could feed the bullets through a tube from behind the breach - in line! Hmmm imagine filling a garden hose with nerf and then pressurise said hose! You'd get back to back nerf bullets! Not sure how you'd control it unless you had a low pressure for feed and a solenoid valve to trigger larger pressures for firing....😊

[@replica3061]

8 year old me, kicking down the door to my little sister’s room:

[@feku_pl]

40s reaction time go BRRRRR

[@Corruptinator]

(5:08) YIKES. You weren't kidding on "Overkill". That drone went flying supersonic!

[@Sanyunya]

For inertia reasons, I would suggest using a set of Micro-flywheels for the second stage. Should be easier to fit and rev up to get some serious fps out of the short darts. You should then be able to just put a Worker SCAR barrel on the end of a short brass barrel to impart decent spin on the darts as long they’re traveling 200 fps or less. Love the video! Keep up the good work!

[@AlexJoneses]

they already are flywheels, but it would be cool to see him replace the stock flywheel motors with drone motors as it would probably handle the load much better

[@lucaskennedy2774]

@@AlexJoneses He's talking about the second stage that @3Dprintedlife mentioned for increasing the dart speed further, he said he's going to implement it in the future

[@LisithasMakerPlace]

This vid deserves a million views! Great project bro...

[@vincentwu2848]

Wow, the results are pretty phenomenal considering you haven't even included a barrel yet!

[@BarneySaysHi]

When you fired that volley into the livingroom, my mind added the BRRRRRT from an A-10 to it 😁

[@Klipik12]

This is cool! With the new Mythical drum mag advertising around 100 DPS I was wondering if a belt driven system like the hyperfire could ever reach its full potential, and you're on the road to proving it's possible!

[@cxpKSip]

Drum mags for the win!

[@DarylBanttari]

Using the solenoid to knock itself into the trash was an amazing throwaway joke

[@user-lb3db5qq5d]

This is awesome! Already hyped for the next video!

[@beardedxj]

Just an idea, the mechanism that pushed the pins to preload the darts, could you make the track/ramp that pushed the pins able to disengage. You could make the design so that the ramps are like paddles from pinball machine that would engage after the drum spins up. And really you only need the ramp that pushes the pin up to be actuated and the reset side to always stay down.

[@coryman125]

Love stuff like this. Just pure engineering, showing all the different iterations, seeing what works and what doesn't. I thought the goal seemed completely unreasonable going in, but you've got a really good start here!

[@boltonky]

Really cool and love fact people can do this in CAD and 3d print them, i have to do it on paper or my head but does remind of the days of office wars in an IT/Engineering company until people actually got seriously hurt and we decided we should stop

[@GMC997]

Cool, can't wait for Part 2!

[@monkeybarmonkeyman]

Must have been a very satisfying moment when those darts hit the door with a soft rat-a-tat-tat... very slick indeed.

[@TezzCruiz]

This is a fantastic build. Easily won a subscription to your channel. High quality editing, pacing, and entertainment value are only surpassed by the top tier engineering and execution. Keep it up, this is the kind of content we all love to see, a rare gem indeed.

[@ChrisPkmn]

10:20 I'm so glad someone else has this bane quote living in their head rent free

[@falin9557]

This is awesome, ngl. If you want a tip to improve it, use the solenoid to control a cam. Using the spin-up button, the belts and the drum rotates and if you press the trigger (which doesn't work if it isn't running), the solenoid pushes the cam forward and let the darts be pushed, otherwise, they won't be pushed into the belts. In adition, you could add a firerate control, like some real weapons have, and that would adjust the speed of the drum to match the firerate. I hope this helps you or inspire you. I'll suscribe to know how this project advances EDIT: I've just thought that you don't need the solenoid to push the rods that push the darts, you can just put some simple mechanisms to push a cam into the path using the trigger itself. I'll try to draw it: | | | | |____ | / | / |___ | ^ \ |-------

[@ashishsudhir]

1:54 That solenoid thing in dustbin LMAO 🤣

[@TheColinputer]

Kitty be like "You haven't petted me for 2 months since you started building that. Not impressed"

[@Debbiebabe69]

Dip the darts in diesel before loading, add a barrel, and put a lit lighter on the end of the barrel. Fireball launcher!

[@iwiwawakapina3750]

the first firing test gave off actually like game physics of a minigun, like, it had the accuracy that i would expect it to

[@alexandratsankova5825]

i loved the self-ejecting into the trashcan at 1:54 😂

[@kjamison5951]

That look from your cat… withering. Interesting project and I look forward to the next stage. Thanks!

[@SomeOrdinaryJanitor]

mans just made single barreled minigun. i think looking into rotary machine guns would have been a good idea, although what you designed was essentially a reverse minigun. instead of the feed mechanism being stationary while barrels rotate, it's the other way around...

[@hgec]

I must say, I am very impressed by the thinking outside the box, the innovation and the ability to solve problems. One of the most creative videos I've ever seen. impressive.

[@gadgetdeez7069]

You should make a movable slide for the drum levers with a solenoid. This will allow you to spin up the shoot motor, accelerate the drum to speed, and when you're ready to fire have a solenoid push the drum levers out so the bullets hit the shoot motor. This could potentially allow you to hit a faster shoot rate since the drum can be up to speed prior to firing.

[@shatteredskies191]

I must say it's super cool to see someone who actually knows a decent amount about nerf blasters build something like this. There's a lot of youtube channels out there that make "INSANE NERF BLASTER SUPER POWERFUL!!!" and it turns out to be a stock flywheel cage firing elite darts at 80fps. Also check out the d-dart tempest, which is a blaster with a ring that will fire as fast as the ring spins, so if you spin it by hand it will fire incredibly fast. It won't feed normal length darts without modification but I'm sure the mechanism can be adapted to be even more reliable.

[@maxbrinker9333]

That’s absolutely bonkers I was proud of myself 5 years ago for 30+ darts per sec this is so far beyond that

[@markholub97]

US: now build a plane around it. A10: haha brrrrt!

[@megan00b8]

You could make the final one a bullpup, although then I'm thinking about the safety factor of a giant rapidly spinning cylinder magazine, and maybe that's an awful idea.

[@alden1132]

I wonder if you could advance the darts by spring-loading the "sleds," and using a ramp to push the pins, which drops off, allowing the "sled" to accept the next dart? At any point, did you consider using compressed air as a power source for launching the darts? I feel like it would be a fairly even trade-off in terms of complexity, but might have allowed for more mechanical solutions than the one you went with.

[@thecreative_mind]

Something you can add to the magazine to reload it fast enough to engage the next rounds of bullets are 2 slots to push it close and open while rotating

[@CWorm]

'Blasters reach 8 rps at best' Woozi: Am I a joke to you?

[@MostlyPennyCat]

7:02 "I really hope he balanced that spinning magazine before heeeeeeeeeooooOOOOHHOLY JEBUS NO!!😱"

[@Jackpkmn]

Something that sticks out to me is that the design of the magazine is going to cause the weight of the darts and follower are going to cause the darts to sink into the mag while accelerating without enough follower spring tension during drum acceleration. It probably won't matter once the drum is up to speed but i would expect feeding problems while the magazine is still accelerating with this design. This could become a problem if you need enough follow spring tension that it crushes the darts. Unless you plan on keeping the drum spun up the entire time which seems like a dangerous waste.

[@Benjaminfenk]

Amazing Project with very cleverly engineered mechanisms. As a side note: I really would be cautious with melting neoprene (polychloroprene) since it creates toxic chlorine fumes.

[@Tyberes]

do you just love when you can use a project as justification for a new tool? the best financial decisions are always made in those circumstances

[@DJNitreBlue]

Minions have feed delay while the barrels come up to speed. Add a counter circuit into it so that the rotary has a second or three to come up to speed to not torque it right out of your grip. Easy to build something that overpowers the test dummy holding it.

[@mrpigletman8042]

for the mag, you could have a circulat indent in a sort of outer housing, with a v at the end near the belt to force the pin to move, pushing the dart into the belt

[@camerond2534]

You might be able to use a slotted wheel to cycle the metal pins. A slotted wheel perpendicular to the rotating magazine if spun could catch the pin on the way down, rotate causing the pin the move back and forth as the magazine continually spins. If it was geared to the magazine it would also stay perfect in time. Idk if this makes sense cause I’m tired

[@pylon500]

Probably forget about the cam following ejector and just use compressed air at the 'breach' point. Allows pre-spin on a motor, then just pull an air trigger. If you want to get really complicated consider putting the launching belt mechanism on an eccentric cam bed so that it parallels the drum feeder as it goes past.

[@MoonMoon-gu2ge]

the cam set up on the drum cylinder is pretty neat, but my first thought after seeing the solenoids fail to meet the pace - was to use a scotch yoke mechanism powered by an electric motor.

[@ekulgaming6867]

Gatlingtommy has took this to the extreme and got 100 dps with a good 500 rounds and said it could go further

[@LinkGannonkiller]

Thoughts on the Magazine. the G's of the Magazine spinning will help push out more bullets so if you reverse the curve that you have on the build you can reduce the amount of friction formed when spinning at higher rates. Think of how a propeller pushes air away, you can achieve the same thing with the bullets. I can see the spring being a bottleneck for your system in the future.

[@kameljoe21]

This would work quite well. One could pre load mags and then have a way to pull the mags in and out with some sort of breach lock on top. This could be quite a cool looking gun.

[@svience8072]

I’m also working on a nerf project with onshape!! Although it won’t fire at 100 darts per second, I’m making (to my knowledge) the only true minigun ever made. The rival balls will shoot out of one of three rotating barrels and will be held in a large 432 round spiral magazine.

[@3DprintedLife]

That sounds really interesting!

[@darkshadowsx5949]

i dont care about nerf toys but i can appreciate the engineering and effort put in to break a record.

[@airgunningyup]

one thing id change is the belts , regular XL belts are cogged and reinforced , they will handle whatever rpm you can throw at them.. subbed

[@TheUndeadslayer221]

What this looks like to me is just a single barreled "minigun" (the way the minigun chambers its shots is similar, except has the feeding device in all of the barrels instead of just a drum that holds the ammo)

[@yourgenerickid1109]

“I am Heavy Weapons Guy. And this,is my weapon.”

[@phillipmorin7770]

Super cool project, I'm wondering if you had a long enough barrel with multiple belts along the length would that increase the velocity of the darts? You've got the volume goal set really high (100 DPS) I've always been a go big or go home kinda guy. A stream of darts is epic, a barrage of darts screaming towards you at breakneck speeds, legendary 😎🤣

[@KingBerry_]

the legend says that the army asked him to design new weapons

[@DasIllu]

The cam that will push the darts out of the magazine will be a quite a load on the motor. I wonder if it could be done with an electromagnet. That would decrease the load in the spinning direction. Ten the first stage of you trigger would spin up all motors (in sequence if you want to avoid the battery giving off some special FX) and the second stage energizes the the coil that pulls the darts out of the magazine. If all goes to plan you new uncle will be called Bob.

[@gregcostanzo4724]

1:53 thumbs up for the way you ditched that solenoid

[@lukedumoulin6049]

The belt stretch is similar to tire expansion during drag races since it’s at such high speeds the tires actually expand to a certain tolerance

[@taith2]

My tip would be designing drum to spin before fire, with sliding rail actuated by solenoid, elements made out of metal and grease

[@joshjlmgproductions3313]

You should add a curved flap cover to prevent loose objects from getting tangled around the drum.

[@leeguidry9850]

Haven’t seen the finished product but to see the bullets in the air flying to target in succession will be cool

[@Xanderviceory]

I've been trying to design a traditional centrifugal gun like those from 100 year old patents and this video helped me realize what a LOT of things are in the old patents. Great video!

[@n1kolodian]

Such a neat idea. I look forward to the next video. If you put 2 or three more belts to cover the top and bottom of the dart (maybe right after the initial belts), and put them at a 25-30 degree angle; you should get the spin you want for a straighter trajectory. Could even speed them up a little bit to guarantee they always outpace the drum and reduce the chance of a clog. Increasing the drum size could also help in 2 ways, longer fire times, and it would give your dart advancing mechanisms more time to do their job.

[@unbasedcontrarian]

I love that the next highest force on that list is literally a "space gun"

[@wiz_creations]

00:24 In case anyone wondered, that song is an instrumental of Believe by Neffex

[@broogz]

about the drone motors, you probably want to use a higher amp ESC, on racing drones that size we usually use 45 to 60 amp ESCs

[@rijaja]

It looks to me like the direction of the spiral on the magazine is not in the intuitive direction compared to the direction of rotation. This is just intuition and not based on anything but I think it would be better if one of the directions was in reverse. This would make it so that a dart travelling in its channel while the magazine spins would go in a straight line, sort of, which would take advantage of centrifugal force (probably in a very small capacity). Other than that it's absolutely crazy!

[@Mujaki]

Next project, a device to LOAD one hundred darts into your custom drum magazines!

[@hatman4818]

What would be cool is a solenoid to control drum speed (fire rate). That way you could decide between spreading shots, or panic mag dumping.

[@sethchristiansen1445]

I run a sci-fi TTRPG and I like to have any gizmos or weapons based on some reality. I was trying to picture a full auto rail gun with a high capacity and this gave me the perfect proof of concept. My murder hobos will now have a cyborg gang boss with a literal tommy rail gun to fight.

[@randomelectronicsanddispla1765]

For the ramp, I'd have a cowling with two groves, one straight for spin up to speed, and one sine for the dart loading. You only need a small mechanical toggle to switch from one to the other, think railway track points. Some sort of basic timing sensor, hall effect, optical,... to make sure the mechanical toggle switches between two submagasine Or look at mechanical knitting machine carriage mechanism that moves the needle up and down

[@philipwharton6358]

I’m sure someone has already suggested this, but the advancers on the mag are perfect for using a pathway like a aircraft guns housing and bolts use. That way you can spin the drum as fast as you want the the round is always advanced

[@drrock5356]

Turn on "Arc Welder" in your slicer, and your faceted circles will then print as smooth circles.

[@Archangel-w7h]

The slide to mechanically advance the darts is the idea used in actual miniguns, like the m134, just executed a little differently

[@3DprintedLife]

Hah yeah I actually learned that after posting the video. Funny how I converged on a similar design

[@Glaswalker1001]

I might have missed it, but why are you opting for a physical feed mechanism in this build? A continuous stream of air would cut down on wear and tear to physical part and eliminate any timing problems. It could even be an option to generate the compressed air with the spin of the magazine.

[@evilstans]

If you put wheels on the cam pins and place a shroud around the drum with a curved slot, it can cycle the cam positions to advance and retract them. It's essentially how a GAU8a works internally to drive the bolt carridges on the reciever. This might also be an opportunity to speed up the whole thing - if you can retract the part of the curved track that pushes the cams forward, the you can use it as you trigger action/ clutch. This would allow you to pre-spin the drum up to speed before firing

[@SaturninePlaces]

I was going to suggest making a burst-fire gun that doesn't shoot 100 total rounds in one second, but does work at that speed, but it looks like you already did. Could've been a lot smaller of a burst, and build, and still met the requirements. Firing more than one dart at a time would've too.

[@lifejuststakesallthefun8796]

Instead of using a spring for the mag use the Centrivical force to sling the darts to the edge of the mag and have spring loaded cam to punch the dart forward. And to add spring you can angle the second stage slightly

[@BrendanClements]

If you add a barrel you could have a second stage accelerator that both increases the dart speed while spinning them. Two spinning wheels can go a lot faster than the belt and be offset at an angle for the dart spin.

[@Steampuke]

My man casually taking out his ESPER :P Nice to see a fellow nerfer in the wild !

[@tzorfireis425]

I'm not sure why you're using an active advancing mechanism? I'd have just put up a pair of curves to passively push the needle with the advancer forward as the wheel comes towards the firing mechanism, and then another to push it back to make room for the next cycle. It'd allow for much gentler actuation than the solenoid would get, and it'd probably be easier to make work I imagine.

[@darrylpioch2055]

I have a couple major ideas to throw out. I'm so happy youtube recommended this lolll. I actually built a device that does this exact thing when I was a kid (fires nerf darts at an incredibly high rate of fire) but with wayyyyy more power (way too much actually) much more reliably and no magazine size limit due to it being belt fed. It was a 6 barrel minigun that used a continuous stream of high pressure air. The darts would come in on a belt made of pvc sleeves (one for each dart) with the same spacing as the barrels and they reeled onto a sprocket at the back of the barrel cluster sealing the front end of each sleeve to a given barrel. At the 2 o'clock position the back of each sleeve would briefly align and seal with the pipe feeding the continuous compressed air stream (sorta like how a revolver cylinder aligns with the barrel to fire a shot) and it would rocket the each dart out at somewhere between 300 and 400fps depending on the pressure in the air compressor. And a belt could be made as long or short as it needed to be. This whole thing was done with raw materials and average shop tools so 3D printing could take it to an entirely different level Another idea: you could use the belt launcher and a long rectangular tube the darts stack percectly in as the mag. Like 5 or 6 feet. And force compressed air into one end while the other end pushes the tips of the darts directly into the side of the belts. The compressed air would act as the magazine spring but feed way way faster!!

[@von...]

its really wild how beneficial taking Digital Logic 1 & 2 in college was for me, it was before there really was much of a creator space on YT - but like learning how to approach low level FPGA programming (VHDL mostly) & break down 'I need a black box to do this' into actual controller code + a functioning system is an S-tier skill imo (even though I've never made a single dollar with it in my 90% js based software career haha). I did not expect how much fun it would provide me after school in my free time (especially when I was in the trenches dying after pulling an all nighter working on the 16-bit computer final project lol) Big ups on this video, I hope you get more people into building their own cool ideas, because I would not be a engineer today if I didnt decide to take on a project outside my skillset when I was in High School a decade ago.

[@sammyd1603]

Can't wait for the finished product! Will it look like the M134 Minigun from Predator? 🤣

[@3DprintedLife]

Haha we'll see

[@ericlotze7724]

@@3DprintedLife I was thinking something more along the lines of Phalanx CIWS or GAU-8 Avenger…

[@captainscarlett1]

I love Nerf guns, I have some rare specimens. I overclock them with 15 volt battery packs instead of 9. Customized from stock. My favorite is my cut-down Stampede with a reciprocating action instead of a flywheel for auto fire. Silent until it goes ka-chuck ka-chunk...same as my belt-fed MG. I have a bunch of 18 round mags and a 30 round drum. Not to mention my Nerf pistols...Zombiestrike, thumb-cocked revolver...I've make a holster for cowboy draw action. I can practice my quick-draw for hours of amusement.

[@davidhuffman4036]

All mechanical moving parts, with air pressure will do wonders ,plus its alot cheaper, and only electricity for air compression

[@alexnepu1561]

Very nice so far ! I've noticed the darts don't always get into firing position so I think some work on the magazine guides is needed for high fire rate. Or maybe spin the magazine the other way so centripetal force pushes the darts outwards on the magazine

[@bobphilip5103]

you should make the dart positioners have a spring below it and a ramp above that is stationary to push the pins down after the dart is fired so another dart can go in