Building a Morbox

[Euphie]

Morbox is a good name for a Morlock'ed shoebox right?
Still working on it but I want this

To be like my old IR3, but you know shoeboxy and I am getting there

With any luck, I can get the timing on it to where I can use a Reloader B without eyes or detents, if not there is going to be a fair bit more customizations. This board so far, has been super easy to work with too. Easy to locate the components, the battery is the perfect size to fit in this Angel A4 frame too. Doing a bit of modification to make the trigger work for me, obviously I won't have the wheels to dial in the trigger that the A4 has. I could use some sort of plate in the tray with setscrews to push on the trigger pins, but that would be super hard to adjust. I figure if it is going to be hard to adjust, I might as well just cut them down with a file till I have them where I want them at least that way it can't come out of adjustment.

Right now I have a Cherry MX blue as the trigger switch, I might switch to something like a Cherry black or a proper roller microswitch, but it has enough force to not need a spring which is important because I don't really know where I would locate one.

I think the hardest part is going to be just making the frame fit, and figure out how I want to do the mounting for the frame. I can hack it up a bit, I plan on either Duracoating it or Cerakoating it because I think I want to do a WWI white and black Dazzle camo scheme and Anno just doesn't do white well. The Dazzle camo is appropriate because I want people to know I am using a big obsolete ship that may have lost it's technological advantage but the main batteries are still mighty impressive.

Anyone have tips on adapting an Angel frame to a Shocker? I know it used to be done alot, should I use a plate to adapt it, or drill and tap the tray? Will the front grip still fit okay since the grip frame won't reach that far?

[Euphie]

This is the I stayed up all night watching youtube and building a gun update:

It was surprisingly easy to adapt the frame, so for anyone who wants to do this here is what I did:

1. Line up the rear screw on both the tray and the grip frame.
2. Drill out the rear frame screw to make it large enough to accept the proper size of screw (I didn't have a drill on hand, I used a file to widen it)
3. Use a file or a mill to flatten out the area for the rear screw, it is much larger than the original one and will set at an angle if you don't flatten it out.
4. Line up the front grip screw with the trigger slot in the grip.
5. Pass a screw up through this slot and put a nut on it
6. line up one of the edges of the nut with the edge of the area that the circuit board rests on top of, use a bit of loctite and screw the screw in.
7. Put a tiny little piece of aluminum with a hole in it in the slot that is milled into the vertical maxflo. so that it can't rotate without pushing on the front of the angel frame
8. inset the tray to body screw then screw in the vertical maxflo adapter, it will prevent the tray screw from coming out. I also put a dab of blue loctite here as it isn't as strong as having the two screw holding it on as it now only has one and a plate to push against the grips.

Took me a bit to do all of the filing, because it was late at night and I didn't want to wake anyone up, but pretty sure you could bang this out in 10 minutes with a dremel.

Now, I have to finish the electronics, this is what was in it.

That's right, the original owner took a bunch of those little non-rechargeable lithium camera batteries and created a modern day Smart Parts battery pack. Pretty sure no Shocker has ever been hurt by 9v, so this is an impressive level of dedication. It trips the noids just fine so it still has a charge, I guess those batteries do last a really long time.

Now I have to wonder, does anyone have a chart of the stock dwell times? Like I would really love to know the numbers behind the dip switches on the DS board, as that seems like a good place to start to see where I can push the limits.

[Roger7pball]

Here’s my stock dwells. Recorded them last week for my Morlock Shocker. Nice work 👍

[Brokeass_baller]

That looks sharp!

[BrickHaus]

Aw man, all ya folk doing these Morlock builds makes me wanna get my lazy ass going and try a morlock stuck into something.

[Euphie]

So I hit a snag, I just can't make the morlock make the solenoids click. The multimeter says voltage is going to them, and curiously if I have the morlock plugged up to the PC it will like half cycle only the 4000 solenoid, I can't make it do anything to the 3000 solenoid it seems. Any ideas? I am at a loss as the multimeter spikes up on the shot it is clearly doing something.

I Figure the next thing to check is perhaps try it with a 9v? I tried adjusting the voltage in software and it didn't seem to make a difference and the second I unplugged it from the PC and it's 5v source is gone it no longer even half cycles the solenoid so to me it seems like it isn't getting enough power.

[Euphie]

Also to note, I can manually press the button on the solenoids and they will cycle pneumatically, so the trouble has to be electrical in nature, and right before I connected the Morlock the DS board made the solenoids make a nice click when the trigger was pressed.

[Brokeass_baller]

What are the voltage requirements of the solenoids, and what's the voltage output of the board? Furthermore, can you adjust the board output voltage?

I'm not an electronics guy, but I am very familiar with electricity in general.

[Euphie]

I believe they only need 5vdc, and you should be able to adjust the board between like 3.7 and 20vdc but, it doesn't seem to change the way the solenoid acts, the only thing that seems to change it is if it is plugged up or not. I suspect either I am doing something wrong, Or I have something wired wrong, but I don't think I can even. I don't think the trigger switch (which appears to work fine) or the solenoids have polarity, but I have tried swapping them around just to check and it didn't change the way it behaves.

I am no expert, but the change in behavior when plugged up makes me think a voltage regulator is bad. It is hard to get a read on the exact voltage out in the multimeter because it is just a pulse, but the needle clearly jumps on the solenoid output pins, how much though it is hard to say, I bet a digital one would make this easier to diagnose.

I did install the capacitor included in the kit to see if that would help but, it also lead to no change.

[Euphie]

Confirming, yes when I bypass the battery and hook up a 9v, I get a nice positive click from the solenoids again. Whatever the board uses to step up the voltage from the rechargeable to whatever you set it to is either broken, I was using it wrong, or I misunderstood and the source voltage always has to be higher than the output voltage and it can only regulate it down perhaps?

[Brokeass_baller]

Did the solenoids work with the stock board? Might need cleaned and rebuilt. The extra pressure from the direct 9v might be enough to overcome any issues, kinda of like a hard start kit for a motor. But at normal operating voltage, there might be enough drag to hinder them from functioning properly.

Could also be a dwell problem? From them moment the coils are energized to the moment they're de-energized might not be enough to actually pull the spool inside the noids.

[Jordan]

Is the board set to "2 solenoid" mode?

Are your noids connected correctly, as in, do you have 3way solenoid on noid 1 position and 4way solenoid on noid 2 position?

What dwell setting do you have for each solenoid?

[Euphie]

Yes, 2 solenoid mode. It wasn't clicking in Single noid mode either
Yes, they are setup correctly, but even if they weren't they should still click, it would just be out of order.
I have 14ms on the fire piston and 44ms on the bolt pulse.

It will cycle just fine on the Smart Parts board, or if I hook a 9v directly to the wiring harness battery port, but isn't cycling fully when plugged up and not at all when using the 3.7v battery no clicking at all.

I am just gonna rip out the lipo battery, It is going to make this a bit harder to package, but I can live with a 9v. All of the modes and controls seem to work flawlessly with the 9v battery.

[curt]

It could be the voltage booster is not strong enough to run those solenoids. I did not have a set to test when I build the board.

It sounds like you tried everything I would suggest. All I have left is to get my hands on one of those solenoids and modify the circuit. If I had to guess it's that the coil is not powerful enough to keep the capacitor charged. I knew that would be an issue but it works with every solenoid I tried it with. Those old Parkers are just too much I guess (I DON'T have a set of them)

I'm glad a 9v will do the job, the Morlock runs just fine off of it as you already noted.

[Roger7pball]

Similar issues here, I believe the shoot down is the board. Doesn’t quite keep up with 2x 0.5 watt solenoids past ~5bps. I have the capacitor soldered in place and new 9 volt battery, as well as tried upping the booster voltage to 15. This was after rebuilding the MaxFlo.

I’m sure Curt will think of something, maybe that will make it in the next batch of boards? The MK3’s are nice so definitely will use them is some single solenoid markers until we figure something out.

[Euphie]

Similar issues here, I believe the shoot down is the board. Doesn’t quite keep up with 2x 0.5 watt solenoids past ~5bps. I have the capacitor soldered in place and new 9 volt battery, as well as tried upping the booster voltage to 15. This was after rebuilding the MaxFlo.

I’m sure Curt will think of something, maybe that will make it in the next batch of boards? The MK3’s are nice so definitely will use them is some single solenoid markers until we figure something out.

interesting I had assumed the shootdown was mechanical since I can hear the solenoids clicks fast, if so I can still use the Morlock in one of my angels. I did install the capacitor but that was back when it wasn’t clicking which the 9v solved.

I have been using a 9v to deliver 7.5v as that is what the SP battery pack was I could try adding more supply voltage perhaps?

[Roger7pball]

interesting I had assumed the shootdown was mechanical since I can hear the solenoids clicks fast, if so I can still use the Morlock in one of my angels. I did install the capacitor but that was back when it wasn’t clicking which the 9v solved.

I have been using a 9v to deliver 7.5v as that is what the SP battery pack was I could try adding more supply voltage perhaps?

I did some tests today for Curt and we’ve narrowed in on the issue. Sounds like he may be making a new revision to the board to handle the dual solenoid load, however I’ll let him comment on that.

The Parker spec sheet for the 2 solenoids in our Shockers specify 5v DC +10% or -15%. The 7.5v and 9v everyone has been running for decades doesn’t seem to have caused any issue but I wouldn’t push it much higher than that.

For now it seems the board is working fine in everything else…DM’s, Droids, Angels etc etc

[BrickHaus]

Well that kinda saves me the trouble of trying to make my double barreled ion work as a dual solenoid rig with my current board. Lol. I wasnt sure if I wanted to put my morlock in my gen 1 timmy, or make my double barreled ion have a timed offset fire mode with the morlock, but from this thread, Id have had headaches had I jumped for the ions.