New Year, New Board

[TencenT]

Been working on this for a while and we'll have a lot more details over the following weeks but here is a sneak peak for you fine fellows. We have a few more hurdles to get across before we can start pin pointing a timeline but what I can share today is some high level goals we have for releasing this board.

1. Control software (mobile/desktop apps) will be open source and use Bluetooth, no proprietary cables. If I get hit by a bus tomorrow you should still be able to make your board work without me.
2. Control protocol (communication with the board) is already open source.
3. We will be defining a BOM for each revision. This isn't that helpful but the purpose is to again provide you long term support. With actual hardware component information you can, if something breaks, within reason fix it yourself.
4. No plan for pre-orders currently. As we progress I'll release updates and footage using the board and we'll sell them when we physically have them in hand tested and ready to ship. I don't want to be added to a list of past good intention projects that ultimately leave people frustrated and disappointed.
5. We do not currently plan to release the firmware. Would be open to opinions on this. My perspective is to give away as much as possible as part of making a good product but we also have to maintain a profitable venture and protect our work. Let me know your thoughts!
6. We will have documentation and videos about the boards as we near the finish line so it's clear if it'll meet your needs.

Early render of board topside with some of the components


Fitment test with a 3d print checking screw hole placement, opti location is sufficient, and overall fitment inside the frame.

[Pumps4ever]

SAWEEEET! Good Luck with your build.

[Olsson]

I would appreciate if you could refrain from getting hit by any buses until you have the board in production.

[TencenT]

You'd be shocked how sneaky they can be.

[Schultz98]

Looks great and I agree with your mentality. Very excited to see your updates

[Magmoormaster]

As stupid as it may sound, make sure there's an adjustable debounce setting. One of my old teammates has a sci fi board with no debounce setting anywhere, and well, it's an eblade. It bounces like crazy.

[TencenT]

You mean trigger debounce or eye debounce? We have both and the trigger has debounce in on and off positions to ensure a valid read. Thank you for the feedback, anything else you think is a must have?

[MullerTime]

Magmoormaster The Sci Fi board does have trigger debounce settings for pull and release. They call it trigger delay and trigger dwell in the manual. Both are capped at 5ms max though which wasn't enough for me originally with QEVs and high lpr pressure.

On my eblade I ran a trigger pull of 4ms and trigger release of 26ms and it didnt bounce at all but on my sci fi it was pretty bouncy with the optical switch and 5ms for the pull and release settings.

Since no one shoots 15bps anymore I tuned it more for about 12 Bps. I took the QEV off the front for a slower bolt closing speed to be a little easier on paint and less lpr pressure and now it does not bounce with 5ms denounce settings.

TencenT The optical trigger can be pretty bouncy especially with QEVs so I would recommend higher max debounce settings than the Sci Fi boards 5ms. I mentioned it to Brandon that I would rather be able to go higher than 5ms at say 0.5ms steps than the max of 5 with 0.1ms steps but it never made it into an update.

[TencenT]

Thank you for sharing MullerTime and I'm happy to share that there won't really be a limit. On the configuration side we'll probably set something in the realm of realistic like 0ms to 1 second but as is right now the debounce in both directions is effectively unlimited as is the value for for all other operations. While for most setups this is unnecessarily excessive we wanted to support situations like yours that we probably can't easily replicate to validate. I'm working on the configuration software currently and my plan right now is "basic" mode that lets you set within what I would call reasonable ranges as we've seen on the original boards, sci-fi, etc. Additionally, I want to add a "I know what I'm doing" mode that lets you set to any value the board itself can support regardless of how ridiculous and unnecessary that might be. Need your cocking solenoid on for 10 minutes and no battery life? Well it's your gear knock yourself out.

[Blackmagic71]

It’s very exciting to see more people making boards!

What would the screen orientation be? Out the window in the back, or on the side like a sci-fi board?

[Schultz98]

Hoping it's out the back!

[TencenT]

We're still exploring screen options. If we do a screen it will be out the back. We're still pretty focused on firmware and component placement currently but if we make headway in that department I'll have some pictures when it's relevant.

[Schultz98]

It needs to have classic mode 😁

[TencenT]

That will be a feature! However, I'm calling it Mechanical as it has always annoyed me that even the description describes it as such in every board manual and nothing about a mechanical autococker is classic, they still make new ones today. </rant>

[Schultz98]

You could call it "Shoopy-doopy mode" and I'd still be happy. I just always loved the function and usually used my Karnivor in that mode when not psp ramping!

[TencenT]

Noted, we will take "Shoopy-doopy mode" under consideration!

[TencenT]

Nothing too exciting from today, a lot of work trying to perfect screw hole and button alignments as well as validate component clearances. If you do much 3d printing I'm sure you'll understand the little bundle of joy this pile of waste brings 🤣 Thank you everyone for the comments and questions, keep them coming!

Fun with slicing models


Aftermath of tests and failed fitments

[William the Third]

Autococker SR board next?

[TencenT]

Unfortunately, probably not. The only time I've even seen one of those in person is selling it to a friend when I ran a paintball store. I'm sure a few people really want one but I don't know it would cover the time and cost to build it. Always open to being wrong though.

[William the Third]

TencenT

[TencenT]

Quick question for you all, how important is the screen to you? Looking through the surprisingly limited number of options for screens this small I've come to realize it's effectively impossible to get what I would consider to be an ideal screen. I had hoped to find an E-Paper style display that would work well outdoors and use basically no power to run but it seems only OLED displays exist in the needed size and that unfortunately means they're very dim. Would you want a screen in the OEM location even if it meant you probably can't see it when out at the field or would you rather a side mount screen through the grip that does work outside, or no screen?

Mock up of a board with a screen for attention 😍

[Schultz98]

I personally would like to be able to retain at least the same level of functionality as the original trigger frame had. So unfortunately the screen (and it's orientation) is pretty important to me.That being said, if there is litterally no option on the market available, I'd be willing to be reasonable with a bluetooth/app capability, I just would much prefer a screen in the original window.(even if small and slightly dim)

[GUNDAMNIT]

Honestly, I could hardly see the original LED screen in bright light anyway. OLED in the original position would be fine with me. Just having another usable board that actually allows you to cap ROF is all that matters to me.

[TencenT]

That's good to hear. Thank you both!

[MullerTime]

Definitely seems like there is at least a small market with Sci Fi boards going for $500ish bucks on ebay!

[TencenT]

I certainly hope so with all the work I'm doing 🤣

[TencenT]

We'll be ordering out for some prototype boards this week 🤞

Quick note here is the screen is replaceable. This buys us two things, if it burns out you're not out of a board. If someone ends up making a better one, we might be able to retrofit it (maybe). Usage outdoors with the current screen is honestly not as great as I would like it but I genuinely am unable to find any other options. That said, the configuration software is coming along nicely and I'll get some screenshots of that here soon. Hope ya'll are having a great week!

[TencenT]

Been a long few weeks waiting on the boards to come back, working through the app and board software, working on test fixtures for "mass" production, and debugging the first run issues. I'll have more for you soon. We're hand assembling the first ten boards, once we're confident in the design we'll start ordering bulk machine assembled. Looking forward to getting one of these out on the field 👀

[Cirtem]

This is rad. Keep it up.

[devilzcall]

How about hystheresis on the optical switch instead of/or in addition to the timed debounce? wouldn't that actually be a cleaner way to go about it?

[TencenT]

Interesting idea. Once we have a completed setup we'll look into that for comparison.