Simple project help, Turning Target

Community General Discussions
1

Hello,

I am hoping to build a remote controlled shooting target. The expectation is to have a steel base, some sort of servo attached to an aluminum horizontal piece that supports two replace able light wooden boards that the target will be attached to. The target needs to be turned 90 degrees rapidly on the push of a button and return to start position with another push.

I am in need of/asking for assistance in selecting a servo of some sort that can, turn rapidly, have only 2 positions and have necessary torque to support target weight (aluminum, wood, cardboard and paper) I also need a recommendation for a very simple controller supporting 2 functions (position 1 to position 2, and return to pos 1).

I’m not engineer. I’m a shooter. I have experience welding and minor electronics. So I’d like to avoid complicated construction. And the individuals who will be operatng these devices will be much less technically inclined as myself.

Any assistance is greatly appreciated. I know nothing of servos or controllers. Any suggestions of specific equipment is great. Even being pointed in the right direction would be awesome. Thank you for your time folks!!

2

Hey,

Interesting idea!

The best is to break your project down into smaller tasks. From what we can see here, it would mostly be:

  1. A rotating horizontal platform using a motor of some kind with 2 positions
  2. A controller and power source for this system
  3. A remote control of some kind to rotate between the two positions

There are plenty of funky ways of doing this without digital electronics, but they would require more complex circuitry. Therefore, lets stick to some simple recommendations:
#1 can be achieved with a simple base attached to a servomotor by a belt to make it rotate. Use different size for the two axis so that is gears down to the right angle! (ex: if the motor does ±90 degrees (total of 180), have a ratio of 2:1 so that it moves the horizontal platform by 90 degrees (instead of 180 degrees). Since the weight is mostly straight down (perpendicular to the motor rotation), very little torque is required. You can find plenty of examples of “Arduino turntable” examples online. This part of your project is very similar except your “turntable” is a horizontal frame to hold your target support (wooden board).

#2 can be completed simply with a small microcontroller board, such as an Arduino (recommended, since it has a lot of tutorials available). For power, you could use a 6 V DC NiMH battery pack, as they are good for providing power to servomotors (typically 4.8-6.0 V DC) and an Arduino, as used quite often in Lynxmotion kits. You may be interested in the [RB-Lyn-363] since it is built with driving RC servomotors in mind.
You can find some 6 V DC NiMH batteries here, such as the RB-Sta-08 and RB-Sta-13. A good charger for these is RB-Ten-02, if you do not already have one.

For #3, you can use many remote control system that work with Arduino. This could be IR (infrared, like with TVs and such), Bluetooth, WiFi, simple digital wireless control (FOB and such), etc. There are too many options to list here, but a simple way to achieve this would be with a minimalist transmitter & receiver pair, such as: RB-Dfr-92.

Alternatively, you could simply wire the servomotor directly to a RC receiver (with a 6 V DC battery pack) paired to a transmitter, such as those used in RC vehicles (cars, planes, drones, etc.). Ex: RB-Rlk-08

Also, you may want to have a quick read of this blog series: How to Make a Robot. It has plenty of good information that can help you figure all of this out better and guide you in learning the basics.

We hope this helps you get started!

Sincerely,