Man Makes Impressive DIY Ball Launcher For Dog To Play With
This man's pet dog loved playing chase with a ball. He built a DIY ball launcher for his pet by designing the machine and printing it in 3D. The man fixed the electronics inside the launcher and, it worked perfectly for the dog to play.
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00:00In this video, I'll show you how to build your own dog ball launcher.
00:03Stay tuned.
00:04Hey guys, I'm back with another video.
00:10This time I made a ball launcher for my dog.
00:12The plan is to teach him to put in the ball by himself, but I don't think this is going
00:16to happen anytime soon.
00:17Let me show you how it works.
00:21So you or your dog put the ball into the funnel here, and there's a servo blocking the path,
00:26and also a sensor here that detects the ball.
00:28And after a random time between one and three seconds, the ball releases and gets shut out.
00:39I also put in a motor controller to randomize the speed of the electric motors here, and
00:43every time the ball flies a different distance.
00:46In the next clip, I'll show you how my dog plays with the machine.
01:05I also printed out different colored ears.
01:08Let me know in the comments below which one do you like best.
01:11I will give them away, just send me an email, which color do you like, and I will send them
01:14out on a first come, first serve base.
01:18Here are some more clips of my dog playing with the machine, and after that, I'll show
01:21you how to build your own.
01:42In this part, I'll show you how to build your own ball launcher.
01:44The links to all the items you need are in the description below, as always.
01:48A little disclaimer, the build process is a little bit non-linear because I changed
01:53design during filming, but I did my best to put everything in the right order.
01:58But it's best to watch the video till the end before you start building it.
02:01I hope you enjoy.
02:02Thanks for watching.
02:03Bye bye.
02:04Okay, so in here is the 3D model I did before printing everything out.
02:12Let's start with the case.
02:16So you can see this is the case.
02:23On the bottom part, this is where the motor mount is mounted on.
02:28There's a little hole here.
02:31And here, this is for the DC-DC converter.
02:35Those are the holes for the screws if you want to use them.
02:40And here goes the USB plug, PCB, on and off switch.
02:49And this one is for the power connector.
02:54And let's go to this one.
03:00This is where you mount the motors, like so.
03:07And here, this is the roller.
03:14Those are the smooth ones.
03:19Then next, this is where you mount the servo.
03:33And here goes the sensor.
03:38And on top, here goes the proximity sensor casing.
03:46And where's the funnel?
03:47The funnel goes like this.
03:52And then we have the exit ramp here.
04:01Like this.
04:04And that's all the stuff you need to print.
04:08And then we go on top, like this.
04:13And last but not least, we need to get the ears.
04:18There you go.
04:22And this is the whole assembly.
04:29Okay, so here is the motor mount.
04:37And the next thing we need to do is put some threaded inserts here
04:47into the plastic so we can screw on the motor and also the other parts.
04:56And you need like a soldering iron.
05:01I have it set to 200C.
05:05And then you also need a plier.
05:17You can put this onto the soldering iron.
05:34And then you need to wait until it's getting hot enough to melt through the plastic.
05:43So when it's flush with the plastic, you can just remove the soldering iron.
05:52And there you have it.
05:59Now we need to repeat this for this one.
06:03The other side, this and this.
06:06And I think two will be enough.
06:08Here and here.
06:11And here and here.
06:14And now you can use an M3 screw.
06:29The next thing we need to do is to assemble the little wheels that will accelerate the
06:33ball.
06:34And we need to put on this motor mount.
06:38But first we need to sand this a little bit so it's smoother.
06:45I have 240 grit sandpaper.
06:49So that should be enough.
06:55And then we take some M3 screws.
07:03And now we need to add the washer and the nut.
07:16So the only screws I had left were these little longer ones here, but I will cut them later
07:21with my Dremel tool.
07:26And now we need to do the same with the other wheel.
07:30And magic.
07:33So after some testing, I found out the rolls I designed, they look like a gear, but when
07:41the ball is full of saliva from the dog, it doesn't work.
07:46So what I'm testing now is I printed them again, but with a smooth surface.
07:54And I will glue some non-slip tape.
07:58It's practically like sandpaper, but with a sticky side on the back.
08:05And I already did this for one.
08:07And I put some rubbers around to help with the adhesion.
08:14And now let's do the other one.
08:32Now let's clean the surface with some alcohol.
09:14And like an X-Acto knife is very handy.
09:44Now let's add some rubbers to help with the adhesion.
09:57So I will let them sit overnight, and tomorrow I will test if this works or not.
10:15Okay, so here's the problem with the wet ball.
10:20You can see I put it in water.
10:25Then it won't go through the rollers here.
10:38Because it's too wet and there's not enough friction.
10:43So I will change those with the ones I did yesterday.
10:49Okay, so now I changed the rollers here with the ones with the anti-slip tape.
10:57Let's try that again.
10:59Where's the ball?
11:19That looks good.
11:35Now this is pretty solid.
11:41So I don't think we need the other two screws here.
11:49Then we get the motor.
12:08Okay, now the two motors are mounted.
12:11And now we need to mount the...
12:31Okay, let's look that they are aligned.
12:41And then the ball comes in.
12:53And it will get chewed out.
12:55Okay, so the top half of the casing just finished printing.
12:59And at the end there was like this black little dot.
13:05I don't know why it happened.
13:08But let's remove the support and see how it looks like.
13:16Doesn't look really good but I tried to print it like this way.
13:20Because printing it like this would be like 200g more filament.
13:26And like 12 hours more on print time.
13:30But I think it's okay.
13:35Maybe next time I will print it the other way around.
13:39I also finished the little ears.
13:50They look really nice.
13:58Let me clean this up and then I will attach them to the top part here.
14:04Okay, so here is the new bottom part of the casing.
14:08And as you can see it looks very good.
14:10And this is the first one.
14:12You can see that it doesn't look very good.
14:16But on the inside it looks very good.
14:20Memo for me, next time I will print it the right way the first time.
14:25So I don't have to do it twice.
14:34So it looks much better than before.
14:40Okay, so here is the bottom part.
14:44It took for the print, I think it was like 35 hours or something.
14:48But it looks great.
14:56Let's remove all the support material and have a look how it looks underneath.
15:03I hope it doesn't get like the same problems we had with the top part.
15:09But let's see.
15:11Okay, so I removed all the support material.
15:15It still doesn't look good.
15:17Let me zoom in a little bit.
15:23You can see it broke off like on all sides.
15:27But it's not that bad because it's on the underside
15:31and you can barely see it when you
15:35look at it from an angle from above like here.
15:39So I won't do anything about this one.
15:43I will just clean it up a little bit more.
15:47Here are the holes for the power.
15:49You put in a little nut.
15:53And then you screw in the plug.
15:57Like so.
16:01And this is the power button.
16:11And this is like the
16:15USB plug so you can
16:19plug in from the outside and reprogram the Arduino
16:23or whatever you will use for your version.
16:31It goes in like this.
16:35And now let's see if the motor mount will fit.
16:43Like a glove.
16:51And I also forgot I put in two
16:55screw holes here for the
16:59DC-DC converter. This one will convert like a 12V we get from here for the motors
17:03to 5V or 3V for the microcontroller.
17:07This will go here.
17:13And there is also a hole here
17:17to get the cable from one motor to the other side.
17:21And I also put in some holes for
17:25M8 screws. So if you need to bolt it down to
17:29something you can just insert a nut here.
17:33Like so.
17:37And then you can use a screw from down here.
17:41Or you can also use it the other way
17:45and get like a washer in here and then use a screw
17:49and screw it down to something from this side.
17:53So here is the schematic how you need to wire everything
17:57to the Raspberry Pi Pico. This is the Raspberry Pi
18:01and the USB would be here.
18:05And the power connection goes like this. This is plus and this is ground.
18:09And this 5V goes also to this connector here
18:13to number 2 and goes also down here to the server connection
18:17also to number 2.
18:21The server connection to ground here on 1
18:25and to the GPIO at 16 here.
18:29And this is the sensor connector. This is pretty easy. You just go like
18:33straight to the ports.
18:37STA is 1 or GPIO 0
18:41SCL is GPIO 1
18:45Ground is ground and power comes from the GPIO 2.
18:49So you can turn off the sensor if you like.
18:53And that's about it. And here also you need to
18:57the connection number 6 needs to go up here to
19:01GPIO 10. Because if you go straight this is also ground.
19:05So that's pretty much it.
19:09Ok so I finished the soldering of the
19:13controller board. This is the Raspberry Pi Pico.
19:17And I used this prototype board
19:21and mounted some connections here
19:25and here and here. This is power. This is the server.
19:29This is the sensor. And this is for the motor controller.
19:33I also made a cable for the motor controller.
19:37This will go in here.
19:41And then I will connect
19:46to the motor controller here.
19:50And this will go to 5 and ground.
19:58And this is the DC converter.
20:02It will get the 12V from the
20:06power adapter. And it will convert it to 5V
20:10so we can power the Raspberry Pi here.
20:14And
20:18this is the power connector.
20:22And this is the switch.
20:26So it will go in here.
20:30And I made another cable here.
20:34Like this.
20:38And then those go directly into the
20:42motor controller.
20:46Like so.
20:50And that's basically it. It's a very easy circuit.
20:54And I forgot to show you the USB cable I made.
20:58So this will
21:02connect to the Raspberry Pi.
21:06Like so. And this will
21:10go on the outside or the inside
21:14of the casing. And then you can connect it from the outside so you don't have to open
21:18the case every time you need to change the code.
21:22In the background you can hear my dog.
21:26Ok, now let's assemble everything.
21:30Ok guys, so here is the code I used. It's not very complicated.
21:34So here you import all the libraries you need.
21:38The library for the sensor from Adafruit.
21:42And then you do like all the config
21:46here. Then the PWM
21:50for the motor controller. And here you define
21:54the outputs for the motor directions.
21:58Here you give them the names.
22:02Here the direction, that's like an output and not an input.
22:06And here that's my values, that keeps the motors
22:10in the right direction for me. But maybe if you wire them differently
22:14this one is different in your case.
22:18And then you initialize the
22:22I2Square bus here. And this is the sensor
22:26for the bulb detection.
22:30This is the server. Here you
22:34initialize the server and set it to closed, so the ball doesn't go
22:38into the machine. It takes time, so this is
22:42a little bit of a pause, so the server can get into position.
22:46And this is a loop.
22:50When the server detects
22:54the ball
22:58then we create a random number between 40.000 and 64.000
23:02that's the PWM values
23:06and the steps are 2000. If you go lower
23:10then the motors don't have enough power to shoot out the ball.
23:14This is just for me.
23:18And then you also have a random time between
23:220 and 3 seconds and in 1 second steps.
23:26If you don't want to do that you can also just comment
23:31this out.
23:35Then we spin up the motors with
23:39the power we set up here.
23:43I put in a little pause here for half a second so
23:47not both motors are starting at the same time because that creates a lot of amperage.
23:51And then we give them 2 seconds to
23:55spin up fully and then we release the ball.
23:59And then after 1 second we
24:03shut down the motors again
24:07and the server goes back to the closed position.
24:11So that's not much code, very easy.
24:15I think you can also do this in Arduino.
24:19I wanted to work with Raspberry Pi Pico this time
24:23and it's much easier I think than
24:27in Arduino.
24:31First let's put in the DC-DC converter.
24:41That's good.
24:45Next thing we need to do is put in the USB
24:49connection.
24:57So here you can see
25:01the USB port.
25:05Let's see if we can connect a USB cable there.
25:09Where is it? Let's use the
25:13broken one here.
25:17And this looks very good.
25:21And this is the
25:25DC-DC converter.
25:29Let's
25:33put in the on-off switch.
25:37And
25:49the power adapter.
26:01Now we need to connect
26:05the power adapter.
26:09Now we need to connect the cables here.
26:17There you go.
26:21So here is the elbow part.
26:25The server goes in here and I already mounted the sensor.
26:29Let me zoom in a little bit here.
26:33You can see the cables come out here.
26:37And they will go
26:41inside like this.
26:45Let's get this
26:49zoom in here. Yes.
26:53I will put some hot glue in to
26:57fix the cable in place here.
27:01And same goes for the
27:05server cable that comes out here and it will go down
27:09here. I also put one or two drops of
27:13hot glue in there to
27:17keep it there.
27:31OK.
27:43OK. That should be enough.
27:47It's also on the upper side
27:51of the elbow so the ball doesn't get
27:55stuck in here.
27:59OK. That looks good.
28:03Now let's mount the server.
28:07So this is the server and here is the little
28:11arm. I will also put the file for this in the
28:15description below. And you may need to
28:19let me zoom in a little bit.
28:23The holes in the little arm that comes with the server you need to
28:28drill the holes a little bit bigger otherwise you may break them when you put
28:32in the screws.
28:36OK. Now let's mount the server.
28:40First we need to put in the cable to the little hole here.
28:48It's a tight fit. You maybe need to
28:52sand it a little bit down.
28:58And then you put the server
29:02Let's get the cable
29:06like this.
29:18Then we need to screw down the server.
29:22I created two holes here so it's easier to screw it
29:26down.
29:38Now we need to also hot glue the
29:42server cable down.
29:56So
30:00this will go like this.
30:04And then the ball comes from this.
30:08Looks good.
30:12Looks good.
30:26I need to remove a little bit here.
30:30OK.
30:38I removed a little bit of the hot glue from the top.
30:46Much better.
30:54Now we need to attach this to the motor mount.
30:58OK.
31:02The other side
31:06as well.
31:16So that's the whole assembly.
31:20So motor controller goes here
31:24and here goes the microcontroller.
31:28So we need to put one cable
31:32through here. It goes outside.
31:40OK. My dog is really excited.
31:44So in the background you will hear him because he wants to play with his new toy.
31:48Anyway, we need to connect the power here.
31:52This will go to the
32:005V is here, ground is here and 12V is here.
32:04You need to control the speed.
32:12This will go like this.
32:18OK. So here it is.
32:22It was a little bit hard to film but this is the 5V
32:26plus this is the common ground
32:30for the 12V, for the 5V
32:34and for the DC converter.
32:38And this is plus 12V. This goes also to the DC converter.
32:42And this one
32:52is connected
33:02here.
33:06It doesn't matter how you connect the motors
33:11because you can change the direction via the software later.
33:15So you don't have to put
33:19plus or minus. It's not very important.
33:23OK. So I connected everything to the controller board.
33:27That's the power.
33:31Then this is the cable for the motor controller.
33:35It goes through the hole here and comes off to the other side.
33:39Then this is the servo.
33:43And this is the sensor for the ball detection.
33:49Let's get this back down here.
33:59Make sure there is no cable
34:03stuck between
34:07the case and the motor mount.
34:11OK. So we simulate the ball.
34:23It looks perfect.
34:27So this is the
34:31little case for the sensor so it's protected.
34:35Put it like this.
34:45And then the funnel comes over here.
34:49But first let's mount the motor back to the casing.
34:53OK.
34:57Now the motor is back on the casing.
35:05Now let's mount the sensor casing
35:09and also the funnel.
35:17I just put two screws in here. I think that's enough.
35:21You can put four but if you want you can put four.
35:25Before you tighten everything down make sure everything is aligned
35:29so it doesn't look like this.
35:41The last thing you need to do is put on the lid for the servo.
35:51OK. And that's it.
35:55The last thing we need to do is screw down the top part to the bottom part.
35:59And there are four screw holes here, here
36:03and on the other side on the same side.
36:07And I will use this screw.
36:15The easiest way is to get it on the edge like this.
36:19And that's it.
36:23Now the bottom part is mounted
36:27and everything is looking good.
36:35I hope you enjoyed this little build.
36:39Thanks for watching. Bye bye.