First Set-up The Initial Testing of the Left/Right Line back to Page One to Page 3 Prototype to Page 4 Final Design

So far (Dec 29th, 2004) I have the main left/right line up in the shop.  The pulleys are only 18' apart, giving a run path around 16' or so.

Here is the drive wheel set-up on the west side of the shop.  At this time I was using a toggle switch to run it. I haven't decided on end of run stopping yet for this part as the ghost can get wrapped up around the pulley at times.  I am using 50lb fishing line at this time.

The free wheel on the east side of the shop was made so it could take out any excess slack on the line.  The pulley can be tightened manually with up to 6" of movement.

Here is the ghost, a hardware store plastic bag.

Flying towards you.

And away from you upon mouse over It travels around 10 ft/sec.

Jan 2nd, 2005

A brake mechanism was added to the drive pulley so when the "end-of-run" switch is tripped it would kill the motor and stop the pulley.

I didn't have any solenoid actuators laying around, so I built up an elaborate pneumatic stopper with some spare parts I had laying around to see how effective this would be. The drive pulley stops on a dime when the end of run switch is activated, but the inertia of the free pulley kept the line and ghost traveling around a good foot or so.

When the electric pull solenoids come in, they will replace the above set-up on the drive pulley and will add one to the free wheeling pulley to stop the ghost line.

I picked this one from SurplusCenter.com Its specs should provide the force needed to act as a pulley brake and will make the set-up much easier than the above pneumatic one. Nope, didn't work as well as I thought, so the air cylinder stayed.

I want the across line perfected first before adding the in/out line.  A possible mistake, but I do/did have 301 days till Halloween at this report entry.