This NERF Gun Was Upgraded with an Adafruit ItsyBitsy and Brushless Motors
Hackaday.io user cellsafemode has upgraded his NERF Titan 50 with nice brushless motors and Adafruit NeoPixels.
If, like me, you haven’t played with a NERF gun since the ‘90s (radical!) than you may not realize quite how xtreme they are these days. High-end models can cost nearly a hundred dollars, and come in just about every style of gun imaginable — though NERF seems to prefer the term “blaster” for PR reasons. At the top of the line is the NERF Elite Titan CS-50, which resembles a mini-gun and holds 50 darts in a drum magazine. It is even motorized for rapid fire. Hackaday.io user cellsafemode has upgraded his NERF Titan 50 with nice brushless motors and Adafruit NeoPixels.
While the normal NERF Titan 50 is motorized, the motors they used aren’t exactly the best performing options out there. That’s not surprising for a toy that can be found for $80 online. Good brushless motors will not only perform better, they will also be more reliable. You know, just in case you want to make sure your NERF gun holds up through the apocalypse. In this case, cellsafemode used a pair of Racerstar BR2205 motors, each spec’d at 2300kV. Those are run through two 20amp blHeli ESC (electronic speed controllers), and an MTD-01 brushed motor control for the gun’s secondary feed motors.
An Adafruit ItsyBitsy M4 microcontroller controls those. Two regulators are required — one for the 6V MTD-01 and one for the 5V ItsyBitsy. Power comes from a lithium-ion battery. While he was at it, cellsafemode went ahead and added some NeoPixels to gain nice lighting effects. All of the parts are attached with 3D-printed mounts. Other than the lights and a few external wires, the finished Titan 50 looks pretty stock. We can only assume that cellsafemode annihilates all of the other kids at the playground with this thing.
