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DIY Recoil Action

Goal here to add the sensation of recoil to a prop rifle gun.  I have seen it done with compressed air and motor pistons, but neither are easily synchronized with electronics and capable of rapid firings for full auto fire.  Leaves me with the third option of using a solenoid.  To fire a solenoid with enough furiosity to kick the gun into your shoulder involves some serious power requirements.

I did a dry run yesterday and came up with this circuit.  The solenoid is rated 12-24V and 3 lbs force.  Using the circuit below it was weak at 18V, fully actuated at 27V, and actually had some kick at 36V.  I am not sure I want to take it higher.

sol_control_simple

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The next step is to design a circuit to use a lower battery voltage. Three C cells should be sufficient. The 4.5V from the battery would be stepped up and charged across the capacitor. The control circuit would be connected to the solenoid circuit through a optoisolator and a mosfet.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 9th, 2010. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  • SeanBradley

    Man, Dustin, you have it right here. I was researching this a few years back when I was looking to do this for Halo 2 M6C Magnums when I was working as an arcade tech. The games that we had that had recoil in the guns used solenoids (which had to be replaced from time to time) but provided real kickback in the games like Time Crisis 3. I always wanted to know how to make a battery powered solenoid! Theres plenty of other applications in Halo weapons too! Go for it man!

  • http://westaby.net Dustin

    I have the circuit for this made, but am unhappy with my current solenoid. A rifle sized prop is a lot of mass to move, so it doesn't jerk as much as I would like. Maybe switching to a higher current solenoid and moving closer to the hand holds will help.

  • WW’s

    Any application on a Nerf Gun? I have to imitate recoil, and I suck. Would one of these kind of things would be available to buy? I’m only 13, so I can’t make it myself.

  • http://westaby.net Dustin

    This circuit was an attempt to duplicate the functionality of arcade gun recoil units.  Was pretty much a failure.  I’m afraid that to properly simulate recoil you need either pneumatics or an 80V+ power supply.