AKBiocca Engineering

We had a great trip to Quartzfest. Alan made 3 presentations – one on launchers, one on baluns and one on the amazing new LED flashlights. Hope to see you there next year!

We are about out of the inventory of triggers, so we will be shifting to a different unit. Eric has used these in his launchers and they work well. To my eye they are not quite as aesthetic, but functionality is fine. We will continue to evaluate other triggers and may find a better choice later on. The trigger is easy to upgrade when not glued, and we no longer recommend glueing the trigger subsystem.

Pacificon was fun, and we had a stuffed room for the presentation. We had a lot of good comments from the presentation, and a lot of visitors at the Buddipole booth where Chris Drummond graciously gave me some space.

The order backlog is growing, and this weekend we’re going to work on preparing a bunch of orders for shipment.

We are working on another batch of barrel material, but in the meantime we picked up some of the thicker Schedule 40 barrel material and put it on the website. This thicker pipe works fine, especially with well-worn used tennis balls, or Walmart Fun Balls which tend to be a bit smaller. If you want to change barrels later just friction-fit the barrel or use a little tape, or a couple of small screws to hold it on.

We are working on a strut to provide support for the trigger. It is not ready yet but looks very promising. It is best to avoid glueing the trigger to retain flexibility for service, and this strut may be the best long term solution to that issue.