Rotator question

[plusnine]

you are correct: at 100% speed, a rotator will complete a 45 degree rotation faster than the logic can re-pulse, fizzling the rotation from button. thus, you should not be using it as an output for your lights. you can defeat this by slowing down the rotation speed from 100% to something lower (my tests playing locally suggest that 2/5 speed will do using a rail speed controller). i would consider this "working as intended", as it would require speeding up the logic clock from where it defaults to "fix".

of course, if the idea is to build a theatrical a gattling gun, those devices do not spin up and spin down all at once, so some hangover time on rotation without lights seems appropriate to me. personally, i would consider setting the rotation at least 90 degrees (or larger for more of a "spin-down" - i'd go as much as 270). i would then focus on running the lightings independently with a fast blink clock or a strobe. you should be able to tie things together with your firing sequence and make a nice product, although this is all more block-intensive to set up that what you'd originally anticipated.

i also have a spin-up / spin-down rotation sequencer, but it may be unfeasible or undesirable for the scale you are constructing: http://starmadedock.net/content/ninewerks-products-spin-up-spin-down-rotator.2829/

good luck to you!

 

[KiloZulu]

you are correct: at 100% speed, a rotator will complete a 45 degree rotation faster than the logic can re-pulse, fizzling the rotation from button. thus, you should not be using it as an output for your lights. you can defeat this by slowing down the rotation speed from 100% to something lower (my tests playing locally suggest that 2/5 speed will do using a rail speed controller). i would consider this "working as intended", as it would require speeding up the logic clock from where it defaults to "fix".

of course, if the idea is to build a theatrical a gattling gun, those devices do not spin up and spin down all at once, so some hangover time on rotation without lights seems appropriate to me. personally, i would consider setting the rotation at least 90 degrees (or larger for more of a "spin-down" - i'd go as much as 270). i would then focus on running the lightings independently with a fast blink clock or a strobe. you should be able to tie things together with your firing sequence and make a nice product, although this is all more block-intensive to set up that what you'd originally anticipated.

i also have a spin-up / spin-down rotation sequencer, but it may be unfeasible or undesirable for the scale you are constructing: http://starmadedock.net/content/ninewerks-products-spin-up-spin-down-rotator.2829/

good luck to you!

Thanks again. I've been looking into ways to create a shorter pulse than the 1/2 second of a delay or button. I'm hoping that I can then have an Activation Module that is attached to the rotator turned back off a split-second after the rotator activates it.

There are a few posts floating around that involve faster clocks, and I'm hoping something from them can be converted to the purpose. If nothing else, your suggestion to simply slow down the rotator is a decent consolation prize. As long as the gun is firing faster than the weapon system would normally reload it's still technically a positive gain.

 

[Crashmaster]

you are correct...

Not exactly, while full-speed 45 degree button auto-rotation will not work a pair of activation modules each connected to the rotator and cross-connected through NOT gates to each other will. When one activation module turns on and pulses the rotator it also switches off the other activation module instantly readying it to recieve the 45 degree trigger from the rotator, turn on, pulse the rotator and switch the other activation module off again restarting the sequence.

That's what I was using to drive my gatling gun attempt when I ended up against the critical problem of wireless signal lag garbling the barrel firing timing, order and position.

 

[KiloZulu]

Not exactly, while full-speed 45 degree button auto-rotation will not work a pair of activation modules each connected to the rotator and cross-connected through NOT gates to each other will. When one activation module turns on and pulses the rotator it also switches off the other activation module instantly readying it to recieve the 45 degree trigger from the rotator, turn on, pulse the rotator and switch the other activation module off again restarting the sequence.

That's what I was using to drive my gatling gun attempt when I ended up against the critical problem of wireless signal lag garbling the barrel firing timing, order and position.

That's cool - just built the circuit based on your description and away it went. The only odd thing is that the rotator seems to stop after each rotation before resuming rather than maintaining a smooth spin. I'm continuing to play with it to see if I can't figure out why.

 

[plusnine]

a pair of activation modules each connected to the rotator and cross-connected through NOT gates to each other

cool- good for when you really need that 45 degree stoppage!

 

[KiloZulu]

It seems the delay I was seeing was a result of server lag. After playing for a bit I finally caught the rotator spinning at a nearly smooth rate. I rebuilt it in single player and it ran just fine. Thanks again, Crashmaster (and all who have been helping.)
[DOUBLEPOST=1437601302,1437597797][/DOUBLEPOST]So I put your design into the Gatling gun after further testing. At first I was seeing an odd firing pattern where three guns would fire in order that seems random to me. It could be a result of the wireless lag that you discovered in your own tests, but even on the slowest setting of a rail speed controller this continued to occur.

I rebuilt my counter with a much cleaner design and that improved the result. Now it fires two shots at once, then one shot, then another shot, and then repeats.

The good news is that the guns seem to fire from the same position each time I activate the whole affair. Unfortunately the time it fires two shots always occurs from the barrels on the opposite side from the single shots.

 

[KiloZulu]

It turns out that there is a larger problem with creating the gatling gun. I had forgotten about the bug that causes wireless logic to lose its link from time to time. That means that I logged in, after having completed the gun, only to find that it no longer fires while spinning. Unless a player wants to reconnect the numerous links each time this happens, the gun isn't currently viable.

I really hope they fix this soon, as it impacts so many applications.