Morlock

Kennesaw Mountain Markers, LLC

www.Exarin.com

valinor@netcom.com

This electronics package is built for no paintball gun in particular. The Morlock board will run any electro-pneumatic paintball gun, from a simple single-solenoid open bolt, to a double-solenoid closed-bolt with breech-sensor. From any commercial gun currently on the market, to any garage-built prototype. It should be noted that this board is very powerful, and because of that will allow you to "shoot yourself in the foot" if you try.

A prefabricated project board, pre-crimped wiring harness, eye hardware and trigger switch. The Morlock is not for the beginner, it is designed for the hobbyist/player who is used to reading (and referring to) the instructions, is comfortable with a soldering iron and does not mind taking a little extra time to make sure things are done right.

You will have to wire the Morlock up yourself, at a minimum this will mean the power supply, trigger switch, and one solenoid.

Every effort was made to keep the size of the Morlock to an absolute minimum. Don’t let the size fool you, however, the power-circuitry (utilizing HEXFET technology) can handle huge power spikes, running even the beefiest solenoids with long duty cycles.

The Morlock is completely programmable, allowing the entire play-by-play of a fire cycle to be tweaked down to the last millisecond.

Included is a pre-wired plug accepting a trigger switch (provided) a power plug (provided) and a single solenoid connection. Pre-crimped wires are also included for you to add an additional solenoid/intellifeed, and eye harness of either a reflective or through-breech variety (components provided).

As mentioned above, the Morlock needs to be wired per gun. The critical wires are:

Power (Red/Black, pins 9/10) can be any voltage from 6 to 30 Red(+) Black(-)

Trigger (Grey/Black, pins 11/12) any normally-open switch will work, polarity is irrelevant

Solenoid 1 (Red/Blue, pins 7/8) any coil-type device, polarity is irrelevant.

Additionally Solenoid 2 can be wired, as well as the eye components (included) according to the diagram below

NOTE 1: There are three Red and Three Black wires, which are Power (battery) and Ground, respectively, and may be used interchangeably, as they are the same physical connection, they are provided for ease of wiring

NOTE 2: The regulated +5 (respect to ground) is available from the white wire, but can only run a load of 150ma.

Connect Layout

2 4 6 8 10 12

1 3 5 7 9 11

Front, Writing Down (HKS) (wires pointing away)

Included with the board are four external components and plenty of wire. You are going to have to connect them yourself, since it is impossible to predict beforehand how much/through what the wires will need.

The eye components included are the through-breech variety. The all-plastic component is the emitter, wire it between the Black and Orange wires, Black to the Cathode (shorter wire) and Orange to the Anode (longer wire)

The metal-can flat component is the detector, wire it between the White and Green wires. The Green wire going to the lead closest to the metal notch, the White to the lead furthest away from the notch.

The other components are either polarity-neutral, or color-coded.

To insert the pre-crimped wires into the connector, be sure to have the notch facing away from the middle of the connector, a slight push is all that is required, and it will click into place:

The microcontroller used is a Microchip® PIC 12ce519. This chip has on-board EEPROM, which is used to store configuration information. This memory is maintained even with the battery disconnected, for 40+ years.

The logic runs on a 5v regulator which is independent of the power circuitry. The two transistors switch power directly from the battery to the solenoids, bypassing the regulator. This allows for tremendous drive power, limited only by the capacity of your battery. According to published specs, the Morlock can switch 30V @ 4.6A (138 watts) with an on resistance of only .031W . This translates into very little heat buildup, and tremendous efficiency.

The Morlock consumes 15ma when idling, more than half of that is consumed by the LED.

The Morlock has Four basic fire cycles, modified by an optional eye. They are:

The eye validates itself every shot in both single and double solenoid mode. If it detect stuck-on or stuck-off faults it will put the gun into 9-bps and blink the light continuously to indicate trouble. This ensures that if the eye is damaged or inoperable during a game, the gun will continue to cycle.

Not show above is the Eye Holdoff value (factory default of 5ms) This is the interval after the eye sensor is seen on that the Morlock waits, to be sure the ball is fully seated.

To program the Morlock, first the tourney lock must be off (both DIP switches in the OFF position) then hold the trigger switch on, turn the power on (or connect the battery) and release the trigger.

The light will flash and turn off. Now you are expected to select a register, click the trigger an appropriate number of times, then wait, the light will flash once. Register selections are:

If you select Register 1, you are expected to enter a fire mode, again in trigger clicks. After you have made a selection, the light will flash and remain on. The gun is now prepared to fire. Fire modes are:

Note 1: "Sniper" fires the gun when the trigger is pulled, but does not open/close the bolt until the trigger is released, this does nothing in single-solenoid mode.

Note 2: "Cocker" fires the gun and opens the bolt when the trigger is pulled, but does not close the bolt until the trigger is released, this does nothing in single-solenoid mode.

If you select Register 2, you are expected to enter a number of shots to burst, After you have entered tour selection, the light will flash and remain on. The gun is now prepared to fire.

3 through 7 are timing registers, after you select them you are expected to enter timing information. You can add to, subtract from, or set the register exactly. Select the operation with trigger clicks:

The light will flash twice. You now enter, in milliseconds, the timing change. When you are done the light will flash 3 times, and you are now back to the main menu, where you may select any of the 11 registers.

Registers 8 through 11 are binary/question registers. After selecting one you enter your selection as follows:

The light will flash and you will be back to the main menu again, where you may again select any of the 11 registers.

Note on Rate of Fire- The Rate of Fire is stored as a delay between shots, the factory default is 100ms. TO get the balls per second, divide 1000 by the value of the ROF, 10ms therefore corresponds to 1000/100 = 10bps.

To increase the rate of fire, decrease this value, 90ms would be 1000/90 = 11.1bps for example. This may seem awkward, but will allow very fine-tuning of maximum rate of fire.

To Add 2 milliseconds to the fire pulse:

<in program mode>

Click trigger 3 times, selecting fire pulse

Click trigger 1 time, selecting ‘add’

Click trigger 2 times, specifying 2 milliseconds

To Subtract 3 milliseconds from Solenoid two pulse length:

<in program mode>

Click trigger 5 times, selecting solenoid two pulse length

Click trigger 2 times, selecting ‘add’

Click trigger 3 times, specifying 3 milliseconds

To set the solenoid one holdoff to 5 milliseconds:

<in program mode>

Click trigger 4 times, selecting solenoid one holdoff

Click trigger 3 times, selecting ‘set exactly’

Click trigger 5 times, specifying 5 milliseconds

To turn the eye on:

<in program mode>

Click trigger 8 times, selecting ‘use eye?’

Click trigger 1 time, selecting ‘yes’

The factory defaults for these values are:

The timing registers can be set to any value from 1-255ms, if you try to set outside that range it will wrap.

Brief descriptions of register functions:

Solenoid Pulse length - Time solenoid one is held on.

Solenoid one holdoff - Time the Morlock waits before continuing with the fire cycle

Solenoid two Pulse length - Time solenoid two is held on

Rate of Fire - how long each fire cycle will last, the lower this number the faster the Morlock will shoot

Alternately the number of milliseconds the gun waits after a fire cycle (when using the eye)

Eye holdoff - how long the Morlock waits after the eye detects a ball

Use Eye - enable the eye input

Solenoid mode - configured to use one solenoid or two

Lock Mode - when a DIP switch is turned on, what mode the Morlock will be locked into

Eye Sense - what logic level the eye hardware uses to express "breech blocked"

There are two DIP switches on the Morlock, they both serve the same function, and are wired in parallel. If either switch is turned on, the Morlock is tournament locked, and will not accept programming of any kind. It will be in a fire mode determined by the ‘Lock Mode’ register 10. Both must be turned off to program the board.

If the Morlock is in single-solenoid mode, the second solenoid will act as an intellifeed. It will run a hopper from the same supply the solenoids are running from. Wire the hopper motor directly to the Solenoid 2 output.