Squash ball launching machine
AssigneeStingray Squash Machines Limited
InventorsAnthony Paul Nashaat Hannallah, Jonathan Paul Taylor
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An automatic ball launcher includes a ball feed control system that includes a meter wheel with radially-spaced ribs or grooves to selectively block and pass balls to the flywheels of the launcher. The meter wheel rotates to selectively block and release a single ball to pass at a time. The controller of the launcher can be programmed to stop the meter wheel when a ball has been metered by monitoring the current at peak of the motor driving the meter wheel. A meter-event can be determined to have occurred when the current of the drive motor drops to a trough by a pre-set magnitude following a rise to a peak value. A remote control can be provided for the user to operate the launching machine and adjust a plurality of parameters.
Claims20
A ball launching machine, comprising:
- a base unit comprising an enclosure;
- a pair of counter-rotating flywheels disposed within the enclosure;
- a meter wheel disposed within the enclosure, the meter wheel located adjacent to an inlet to the pair of counter-rotating flywheels such that the meter wheel can selectively pass the balls to the pair of counter-rotating flywheels via rotation of the meter wheel;
- a drive motor coupled to the meter wheel;
- and
- a controller electrically coupled to the drive motor,
- wherein the controller is configured to selectively actuate the drive motor to turn the meter wheel, and
- wherein the controller is configured to determine that one of the balls has been metered by monitoring a load value of the drive motor.
Method of staging balls to be launched with an automatic ball launching device, the method comprising:
- providing a metering wheel to stage balls to be launched by a pair of counter-rotating flywheels;
- monitoring a current of a drive motor coupled to the metering wheel;
- and
- determining by the automatic ball launching device that one of the balls has been metered when the current of the drive motor drops to a trough by a pre-set magnitude following a rise to a peak value.
A ball feed control system for an automatic ball launching device, the system comprising:
- a drive motor;
- a meter wheel coupled to the drive motor, the meter wheel located adjacent to an inlet to a pair of counter-rotating flywheels such that the meter wheel can selectively pass the balls to the pair of counter-rotating flywheels via rotation of the meter wheel;
- and
- a controller electrically coupled to the drive motor,
- wherein the controller is configured to selectively actuate the drive motor to turn the meter wheel, and
- wherein the controller is configured to determine that a ball launch event has occurred by monitoring a rotational speed of at least one of the pair of counter-rotating flywheels.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.