Airsoft Land Mine

[dobey]

We have been developing an airsoft land mine after being pretty disappointed with what is on the market right now. Our approach has been to abandon any resemblances with real military equipment and just make something that works, and works very well. We didn't want anything that was stepped on or had a tripwire because it could pose a danger (like tripping someone) and make the things harder to setup in different environments.

 

We also didn't want to have to invent a system to propel the BB's (like the crappy rat traps in the claymores). What we came up with is a system that can fire a regular airsoft 40 mm grenade.

 

It uses a digital pyroelectric infrared sensor to detect motion. This is tuned in the 5 to 15 micrometer wavelength range emitted by a human or animal body and will hopefully cut down on false triggers like leaves or grass in the wind. The second way to fire it is by wireless remote, very similar to that used to lock your car doors.

 

How it works:

 

You simply pull the hinge pin and the back half opens to allow the loading of a grenade. Close and replace the pin, cock the firing mechanism, and then open the safety cover and use the toggle switch to arm the Mine. At this point it will fire if it detects motion within its operating range, or if it is triggered by the wireless remote which hopefully is in the possession of the user

 

When the grenade fires it also emits a 1 second 80 decibel beep that is easily heard over 100 feet, letting nearby personnel know the mine has fired. The mine will also beep by wireless remote activation so the user can find it in the woods easily after deployment.

 

The mine is still in development but our first prototype will see action this weekend at a local WNYAL Op in buffalo NY. I will update this page with more pictures and some videos as the prototype is cleaned up for field use and testing. We are in talks now with suppliers to make a limited run of these and depending on costs the body will be made of injection molded plastic or possibly an aluminum extrusion.

 

Here are two sneak peeks at the unit, you can see the motion detection unit above the barrel, and the arming toggle at the rear. I forgot to replace the battery tray cover for the pics, sorry. It runs on one 9v battery.

 

 

[Weirdguy]

Looks promising. Would there be a way to make it remote control only? My site doesn't also things that shoot by themselves.

[dobey]

Sure could, could just put tape over the sensor or we could supply it with a cover.

[Catman]

This isn't buried then? "Land mine" implies (to me) that you'd bury the unit...and that would mean the chances of getting a moscart to the balls would be very high!

 

I'm going with this being more of a claymore style trap, which looks & sounds great. Setting up trip lines is a right pain and often spotted. Hopefully you can get the unit down to an extremely compact size that's fast to deploy.

[dobey]

You are correct, we have been calling it a land mine in the shop without really thinking about what a land mine is. At this point we can put it on a small tripod or attach a stake to it that can be thrust into the ground.

 

There is a bunch of dead space inside the unit, like I was saying it is the first prototype and we wanted to be sure to have room for everything. If we go with an extrusion the barrel will be part of the extrusion and cut allot of the wasted space out.

 

I am hoping to get it to a size that would allow it to fit inside a double or triple m16 mag pouch. We built the circuit boards ourselves for this so feel free to suggest changes to operation, already I am thinking of putting a minimum firing range into the logic, so the thing would not go off at 1 foot from its target, I will have to look into how hard that would be to do.

[Catman]

Sounds great What range will the sensor have? I take it you're just using a largish solenoid to hit the moscart's firing mech? Love the idea of the buzzer, that's a bit issue I've had with my gamma claymore; not knowing if someone's tripped it.

 

Couple of suggestions for your next prototype: have the safety/arm as a removable pin. This may sound like a bit of a backward idea but if you pull a pin out to arm the device then someone can't so easily walk up to the side of it and switch it off.

 

Have a "test sensor" mode with LED feedback so the user can fine tune the position of the trap before arming it. And here's an oddish idea: a flip down door at the front of the trap. Often you want to put leaves, grass etc in front of the trap so no one sees it, the door could be spring loaded and flip open pushing the camouflage out the way ensuring it fires cleanly.

 

I play with traps a lot - does it show?

[Cpt.Lowe]

sounds Great! love to use one of these field.

 

i would suggest that you made them round(look betted )

 

no seriously, it looks great and cant wait to see them in the shops.

[Carrion]

as an idea what about using the moscart firing system underneath a dome shape with the bb tubes arrayed around it at different angl;es above the horizontal?

 

to give 360/180 spread then the unit could be made quite small. and the dome could just eb a green plastic cover with tubes instead of the moscarts present soild metal.

 

[p.briden]

I like the sound of using the remote to trigger a beep and relocate the device. I have a suggestion, perhaps implement another option to the remote so that you can determine at any time whether the device has gone off or not - its great that it beeps when it goes off but if you were too far away to hear it for a good length of a game it would be nice to be able to check when you come back to it via remote. I have no idea how you might do this its simply something that immediately sprung to mind upon reading your post. Brilliant work so far - looking forward to this .

[Lidmh]

I didn't see it in the description but what are the actuall dimensions of this. I think its a great idea but it looks pretty big in the picture.

[dobey]

3 inches by 3 inches by 8 inches

[Milith]

What should we expect this unit to cost in it's finalized form. Assuming it's going to be made by injection molding.

[m98man]

Looks awesome

 

 

I say, have two models.

 

First model can be the "lower-end" one that's a little cheaper, with a built-in sensor. I still vote you give it a min-engagement-distance logic, just to be safe.

 

Second model has a sensor that you can place, anywhere within, oh, 30 feet of the unit itself. That way, you don't have to worry about MED, because you can place it wherever you want

 

 

Also, be sure to have the MOSCART facing slightly upwards so that half the BB's dont go straight into the ground!

 

 

 

 

This looks really promising. Can we get a vid or two of it in action?

[dobey]

We did a quick test video tonight to show how it works, yes it is staged, it is just an example.

 

[TAG slayer]

cool ,what kinda range will/doe's it have

[dobey]

The range depends on what shell you use, and the gas. The detector can pic a target to 70 feet.

[iainregan]

I have to admit that looks pretty sweet i do hope its within my pricerange though!!!

 

btw my price range is exceptionly low...ver low indeed

 

[Carrion]

this is still only a slight variation on the mosquito moulds moscart traps tbh with a few techy bits bolted on.

 

i do like the way it does have a dectector

 

 

[dobey]

this is still only a slight variation on the mosquito moulds moscart traps tbh with a few techy bits bolted on.

 

LOL! I should just sell you a 35 cent stick with a 12 cent lever on it for $100.00 too then. Or better yet put a 50 cent rat trap in a 1 dollar plastic housing, call it a claymore and sell it to you for $165.00. This is just a little bit better than those thank you.

[Carrion]

actualy i dont see how its "better" as the opepration mode is absed upon the same technology namly the gas moscart shell as a combined motive force and launcher in a housing. how pray tell is that different apart from on the size of it beyond the use of the detector which i do grant,and have said so, as being new and inotative and an interesting development and application of technology.

 

if it DID develop something new such as a different cover to the moscart (as i sujested a few posts up) to make it into a 360/180 scatter pattern coupled with the option for either remote/radio/trip(or pressure) or auto detect detionation at a set distance from the mine then i would be perfectly happy to grant full credit for a totaly new device and modification to an existing airsoft idea.

coupled with a bleaper to allow them to be found easily after or during play and a remote disarming .arming system for the auto detection system to allow easy and safe removal and dispersal .

 

 

as to this

LOL! I should just sell you a 35 cent stick with a 12 cent lever on it for $100.00 too then. Or better yet put a 50 cent rat trap in a 1 dollar plastic housing, call it a claymore and sell it to you for $165.00. This is just a little bit better than those thank you.

 

considering that the tooling for said "plastic" (<--- sorry material science's here its a polymer casing) costs a fortune if its injection moulding for hermo palstics and if its a thermo set polymer the scrap rates and tooling are actualy alot more expensive is not a fair cost ana;lyise to say that the material costs XXX when any competent engineer knows that there are many factors included within a finished goods cost. also "plastic" materials range in cost so widely its frankly unbelivable thats across the range of materials known as polymers and they dont have a set prices such as £200 a ton it can flux a massive ammount depending upon things like if the plants making enough against demand or if ther is an oversurplus.

 

also given that there is

power

shipping

parts

labour

profit margin

non direct manufactuing costs (ie design and development, cleaners, the managers comfy chair etc etc)

materials costs

tooling

scrap allowance for faulty goods

the eletro mechanical parts and sourcing

saftery and reliability testing

packaging

technical authorship

 

and i could go on and on which goes into a products cost before it even leaves the factory gates to a 3rd party retailer who has HIS own costs and profit margine to think about then its reshipping onto you the consumer. all these costs add up

 

EDIT forgot to add taxes which are going to be cumulative at each and every reselling stage

 

 

i accept what we are paying is alot for the tech involved but compared with any other item which has a low demand and thus does not allow economies of scale to be introduced (who needs 1 million airsoft mines)

 

the claymores are an example of an innotave way of fixing the a low cost reusable firing mech in a claymore sized case with space for the bbs as well and also to generate enough power to be usefull ingame.

thats it was probably based upon rat traps (something which untill i had seen it had totaly passed me by as an option given that i was looking at developing some simple ones for my own use, i was looking at a gas powered device similar in concept to claymores usinga 12g CO2 powerlet as the power sorce. ) is nothing to snear at. infact i aplaud it simplicity and respect the OOTB thinking which comes up with that.

 

as it stands you have what is in effect a very large, highly focused moscart launcher which only allows the "mine" to be effective in one direction not all round sprea which would be much more effective and also much closer to the real life anti personel mines which were in area useage untill the developed nations decided to remove them from use. BAR the claymore style directed AP mines

 

now if my laptop wasnt being such a pain in the *albartroth* and if i had some moscarts to take measurements from i could very easily design a mine as i have described above using a simple screw on cap which replaces the ally gas/ bbholder of the moscart design with a similar gas starage chamber and with the angles bb launche tubes. this could then rest on a designed plate which has a system like the one you have devised or even just a simple servo with a rocker arm and pin to fire off the shell in the normal moscart fassion which could be tied into either a wire which also could using an or radio acticvation system

 

or i could just go down the "analoge" route using a spring which would set the mine off and a retaining pin to act as a hold system which is yanked out by a trip wire to allow the rocker arm to move and thus detonate.

[dobey]

Good for you! let me know if you ever stop talking about all the stuff you can do and actually make something

[Carrion]

you mean like rail wheel sets? vacume valve systems? aviation and micro electronic systems?

 

or did you fail uterly to read my entire post?

 

also one seriouse question. why make it from folded metal sheet? granted its stonger and in the unpainted form looks nicer but wont injection mouled polymer be easier to form and lighter to carry for in game use?

 

 

 

[dobey]

lol who failed at reading, look to my other posts for the answers to your questions. Now go away, if you want to bash my project please start your own thread, maybe some mods can clean this up a bit please?

[Pablo]

Or perhaps you could take some constructive criticism without resorting to "LOL!" replies for a change. It doesn't come across as very professional, does it? You're posting on a public forum here my friend, people will post replies and some of them will be critical. You'll need to learn to deal with them a little better than you have done so far I'm afraid.

 

[Stealthbomber]

maybe some mods can clean this up a bit please?

Erm, yeah.

 

Play nice, kids. Polite and respectful etc...

 

I gotta say, though, I am stunned by Carrions post. I don't think I've ever seen him write so much with so few spelling mistakes or grammatical errors.

After I finish typing this I've gonna do an IP check to make sure his account wasn't hacked.