This was a starter project of mine around late 2005. At the time I had interest in selling an upgraded drop-in circuit board for Shocker Sport markers. Ultimately I didn't release the board, in fact the project didn't progress into an actual prototype, but it was still a fun project that had potential if more people owned the marker.
At the time, I was in the process of testing my Euclid boards for Shocker SFTs and Nerves, so I had a functional firing cycle that could be expanded upon. In this situation it meant I would need to expand the board to allow functionality for a second solenoid (for controlling the bolt movement). This isn't hard to do, although I'm not an expert programmer so my new dual solenoid code is/was nowhere near that of the professionals like Tadao or NoX.
I posted a thread about it on the old shockerowners.com, and I did receive some positive responses on the idea of making the board. I figured it would cost around $100 each since the board would be possibly less expensive to produce due to the large components. For this reason I decided to solder up a hand-made prototype. After that I made a DIY-board version.
The board worked good but it was too large and bulky to fit in a marker. The next step was to design the actual circuit board so I could have a prototype batch made (future note: this never happened). The schematic was more or less the same as the above pictures. Below is my list of planned features for the board. Please note that some of thse things weren't included in the schematic, such as external mode switches.
· External firing mode switch sticking out the front of the marker
· Ability to use the LS board stock slide switch if equipped, otherwise a connector is provided for a relocated power switch.
· Optional connectors for two external LEDs, designed to be added to the rear of the marker. All you'd have to do is drill the holes yourself and insert the LEDs.
· Ability to add anti-chop eye hardware through an auxiliary connector. Not much point in this, but it's still cool to have for maximum paint feeding reliability.
· On-board tournament lock switch
· Future expansion connector (speaker, secondary LED indicators, etc)
· Programmed with multiple firing modes and adjustability for all the common firing parameters.
· Built in 9v snap (oh yes!!)
I designed a prototype circuit layout (above) but never actually went forward with making a batch to test. I figured the market for the board was so low that I mind as well not even bother. It's not really expensive to have prototype circuits made, but I found other things to prototype instead. To that end, ultimately I took the code I created for this dual-solenoid Shocker Sport board, and applied it to my multi-purpose Proclus boards as an optional feature. So, in a way, I did get to use the board in a real game.....just not quite how I intended.
Ah well, it was a fun idea...