The Hacksmith: Far Cry 6 CD Launcher

2021-05-28 | By The Hacksmith

License: See Original Project

This project was created by Engineering Superheroes of Hackmith Industries.

DO NOT ATTEMPT to Re-Create

Far Cry is a popular video game franchise with 5 installments since 2004. Far Cry 6 comes out in October, so to celebrate, Bogdan made a disc launcher - a weapon that will appear in the game. The disc launcher, which is made of spare parts scrounged by players, shoots CDs at enemies, turning the masses of unused AOL CDs from 1999 into weapons. See how Bogdan made it in the video below!

How Does it Work?

The mechanism used for this build was a flywheel. This allows the CD launcher to get enough power to make the discs fly rapidly and make the launcher fully automatic. Flywheels spin incredibly fast, so most tools that use flywheels, like angle grinders, can have durability issues or simply lack the power to make a flying disc lethal. Instead, Bogdan made custom metal flywheels in SOLIDWORKS with indents along the edge to fit rubber o-rings around them for grips. By the second version, the o-rings could stay on the flywheels snugly without detaching at high speeds. The flywheels are propelled by drone motors, which were chosen for their light weight and high power.

The next part of the launcher made was the magazine, which holds the CDs in a stack and has a guide rail at the bottom for discs that are pushed forward. The loading system is controlled by an Arduino Nano. There is an LCD display that shows what the launcher is doing at all times. The feeder arm that pushes discs into the flywheels to be launched is controlled by an H-bridge. When the trigger is pulled, a linear actuator pushes the CD forward to be launched.

Finally, to get the scavenger aesthetic. Bogdan stole spare parts from all over the shop to compliment the 3D printed parts.

Schematic and BOM

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