WiFi Wolf

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DaystateRebel

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Feb 26, 2022
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MA, United States
I've spent a bit of time hacking on the Daystate GCU v5.0 (the "electronic brain" in the Pulsar & Red Wolf) and I was thinking about writing an open source replacement firmware for it. The problem with that is that it's based on a PIC microcontroller which dates back to the 90's, has limited processing power, limited storage and you have to dismantle the gun and connect a cable to program it. Meh, so 20th century...

Instead I decided to build my own GCU (with blackjack & hookers) and today I have finished assembling the first working prototype. I thought it might be interesting to show you the GCU operating on my bench

The final "shot" in the video actually breaks the plastic of the solenoid and the hammer stays stuck down. Tomorrow I'll put the board in my Red Wolf and see if it shoots

Wifi Wolf - first shots
 
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I fitted my GCU to my 25 cal standard power Red Wolf and put 10 pellets through it. I should have recorded the target too :)

Testing in Wolf's clothing

The target was 20 yards down range, every pellet hit the trap and I can't swear to it but I think all 10 are in that group

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IMG_4205.jpg
 
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woogie_man said:
And why is the antenna on the bluetooth so large?
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You can use on board antennas but you have to leave an area under the antenna free of copper, that's difficult to do here because there aren't many ways to place the ESP32 module. In the end it was just easier to have an external wire antenna
 
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qball said:
Sad to see they use a microcontroller that out dated and old on a 3000-3500 dollar gun!!! A raspberry pi pico with wifi and Bluetooth is 6 dollars and it’s from this decade! You sir are a true engineer! 👍👍👍
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I suspect they have been using the same PIC micro for a number of generations of rifle. It makes sense that each new generation uses a tweaked/improved version of the previous generation's GCU & software. Developing new hardware and software is a lot more expensive than incrementally improving what you already have.

Eventually you have to jump to a new platform and that seems to have happened with the Delta & Alpha Wolf. All that development cost may explain why those rifles are so expensive. The cost should go down over time as they recover the development costs

It's not the cost of the chip so much as the cost of developing the hardware and software
 
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DaystateRebel said:
I suspect they have been using the same PIC micro for a number of generations of rifle. It makes sense that each new generation uses a tweaked/improved version of the previous generation's GCU & software. Developing new hardware and software is a lot more expensive than incrementally improving what you already have.

Eventually you have to jump to a new platform and that seems to have happened with the Delta & Alpha Wolf. All that development cost may explain why those rifles are so expensive. The cost should go down over time as they recover the development costs

It's not the cost of the chip so much as the cost of developing the hardware and software
Click to expand...


I’m in IT so know exactly what you are talking about. Sticking with an old platform will get more expensive as time goes on and also generally means the developer isn’t developing in a modular and portable way. Let’s be honest, there arent many logics here especially with only 3 reg setting, If anything they should have setting for very 2-3 bars. If development is done correctly like what you have done changing platform shouldn’t be a big deal. We have same exact problem with developers use old libraries/.net garbage from over a decade ago that cause endless headaches and complain about can’t upgrade/compatibility, should of just rewrote the whole damn thing in something more modern.


Then with the low volume from the high price it would never go down. The thing puts me off of redwolf the most is that as soon I buy a 2800 dollar gun I need to buy a heli board to void my warranty immediately.

They should just hire you as what you did in a few weekend is already better then what they have. My son who is 9 is already pretty descent at python, maybe I’ll get him to program a redwolf in a couple of years.
 
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