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Have you ever wondered
what’s inside a tennis ball launcher that makes it shoot balls of up to 55
mph and more? How it works on the inside and what goes on while it keeps on
shooting balls non-stop one at a time? Well, let’s have an autopsy of the
tennis ball launcher, shall we?
A normal tennis ball
launcher would have a ball bucket or what is called the hopper, where
you are able to put at least 50 tennis balls at one time; a built in
oscillator, which is an electronic device that produce alternating
current, commonly employing tuned circuits and amplifying components such as
thermionic vacuum tubes; and a barrel, where tennis balls are shot
out. A tennis ball launcher usually fire tennis balls non-stop as long as it
has electricity and steady supply of balls. To be able to this, it uses
pressure.
When a tennis ball launcher
is turned on, an electric fan inside the machine pulls air from outside into
the canister. The air flows through a filter, which is a piece of foam and a
protective screen, which guards the fan motor from fragments or debris that
could damage the motor. Without any balls in the bucket (hopper), air just
flows upward through the hopper and out through the barrel. But when tennis
balls are added, things get fascinating. Inside the hopper is a rotor, when
balls are added to the hopper, an electric motor turns the rotor, and as the
rotor turns, it rolls the balls through a hole one at a time. A plastic
tube that runs through the canister is where each ball falls. This tube
connects the hopper to the barrel and the gap in the middle of the tube
allows air from the chamber to flow into it.
Inside the tube is a soft
rubbery ring called the detent, the ball rolls through the tube until it
reaches the detent, the detent then holds the ball in place so that the ball
seals off the end of the tube closest to the barrel. When this happens, it
causes the air from the canister to flow up through the hopper, forcing a
plastic flap to cover the entrance of the tube, when both ends of the tube
is blocked, air pressure inside starts to build up. Once air pressure behind
the ball surmounts the resistance from the detent, the ball flies down the
barrel and is launched into the air. After the ball is launched, the
pressure is removed in the tube so that the flap at the entrance falls back
down and another ball falls into the tube, then the process starts again.
Tennis ball launchers are
used by tennis players to practice and improve their skills, we simply see
them as machines that shoot balls, now we have an idea of how it works and
what keeps the balls coming non-stop.
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