File:Noisemaker-arrow1-s-DFsig.jpg: Difference between revisions

Description

The Dark Mod concept art for the internal mechanisms of a noisemaker arrow arrowhead (illustrated schematic).

Author: Darkness_Falls
Date: January 2005

Supplied by Darkness_Falls from his personal art archive. He also provided the following description, based on notes from January 2005:

How this noisemaker arrow works:

• When launched, the arrow is at it's fullest length. Arrow is at full extension.
• When the arrow strikes a target (e.g., a wall), the arrowhead sticks into the target. However, some energy is absorbed on impact as the tip of the arrow retracts into the air chamber casing, forcing the rubber gasket (which is attached to the arrow tip) to compress toward the rubber gasket stop. (I say arrow "tip," but I'm referring to the front 6"-12" (roughly) of the arrow.)
• This compression causes the air inside to be forced through a fairly small hole in the rubber gasket stop. The air that escapes through this hole does so at a high velocity.
• The air escaping the air chamber through this hole blows the wooden fins in the center of the wooden gear which causes the whole wooden gear to quickly rotate on its axis. I envision this to rotate pretty easily. A very well-designed mechanism.
• There are different sized pegs on the wooden gear, at varying heights. The distance between any two pegs also varies. The variety in peg sizes results in a variety of different *click* sounds being produced when the wooden hammer lever appropriate reacts, causing the hammer to strike the wooden platform. Some clicking sounds are softer, some louder; some possibly different pitches than others. The varying distances between pegs causes the delays between clicks to vary.
• The hammer striking the platform creates clicks -- naturally. Also, the hammer lever (opposite end of hammer) creates other various clicking sounds when it strikes the gears.
• There is spring tension in the hammer mechanism to allow it to return to it's default point. The tension is not so great, though, that it wastes all the energy that is being transferred through this system.