and can i use this to program it? or what would be my best option for programing ?
Basically i need to program the paintball solinoid to strike a little harder ever time you pull the trigger, a tiny bit harder and so on. is this possible?
Hmmm, an 18-pin chip on an inexpensive device. Odds are pretty good it's a low-end PIC, but it could also be a low-end AVR.
You may be able to vary the intensity of the paintball firing by varying the width of the firing pulse. It depends on how the mechanism is designed. Is the paintball actually propelled by the solenoid? Or does it just release a spring that was wound up by a motor? You really need to understand the guts of the gun to know.
The MSP430 would be adequate for doing the job. Be warned that there have been extremely long delays in getting them, though: I ordered mine when they first announced the promo, and it took 3 or 4 months to arrive.
You would probably find it easier to use an Arduino during the "R&D" phase of the project, because it's easier to set up a program that can communicate with the PC so you can tweak the timings on the fly while you're figuring out what correct values are.
i will probably pick up the arduino i want to make this as easy as possible,
as far the the way the solenoid work is a wound up motor that releases the spring. but im thinking if i make a solenoid i should be able to send it a pulse of power and make it strike a valve or at lease im hoping i can.
whis is what im trying to build, also will i be able to download the program that is already programed in the chip?
Google Spyder Tadao Circuit Board and you can on some pictures barely make out the microchip logo so it's a small PIC processor. Arduino can easily do that.
The TI dev board is cheap but they don't do much with helping Linux users use their boards though that may have changed since last year. If you have windows I'd try it just for the experience.
I googled some pics but nothing was clear enough to see what chip it was. will i be able to read the coding that is in the paintball chip with the arduino?