36 replies to this topic

[Fome]

This fun little mod can be done with a magstrike, some electrical tools, a dremel, a battery holder, and the electrical components of a nightfinder.

Start with the nightfinder innards:


And chop it so it looks like this:




Now, cut off the OVRP at the end of the bladder (the green nub). I used a sharp razor blade to make it flush with the white plastiic. Then, affix the switch from the nightfinder's electrical stuff onto the back of the MS bladder with hot glue, like this:



I also had to build up a small wall of hot glue on top of the white plastic end cap.

Now dremel/drill a hole through your MS shell, wherever you want the indicator light to be:



Now, add more wiring as necessary, make sure everything works, put your light through the hole, lightly glue or tape everything in like so:



Close up the shell and pump up the magstrike. As the bladder expands towards the rear of the shell, it will press against the switch, completing the circuit and causing the LED to illuminate. This is your semi-finished product, note the convenient placement of the battery holder:



I didn't like how ineffective the magstrike's semi-auto fire was so I integrated two hornet barrels, this is the end result:





Internals:







I call it the Cyborg.

A T-splitter is used between the MS pump and bladder. This then connects to another MS trigger (fills the hornet tanks) which connects to a homemade blast button with a built in check valve, and then to the two hornet tanks. The bottom tank is gooped to a 1/2" pvc endcap with a hole drilled through the center. This provides a much easier alternative to cutting a coupler in half if you want a flat surface and minimal deadspace. The top tank is gooped to a 3/4"-1/2" reducing slip coupler. The barrels are CPVC hammered into 1/2" PVC.

I cut apart a recon shell and epoxy puttied it to the plastic wall of the magstrike, minimal dremeling was required to fit the hornet assembly into the recon shell. The paint is used to unify the two shells and cover up the putty. I also added a dollop of hot glue over the indicator light to both diffuse the light and protect the LED.

35 pumps required to trigger the bladder indicator light. 40 to fire 2 clips. The hornet tanks can be filled after only 6 pumps, at 40 pumps, the hornets can be filled and fired 15 times before the bladder is empty.

I'm going to experiment with banding the MS bladder later.

I hope you all enjoyed my first semi-writeup! Thanks for reading.
-Fome

Qs/Cs/Fs?

Edited by Fome, 04 July 2010 - 03:26 PM.

[stuck by stefan]

Nice. It does look like a cyborg. my suggestion, paint it black, green, and silver And make it look like a borg drone.

[cheesypiza001]

The bladder indicator light is ingenious.

[Salmon]

Excellent mod, and cool gun. And to think all this time, I'd been ripping out those little lasers in NFs, thinking they were useless...
Also, I have to ask, is that a Dremel 200 I spy in those pictures? If so, I would NOT recommend using them for cutting plastic. Their lowest speed is 15,000 RPM, which in my experience makes plastic melt and fume like crazy.

[Fome]

Excellent mod, and cool gun. And to think all this time, I'd been ripping out those little lasers in NFs, thinking they were useless...
Also, I have to ask, is that a Dremel 200 I spy in those pictures? If so, I would NOT recommend using them for cutting plastic. Their lowest speed is 15,000 RPM, which in my experience makes plastic melt and fume like crazy.

Thanks. It's a Dremel 100 actually. It has a single speed and it does make plastic fume a bit with the cut-off wheel and quite a bit more with the sanding drum. I thought this was normal. What do you recommend? I try to always work in a well ventilated area but I suppose if my kids come out with 6 eyeballs and webbed feet, I know what to blame it on...

Elwood: Semi-auto is like tapping the trigger so only a few darts shoot out at a time. The magstrike doesn't seem to be designed for this. The clip falls back down (even with E-tape), the darts don't shoot as far, and all that hard earned air pressure is wasted.

Edited by Fome, 16 June 2009 - 02:05 PM.

[Elwood]

Semi-auto fire? Is that when you hold the trigger and pump? Wow, that thing looks kickass. I'm doing this no doubt.

[lazer371]

Wow, its such a simple device that can help your gun in the long run, you won't over pump and ruin the bladder's memory quickly, it makes me think, " Wow why the hell didn't I think of that?"

[Possemhunter]

Very nice. So simple yet practical. Good job

[white moonlight]

I did think the Nitefinder lights were useless but I haven't been throwing them out.

It looks reallly good.

This mod will help many from blowing magstrike tanks.

[Salmon]

Excellent mod, and cool gun. And to think all this time, I'd been ripping out those little lasers in NFs, thinking they were useless...
Also, I have to ask, is that a Dremel 200 I spy in those pictures? If so, I would NOT recommend using them for cutting plastic. Their lowest speed is 15,000 RPM, which in my experience makes plastic melt and fume like crazy.

Thanks. It's a Dremel 100 actually. It has a single speed and it does make plastic fume a bit with the cut-off wheel and quite a bit more with the sanding drum. I thought this was normal. What do you recommend? I try to always work in a well ventilated area but I suppose if my kids come out with 6 eyeballs and webbed feet, I know what to blame it on...

Yeah, I used a Dremel 200 for the longest time, simply assuming fumes came along with cutting plastic. Then I discovered it was actually melting the plastic slightly, and quickly switched to a 300 model. They go from 5,000-35,000 RPM, and can cut plastic with little-to-no fumes until you get past setting 4, which is supposed to be ~12,000 RPM. Since you say your Dremel is a single speed, that single speed is probably as high as the highest speed on other Dremels, which makes it even worse of an idea to cut plastic with one.
A Dremel 400 should work to, as will a Dremel Stylus, but a 400 is really expensive and cordless Dremels like the Stylus suck.

Edited by Salmon, 16 June 2009 - 05:28 PM.

[TantumBull]

Me likey. Someone already did this exact thing, but that doesn't really matter unless you're claiming originality (not sure if you are or not, didn't read whole thing).

But the cool thing about yours is that it uses materials common for modders (NF light set-up). The other guy had a much more complex system (or at least used actual components from an electronics store).

[anon-dude]

Nice job...I might just have to do that...

[Fome]

Me likey. Someone already did this exact thing, but that doesn't really matter unless you're claiming originality (not sure if you are or not, didn't read whole thing).

But the cool thing about yours is that it uses materials common for modders (NF light set-up). The other guy had a much more complex system (or at least used actual components from an electronics store).

Yeah, I remember looking at something similar a long time ago. If we're talking about the same guy, he used a very different and much rarer switch however, I think it was from some toy from some theme park. Almost every nerfer has a nitefinder.

I also did not like his LED placement, being butted up against your shoulder. My method provides perfect visibility for someone who's righthanded, whether you're pumping or shooting.

It's important to note that this concept can be applied to any nerf gun that uses a bladder and a disabled OPRV.

[Fome]

I definitely would have put the light in a different location, but that's just a matter of taste.

Out of curiosity, where would you put it?

Also, I'm a bit confused. Slower RPMs on a dremel = better for cutting plastics?

Thanks.

[nerfer63]

I definitely would have put the light in a different location, but that's just a matter of taste.

Out of curiosity, where would you put it?

Also, I'm a bit confused. Slower RPMs on a dremel = better for cutting plastics?

Thanks.

Exactly becasue plastic has a low melting point.

Edited by nerfer63, 16 June 2009 - 09:02 PM.

[Fome]

Alright, I'm really frustrated now.

The hornet barrels on the front of the gun aren't firing. If they do fire, the darts piddle out.

1. It used to shoot fantastically.

2. On the very rare occasion, the barrels will shoot well.

3. The magstrike works fine.

4. I can hear air passing through the magstrike's push-valve (supposedly) into the hornet tanks.

5. I fully leak tested all the piping from the hornet barrels to the magstrike's push-valve by submerging the left side of the blaster in water. No bubbles.

6. When I depress the homemade blast-button, air shoots out with quite a bit of force.




I'm thinking it's either the check valve that's allowing the magstrike bladder tobleed air into the hornet tanks as they're firing, somehow closing the rubber stoppers -or-

it could be that the homemade blast valve is unable to accommodate the air coming out and the barrels are firing too slow -or-

the hornet tanks are busted.

However, none of these scenarios except for the first explain why it shot fantastically before and suddenly developed this problem.
Please offer any experience, advice, hypothetical solutions, miracles as you see fit.

Thank you.

Edited by Fome, 24 June 2009 - 04:23 AM.

[Mehku]

I'm very impressed with what you did with the nitefinder light. I'm going to that to my magstrike when I finally go out and buy one.

EDIT: I unfortunately know nothing about hornet internals, sorry.

Edited by Mehku, 24 June 2009 - 11:31 AM.

[Fome]

Ugh. Very dire indeed.

Thanks for the help though, Bob.

I'm going to start ripping into this badboy soon. I'm thinking about rigging an at2k/at3k (not sure) tank up to where the hornet barrels were, setting up an RSCB, and effectively making a semi-auto long range gun with automatic backup... hmmm...

[Fome]

Alright, I finally got the hornet barrels to fire correctly and decided to put some more work into this thing.
I've been playing around with this concept for a while and am fairly pleased with the results:

Full gun shot:



Inline clip breech closed:



Inline clip breech open:


I banded the SHIT out of the piston to slow down the rate of fire. A magstrike, especially with a banded bladder, fires way too fast for the inline clip to function correctly (darts would puke out in a split second, really disappointing).

The inline clip is constructed using 3/4" CPVC, a 3/4"-1/2" reducing CPVC coupler (you have to shave the inside ring for darts to pass through), 19/32" brass, 5/8" brass, and 1/2" CPVC as the barrel. I had to use 3/4" CPVC because 5/8" Brass wouldn't fit in 1/2" Sch 40 PVC.

The "coupler" is a 3/4" flat endcap with the center drilled out. Simply remove the foam from white winged piece on the magstrike (I used a sharp knife and a bit of sandpaper) and attach the endcap with epoxy or hot glue. Using a flat endcap instead of cutting a coupler in half is a much easier way create a perfectly straight barrel when adhering to flat surfaces.

I'm going to make another breech that uses the 19/32" brass as the clip and uses a "sheath" of 5/8" brass to seal the system. This will likely be quicker and easier to load. In the end however, I will probably just use a hopper clip on this particular gun. The breech is a prototype for this project I've been working on:





And before anyone asks, no you cannot use the magstrike clips if you do this mod. I hate them anyways.

[TantumBull]

I know everyone hates this question but I must ask it for 2 reasons:
A. You banded the shit out of the bladder
B. Very little range testing has been done with inline'd magstrikes

What is that mofo hittin?

Also, when I banded my magstrike, if I did more than one band the piston made this hissing noise and just vented air through the back vents. The same problem occurred a while back and I fixed it by gluing on some piece inside the piston that had come off (as instructed to by Bob). Just wondering, with all that banding, everything still working smoothly?

Edited by TantumBull, 02 November 2009 - 06:57 PM.

[CA13]

Please don't single that LS. Maybe you could create a breech like on Tantum's PAS, and make the breech face the top, but please don't single the longshot.

[Fredo]

Please don't single that LS. Maybe you could create a breech like on Tantum's PAS, and make the breech face the top, but please don't single the longshot.

Well what the fuck is he supposed to do jezzy rider? The boltsled would get in the way of the breech opening. Its just to much work. Think things through before you post please. Nobody cares about your personal preferences on a piece of plastic.

Edited by Fredo, 02 November 2009 - 09:09 PM.

[SonReeceSonJensen]

No idea what that is but hella points for anti-minimization.

[Fome]

I know everyone hates this question but I must ask it for 2 reasons:
A. You banded the shit out of the bladder
B. Very little range testing has been done with inline'd magstrikes

What is that mofo hittin?

Also, when I banded my magstrike, if I did more than one band the piston made this hissing noise and just vented air through the back vents. The same problem occurred a while back and I fixed it by gluing on some piece inside the piston that had come off (as instructed to by Bob). Just wondering, with all that banding, everything still working smoothly?

I'll see what I can do about the ranges. It hits hard though, gave me a small welt when I (stupidly) shot myself in the foot.

I'm not sure about your problem, mine seems to work fine. I opened it a few days ago and none of the internals had any stress marks either, I may reinforce just in case though.

Please don't single that LS. Maybe you could create a breech like on Tantum's PAS, and make the breech face the top, but please don't single the longshot.

Longshot is already singled, angel breeches really don't agree with my darts.
The inline clipped magstrike integration is there for rapid fire anyways. I'm going to hook the magstrike piston mechanism to an external tank/bladder, and then pipe the output through some tubing into the LSFG slot so the two barrels will be close to eachother. Dead space is overrated, I don't think a few inches of plastic tubing will have much effect on performance.

No idea what that is but hella points for anti-minimization.

Thanks, I like big, heavy guns. Personal preference.

[BustaNinja]

I love the look of that magstrike longshot cluster fuck thing... Its awesome.