38 replies to this topic

[Zorns Lemma]

Works well. MakeItGo's version doesn't work as well, probably because silicone domes require a very well beveled lip into the barrel.

What's really important is to get the lip of the flute to butt up against the smoothed edge. If there is a gap then you get a misfire every 30-40 shots.

[DartSlinger]

Here is a theoretical way to solve the misfeeding of silicone domes without using a lathe. If this works, it will be the cheapest and most simple of method of stopping misfeeds. I have not tested this, though, because I do not have any silicone domes. So I need someone with silicone domes to test this out.

Here is the write-up.



Start with a piece of 1/2" CPVC that is about an inch long.



Then mark out a shallow arc on the pipe.



Mark it along the length of the stub of CPVC using a 3D ruler and cut it out. I used a dremel cutting wheel.



Smooth all the sharp edges with sandpaper.



Then apply some type of slow-curing glue to the bottom of the CPVC cutout, and using tweezers or needle-nose pliers, stick it onto that raised ledge in the middle of the wye. The reason you need slow-curing glue is that once you insert it into the wye, you need to straighten it and press it down into the bottom of the wye. Then, just wait for it to cure, and you are done. Here are some pictures of the finished product.



Back of the wye



Top view



Front view,



And another front view

This should work, but as stated before, I need someone with silicone domes to test this out.

Edited by DartSlinger, 16 February 2013 - 04:03 PM.

[Samurai kidd]

Here is a theoretical way to solve the misfeeding of silicone domes without using a lathe. If this works, it will be the cheapest and most simple of method of stopping misfeeds. I have not tested this, though, because I do not have any silicone domes. So I need someone with silicone domes to test this out.

Here is the write-up.

*writeup*

Sorry, how is this different than Carbon's design?
The sch80 still probably works better because it has less surface contact for the head of the dart than cpvc or petg.

[DartSlinger]

Sorry, how is this different than Carbon's design?

It is much simpler. It doesn't involve pounding CPVC into PVC, and the CPVC sits much lower down in the wye.

The sch80 still probably works better because it has less surface contact for the head of the dart than cpvc or petg.

It seems to me that the dart would make slightly less contact with the CPVC in there. Anyway, we won't know whether it works better or not than the other ideas until someone with silicone domes tests it out.

Edited by DartSlinger, 17 February 2013 - 02:01 PM.

[quertyman]

Have you tried this with streamlines/elites?

I tried this mod with some 3/4 od polyester and it fits perfectly inside of the wye.

Edited by quertyman, 17 February 2013 - 11:18 PM.

[Zorns Lemma]

Have you tried this with streamlines/elites?

100% does not work. The rubber stem on the old streamlines we have makes it impossible for them to bend in that smaller space

[quertyman]

100% does not work. The rubber stem on the old streamlines we have makes it impossible for them to bend in that smaller space

Really? Because I just tried this with my version (3/4 od and 5/8 id "flute") and it totally works with my streamlines. The barrel is reamed out polyester.

Edited by quertyman, 18 February 2013 - 12:01 AM.

[Zorns Lemma]

Can you provide a picture of your wye and streamlines? .75" OD material shouldn't really fit inside the wye since it is .84" ID that goes down to .72" or maybe .735" max (1/2" fittings seem to have .06" ridges with tolerance ~.007)

The other possibility is your streamlines don't have the ~.5" rubber stem

What blaster are you firing it out of? I know you can get streamlines to work in +bows and big blasts, but not very consistently, and definitely with a power that causes them to then fly nowhere out of the barrel.

I used a CPVC barrel so while the streamline kind of bends around you just can't fire it anywhere and then it gets stuck and it is impossible to dislodge it. My flute was also very nearly 1/2" ID so maybe using 5/8" gives enough room for the streamlines to not get stuck.

Next time I'll try like lathing down SCH40 PVC if I can't find any 5/8" ID material and using a loose barrel and see if I can get streamlines to fire

Edited by Zorn's Lemma, 18 February 2013 - 12:08 AM.

[quertyman]

Haha! I shot it out of both my plusbow and big blast! So I guess you can scratch the idea of streamline hoppers. Anyway the pipe fits inside the wye because it is cut in half.

My streamlines are regular streamlines.

Edited by quertyman, 18 February 2013 - 02:20 AM.

[snickers]

Haha! I shot it out of both my plusbow and big blast! So I guess you can scratch the idea of streamline hoppers. Anyway the pipe fits inside the wye because it is cut in half.

A bigblast will hopper almost anything that you can cram into 1/2" pvc.

Edited by Zorn's Lemma, 18 February 2013 - 01:51 PM.

[Ryan201821]

A bigblast will hopper almost anything that you can cram into 1/2" pvc.

This is very true. Putty/tape wrap darts, VANS, and silicone domes all work out of my old plusbow to some degree. In a traditional hopper, with a normal powered blaster, they either do not work at all, or only work somewhat.

Seems like a bunch of people make overly powerful blasters, and I don't think this should be the standard for what you should use in this testing.

I'd also like to note, Kane and I have had dart/wye combinations that work flawlessly for a couple days/weeks, only to eventually not work or jam up when using them during a war. Any testing for any design should honestly be tried out in a war or two first to determine if they are reliable enough to use. I guess you can attribute that to the black magic that is involved in a traditional hopper/wye.

[Zorns Lemma]

Updates:

With the exception of darts that are too wide to properly fit through the main barrel and cause jams that become harder to clear due to the flute, I've been running a variant of this system on all manner of blasters and having it be very successful. Here it is on the my ESLT variant:




I haven't extensively tested this for statistical relevance, but here are some repeated empirical experiential thoughts

• It doesn't seem to matter what material or diameter you use for the flute. I've had success with SCH40, SCH80, conduit PVC, CPVC, magic clear CPVC, and polyester
• The flute seems to perform better when it itsn't butted up all the way to the front where the barrel starts. This may explain why this version feeds better than the brithop style I tried at Apoc 2011 on the FAL-1 with RTV domes

[Joe Espinoza]

Doe's anyone else think that steffan looks like a penis? (:

With that set aside, I like the convenience of making one of these. Also, I very much enjoy the reliability of firing at least one dart 100% of the time (according to your data). Shooting two darts is better than none!
I will have to give this a try.

[Ice Nine]

(24 May Update: I tested this in the war yesterday, and it worked very well. See the bottom of this post for details.)
I mostly use high-powered blasters, so I rarely have problems feeding silicone domes in my hoppers. However, out of all my blasters, the ESLT has the highest sustained rate of fire, and so I'd like to be able to use it more often during wars. Unfortunately, it is not as high-volume or as powerful as the +bows, Big Blasts, whatever else, so it doesn't always fire a silicone dome dart. What I've noticed is that the silicone sticks against the bottom of the wye, rather than sliding forward as a felt-tipped dart does.

Zorn's solution in this thread is really good; from what I've seen, it works perfectly. However, I don't have access to a lathe, and I would prefer to not use power tools where it's not necessary. I ordered a 6"x6" sheet of 1/32" thick teflon-PTFE from McMaster, part 8711K93, which I figured would be smooth enough that the silicone dome would just slip along and seat itself, rather than have to deal with any plastic machining. I can cut this sheet with scissors (which is exactly what I did).




At the left, the piece that I install in the wye is visible. It is 1" wide and 1-3/8" long. The sheet is backed with material that is adhesive-ready (that is, it binds to glue, which teflon does not do), but so far, I haven't had to glue it in place on any of my wyes. It is very easy to install, even on blasters (like the ESLT) where the wye is fixed and it isn't easy to get direct access to the inside.

If the wye is detachable, just roll the sheet into a U-shape and slip it into the base of the wye. 1-3/8" is the length from input to input so it should fit end-to-end from the barrel to the stub that attaches to the blaster. 1" wide is enough that it sits comfortably in the wye and covers all the places where the dart might sit. As I said, I haven't found adhesives to be necessary so far. The sheet holds its shape very well and doesn't seem to attempt to flatten out or otherwise misbehave.

If the wye is not easily detachable, it's still fine. I took one of my cut pieces and pushed it into place in my ESLT via the dart tube input. It takes a little bit of force, but the sheet is sufficiently deformable that the eraser end of a pencil was able to get it inside the wye. Here's a photo.





It's not super easy to photograph. Here's an attempt to see inside the back of a wye (the teflon sheet has a sort of blue glow in this photo); this is the wye that I use on my Maximizer. It's apparent that the sheet is barely impacting airflow in the system, there's a tiny lip visible through the stem that sticks up. I could probably mash the edge of the teflon sheet down and get it to stay that way if I put in a little bit more effort with a pencil or something.




I put about 100 shots through my Maximizer and ESLT with silicone dome darts (approximately fifty per blaster). I had three total misfires: two darts just kind of squirted out of the Maximizer barrel, and one dart just squirted out of the ESLT barrel. Most importantly, I never had a mis-feed on either blaster, and these darts were a mixture of good shape to not-so-good shape darts. I would like to test this in a war before making any kind of declarative statements of its effectiveness, but in this limited testing environment it seems to be a pretty good inclusion. There's a war on Saturday so I'll give it a try then and see if I have any additions to this post after that.

This solution is easiest if you have a bunch of blasters that need hopper clips. I'm sure Ryan and Kane would like to be able to include a little stub of this in their blasters since it would negate the need for cornstarching darts, which is a distinctly suboptimal practice and I don't like it. One 6"x6" sheet of this stuff should be enough for about eighteen wyes; if you're already making a McMaster order (that is, discounting shipping), that's roughly $0.61 plus a minute of almost no effort per wye. It probably wouldn't be very much added difficulty to glue them in place, but I haven't tried using glues with this material yet.

*****

I exclusively used wyes with teflon in their basin at the war yesterday. In particular, I used the ESLT about half of the day; I had about three total misfires during the day, and I was exclusively using silicone dome darts that had already been used (which usually makes them a little bit worse). This is a really low misfire rate, for the hundreds of shots that I put through the blaster. I'm very happy with this.

I was also getting some double-fires out of a few of my blasters (QEV homemade, Sceptor) but that was probably more due to barrel length/type than it was the wye, especially since the QEV blaster has an eight inch barrel.

Edited by Ice Nine, 24 May 2015 - 03:42 PM.