12 replies to this topic

[qwertooo]

Good day,

I recently bought a Stryfe and after playing with it for a bit I had the idea of trying to make a few change to increase the power/speed/range. I am not looking to take part in any organised game or anything it is just for fun at home, i am also not interested in doing any esthetic mods. After looking on multiple forum including this one I realised that there was a lot of options/ways to mod a nerf gun and it was really hard to fun an optimal way of doing things. I still have a few questions that could I couldnt find answer and any inputs would be appreciated:

1- I added 4xAA batteries just to increase the voltage and noticed a good change in velocity and range and was wondering if changing the wires and changing the battery for a 2s LiPo would increase the velocity or only affect the recovery time?
2- How long(could be as broad as long enough-not long enough) does a 1000mAh LiPo last? Should I look for something bigger?
3- I would like to stick with a 130 size motor since I dont have a dremel and dont really want to cut the shell, is it worth changing the stock motors? I found some stuff about Tamiya's but very few results were presented.
4- I was thinking adding a 5mw laser and I am wondering if this would be of any help or if the accuracy of the blaster isnt good enough to be worth it?

Bottom line, is LiPo worth the cost if I need to buy a charger just for the blaster? Would be performance justify the cost(about 80$ with charger), time spent or is overvolting the stock motor already giving near max performance? Might be important to note that I am not looking to buy any other nerf blaster or modify any small electronics at the moment.

Any suggestion and quantitative result would be appreciated!

p.s. sorry, english isnt my first language and my lack of better words probably made this hard to read and follow through.

[Lunas]

Dont bother with the laser i got a red airsoft laser that goes on a tact rail and it was useless ripped it off soon after...

as for the 2s

8 AA batteries adds alot of weight to it doesn't it but it sounds beast you might want to look into IMR 14500 batteries they are AA size and can handle more amperage output than a alkaline.

If you want to go the pack route then your really only limited by where you can fit it you could run a cable to a belt pouch with a 10,000 mAh battery in it.

And as for motors i would not bother until the stock ones burn up then look at rc racing motors hyper dash ect but keep in mind they are meant to run on 3v-6v not 7.4-12

[Droid31]

This is what I ended up doing with my stryfe and it is freaking awesome. I got this battery and charger. With these motors. This thing is amazing!!

Edited by Droid31, 25 February 2015 - 10:30 AM.

[darthskids]

I wouldn't bother with an rc battery pack (lipo, nimh, etc) unless you are going to rewire the blaster and change out the stock motors. The stock flywheel motors can propel darts up to about 90-95% of the velocity of a fully custom motor / pack blaster. The difference is around 29 meters per second vs 32-33 meters per second. Also, the stock blasters usually include a couple of diodes and thermistors to control the flow of current to the motors and those will interfere with higher voltage / current packs.

If you aren't going to rewire the blaster then the cheapest and easiest performance gain you could get would be to do what lunas said. Two IMR 14500 cells and two 14500 dummy spacers. They will fit without modification into the stock battery tray, and can deliver a fair increase in current over the alkaline primaries.

[Quack]

Adding 14500 batteries are probably your best bet. I recommend using only three, then a dummy battery. This will boost your performance considerably for the amount of work you would have to do. As for the laser, nerf guns are not accurate at all so you shouldn't waste your money on a laser that wouldn't really help you. This is due to the aerodynamic flaws in the darts. Don't bother changing the motors unless they burn out, but with ultrafires they shouldn't do that for a while. If you don't want to get into serious mods, it's only really worth it to change out the batteries. I mainly do complicated mods for fun and for upper level performance. In a house you don't really need that.

[BlasterHacker]

I have to say, these are some of the best, most clear and direct responses (and some with product links!!!) I've seen here. Thank all the responders as I have had some of the same questions!

[qwertooo]

Just like BlasterHacker said, I have been looking around a lot to find those kind of answer!

@Droid, thanks for sharing, unfortunately I dont have anything to cut the shell making the use of 180s impossible. Also, I couldnt see the battery pack since ebay Canada blocked that link.

I have read about the 14500 batteries route but decided to not go there at first since a lot of user were against it. This is why I choose the LiPo way looking at something like this which would fit in the stock battery tray. The only thing is that I do not own any LiPo charger and paying 40$ for a nerf blaster charger seems like a lot(when all I do is shoot at my house and class mates). On the other side, if 14500 are giving similar performance(I am guessing that the current is still lower than LiPo giving a longer recovry time) for a fraction of the cost, maybe they are the way to go.

On the same topic, is there anything to look for in a 14500 bat charger?? there is some on fasttech for like 5$...I am gonna set anything on fire? And is there any difference in quality between ultrafire and trustfire?

For the motors, once the stock ones die, should I look for hyper dash or torqued tuned tamiyas?? Again, very little quantitative conclusion were found xD

And thanks to everyone for the to-the-point answers

Edited by qwertooo, 25 February 2015 - 07:58 PM.

[Quack]

Li-po batteries are definitely better in terms of current and voltage for their size. HOWEVER, using 14500 batteries are probably a better option for the level of modding that you are doing. The chargers from my previous link will work fine,and I usually chose not to mess around with how the batteries are charged so I don't think you should buy another charger. The difference between trustfire and ultrafire is just the brand, I just look for the best capacity (measured in mAh). If you buy the 14500's (Li-ion) then you will probably not start a fire. Li-ion's are a very stable chemical mixture, but the downside to that is that they pack less punch. Li-po's on the other hand are a volatile mixture and if they are short circuited they will melt metal contacts and can start fires. This is why no battery is definitely better. Your stryfe should last a long time with 3 14500's and a dummy, but, if you really want/need to replace your motors then the tamiya's are a quick fix. I use Shark NSR 40's which are 130 size but have a double ended shaft. So you could cut one side of the shaft or just drill a small so they could stick out (this is what I do)


I have always found Coop772's YouTube chanel helpful as a resource. Hopefully this helps.
If you get stuck during the mod feel free to email me.

[darthskids]

I can't say much about the 130 form factor motors. However, here is some information that may help with the 14500 batteries.

What you have to understand is that none of the batteries are made by the companies selling them. Trustfire, ultrafire, tangsfire, etc., are all resellers of these cells. The original LiCo cells are manufactured by companies such as Samsung and Sanyo and they are not sold individually.

This leads to a few issues. We have no idea where those batteries are coming from and they may very well be recycled or quality control failures. And two, the claims of battery capacity are completely false. Regardless of what the reseller has printed on the label, the 14500's will carry about 400-600mah and the 18650's around 1600-1800mah. I have heard that the Efest brand uses a different chemistry and can supply higher currents, however I have not personally tested them. At least they don't lie about the capacity of the battery, anyway.

Edited by darthskids, 26 February 2015 - 01:36 AM.

[Lunas]

I can't say much about the 130 form factor motors. However, here is some information that may help with the 14500 batteries.

What you have to understand is that none of the batteries are made by the companies selling them. Trustfire, ultrafire, tangsfire, etc., are all resellers of these cells. The original LiCo cells are manufactured by companies such as Samsung and Sanyo and they are not sold individually.

This leads to a few issues. We have no idea where those batteries are coming from and they may very well be recycled or quality control failures. And two, the claims of battery capacity are completely false. Regardless of what the reseller has printed on the label, the 14500's will carry about 400-600mah and the 18650's around 1600-1800mah. I have heard that the Efest brand uses a different chemistry and can supply higher currents, however I have not personally tested them. At least they don't lie about the capacity of the battery, anyway.

Li-ion they use colbalt and some other materials they typically are the ones that vent and there are alot of counterfit batteries labled trustfire or ultrafire i recommend avoiding these batteries. most will handle 1A discharge some will handle up to 3-4A discharge.

Efest IMR is Li-MN or lithium manganese these are safer they can still vent but tests have shown dead shorts only causing them to heat up to around 170F then quit and read 0 volts. They can be charged just fine in the same charger as li-ion and these can put out around 10A so they will be better for recovery and stall... I use these they are made by efest and i find 2 of them work great.

Li-fe these are supposedly safer yet and are more durable however this chemistry touts a lower voltage of 3.3 as such these can not be charged in a li-ion charger and must be charged in a charger that supports them. Tenergy makes these and they have been having issues with counterfeiting.

As for a charger i suggest a nitecore d2 or i2 the newest model should handle any type of battery you have they will even do Nicd or NIMH and li-fe

http://www.amazon.co...rds=nitecore d2

http://www.amazon.co...rds=efest 14500

Also these batteries Lipo li-ion li-mn all 3 of these are considered discharged and in need of being recharged when they hit about 3.2 volts per cell this is still enough to spin the motors and fire just fine but continuing to drain them past this point will damage them. Li-ion when abused either over discharge or over charge tend to vent and cause fires.

To let me know when my batteries are low i put one of these in my stryfe http://www.amazon.co...voltage display

It has a calibration pot on it and i did calibrate mine to my multimeter and i hooked it up to the jam door switch so when i open the door it turns on. I did not cut a hole for it i just hot glued it to the inside of the plastic where i had room as it is bright enough to shine through the plastic it looks a bit fuzzy but is readable.

And for dummy batteries... you will need the following
Solid copper wire 16 gauge preferable i used 18
a AA battery for reference
a piece of paper standard printer paper is what i used
tape or elmers glue or wood glue (i recommend glue it makes for a more durable finished product.)
a pair of needle nose pliers
a pair of scissors

cut your self a piece of wire about 2 inches longer than a AA battery
now cut a strip of paper exactly as wide as a AA battery is long not out to the button on the positive side place wire at one end with a small bit hanging out the positive side and a longer bit hanging out the negative side start the roll and put some glue down as you roll the wire the paper will quickly make it the size of a AA battery when it reaches the size of a AA cut off the remainder of the paper and tape or hold while the glue sets. after the glue sets take the needle nose and curl the short bit of wire into a nub like the battery and coil the longer end tightly to form a plate at the negative end when done you should have a wire the size of a AA battery that fits and passes voltage and current over the wire. You could make the blank longer to be as long as 2AA end to end as well I find that a piece of printer paper length wise makes a AA battery when wrapped around 18 gauge solid core. You can get about 4 blanks out of one sheet.

Edited by Lunas, 26 February 2015 - 06:53 AM.

[Droid31]

Just like BlasterHacker said, I have been looking around a lot to find those kind of answer!

@Droid, thanks for sharing, unfortunately I dont have anything to cut the shell making the use of 180s impossible. Also, I couldnt see the battery pack since ebay Canada blocked that link.

I have read about the 14500 batteries route but decided to not go there at first since a lot of user were against it. This is why I choose the LiPo way looking at something like this which would fit in the stock battery tray. The only thing is that I do not own any LiPo charger and paying 40$ for a nerf blaster charger seems like a lot(when all I do is shoot at my house and class mates). On the other side, if 14500 are giving similar performance(I am guessing that the current is still lower than LiPo giving a longer recovry time) for a fraction of the cost, maybe they are the way to go.

On the same topic, is there anything to look for in a 14500 bat charger?? there is some on fasttech for like 5$...I am gonna set anything on fire? And is there any difference in quality between ultrafire and trustfire?

For the motors, once the stock ones die, should I look for hyper dash or torqued tuned tamiyas?? Again, very little quantitative conclusion were found xD

And thanks to everyone for the to-the-point answers

The battery is a Tenergy 9.6V 2000mAh Nimh Battery Pack RC Car.

Edited by Droid31, 26 February 2015 - 11:33 AM.

[qwertooo]

Is there any Canadian here? Where can we get supply like batteries,chargers and maybe even motors online? Hobbyking is charging like 30$ for shipping and couldnt find a half decent canadian store...

[Lunas]

Is there any Canadian here? Where can we get supply like batteries,chargers and maybe even motors online? Hobbyking is charging like 30$ for shipping and couldnt find a half decent canadian store...

amazon is where i get my stuff they have the turnigy battery packs too they dont seem to have any efests other than 18650 tho. that is on the Canadian site...

Edited by Lunas, 27 February 2015 - 10:12 PM.