7 replies to this topic

[Brimstone Omega]

So I recently modded up my first Rapidstrike, I know these have been out for some time, I've been slacking....

Any who...I'm having issues with a good percentage of the darts exiting the the barrel at ridiculous trajectories, and the overall performance of the blaster is all over the place. I'm not sure if this is typical with the blaster, I've not heard of it being so, if anything all I've heard is praises for the toy.

Now I'm wondering if it may be one, or both of two things;

1- I modded the blaster to take 6 AA batteries.



Could what I'm experiencing be dart slippage? I've seen this term, but have never experienced it before in my blasters. Perhaps not enough current to power three motors with the non-rechargeable batteries i have in it for the test?

2-It could possibly be that the flywheels are revving up to a different RPM. I had a bit of an issue with the motor tab on one of the flywheel motors, and had to rebuild the bell housing with a spare motor I had laying around. The new bell cap is open, so it may be running a bit more efficiently that the closed bells on the stock motor. I wired it up parallel with the purely stock motor and had the dart wobble problem, so I swapped it out with the worm drive motor of the dart pusher and have the exact same issue. This is the blasters current configuration.




Here she is rebuilt. I used all the original parts (i.e. bell, magnets, spiny do-hickey) only replaced the cap.



So, yeah, that's my problem. I scuffed up the flywheels with a heavy grit sand paper to give 'um a bit more bite, that helped some, but the darts still go crazy. Not a huge problem, maybe 2-3 out of the 18 in the mag, but enough to be a nuisance.

Oddly enough, the old school streamlines seam to perform better than elites or glow darts...

Anywho, here's a short vid demonstrating the problem. Half and half streamlines to elites. You can see that my Stryfe out performs the Rapidstrike quite a bit, at least with its consistency. Even with the awesome tacti-cool barrel. It's a bit hard to see the darts, but that last streamline demonstrates the issue perfectly.

Compairison Video

Thanks in advance if anyone has any advice.

Edited by Brimstone Omega, 20 October 2015 - 09:51 PM.

[Lunas]

To me it seems like they are not going far enough over all like mine blasts a spray of foam out much further than yours did it seemed some went sideways in the barrel and lost energy really quick.

[Brimstone Omega]

That's what I thought too. It seemed to have worked better stock. I'm going to get some better batteries for it and see if that helps at all, if not maybe a new set of motors... Kinda disappointed with the performance of it. I've done other battery upgrades and restrictor removals before and always the blasters have worked out much better in the past. Don't really know what the deal is with this one...

My guess is that the flywheels are spinning up at a much different RPM and tossing the dart either up or down into the barrel and giving it the wonky performance.

Edited by Brimstone Omega, 21 October 2015 - 10:26 PM.

[Lunas]

That's what I thought too. It seemed to have worked better stock. I'm going to get some better batteries for it and see if that helps at all, if not maybe a new set of motors... Kinda disappointed with the performance of it. I've done other battery upgrades and restrictor removals before and always the blasters have worked out much better in the past. Don't really know what the deal is with this one...

My guess is that the flywheels are spinning up at a much different RPM and tossing the dart either up or down into the barrel and giving it the wonky performance.

Humm you had to rebuild the end bell of one motor i wonder if that has anything to do with it try moving that one to the pusher?

Or replace both flywheel motors.

Edited by Lunas, 22 October 2015 - 10:18 PM.

[Brimstone Omega]

That's actually what I did do. The rebuilt motor is running the pusher, and I moved the pusher motor to the flywheels. I ran it with both configurations and had relatively the same results. The video I posted is with the rebuilt in the pusher position. I figured that all three motors would be the same, but I'm now leaning toward thinking the pusher motor is running at a different RPM than the other two, probably slower spin and higher torque to push the darts.

I'm thinking you may be right in the need of a new set of motors, I'm gonna have to tinker with the thing a bit more, I know the performance is there for these blasters, and I'm guessing that my issue stems from the whole motor deal.

[Brimstone Omega]

So I must apologize for the double post, but I have an update on my issue. On a hunch I cracked the blaster open and wired up one of the RC car batteries I had laying around and got phenomenal results. I think that either the AAs I was using were just crap, or that they just were not providing the current that the three motors were trying to draw.



I initially rejected the thought of using this motor for two reasons, the first being I figured 9 volts (6x1.5AA)would give me a better bang than the 7.2, and I thought that the battery would not actually fit into the stock battery compartment. Well, it took some doing but it went in and the results speak for themselves.

I used a plug adapter and soldered it directly to the Rapidstrike's battery tabs and had to cut out a bit of the inside of the front cosmetic battery cover but it fit, if barely. I had to cut a few small bit of foam to deaden some of the vibrations because when this thing gets going it rattles and vibrates like a broke down washing machine.







All in all, I'm very happy with the blaster's performance now. It's come a long way from initial mod to the functional foam flinger it is today.

And for the updated firing video click HERE .

[jwasko]

Good job with troubleshooting. I missed this post to start with, but I wouldn't have thought that it would be be a battery issue.

It does kind of make sense in hindsight, though. From what I've read, AA batteries put out less current than C batteries...that's at least one reason why Hasbro put C batteries in the RS to begin with.

Plus, upping the voltage like you did only made the motors more current-hungry at the same time that you were reducing the current provided. That NiCd battery, on the other hand, should provide plenty of current.

[Brimstone Omega]

Good job with troubleshooting. I missed this post to start with, but I wouldn't have thought that it would be be a battery issue.

It does kind of make sense in hindsight, though. From what I've read, AA batteries put out less current than C batteries...that's at least one reason whI'm Hasbro put C batteries in the RS to begin with.

Plus, upping the voltage like you did only made the motors more current-hungry at the same time that you were reducing the current provided. That NiCd battery, on the other hand, should provide plenty of current.

Thanks for looking, and I was a bit surprised to see the difference between the batteries to, and glad it was such a simple switch to get this thing up to par. I'll probably be picking up another RS and giving it a full work over soon, LiPo, new motors (those Rhinos you link in that other thread look tempting), and a few cosmetic mods, . This was was more of an initial test run to see what's up with this blaster. I really like this thing and would love to push it as far as I can, seams like a really fun blaster to tinker with and just go to town on.

Edited by Brimstone Omega, 31 October 2015 - 05:37 PM.