TheWiredDJ

My thoughts on this are simply speculation at this time as I have not constructed my own afterburner rayven setup, but I've had this opinion on this setup since seeing it first implemented about a year ago. The inherent fault in this design is the length of barrel between the front and rear flywheel sets. In an afterburner setup, the rear flywheels should be serving a purpose soley to accelerate the dart to the extent that it is entering the front flywheels at a faster speed than initially at rest. Since the barrel section (faux barrel in your case) is longer than 1 dart length +/- ~1/2 inch, you can run into the scenario where darts are not propelled forward in a perfectly straight fashion and will then lodge in the faux barrel section (due to not hitting the front flywheels in a manner consistent with possible feeding into the flywheel cage). Ideally for an afterburner setup, should the middle barrel section not be 1 dart length +/- ~1/2 inch, where the dart will enter the front flywheel set almost instantly after leaving the rear set, without leaving room for it to veer off-course in the center barrel section into a postion where the front flywheels cannot catch, feed and fire the dart? Granted, that ideal setup is not possible within the confines of a non-heavily modified rayven shell, but the theory in itself should be sound. Just my 2 cents on the issue.

What will happen if I use it on a translucent plastic piece? Does it cause it to become brittle? Is the color solid or semi transparent? Does the dye soak into clear plastic at all?

From personal experience, I can tell you that it will coat the plastic in the same manner as opaque plastic, and it soaks in to the same extent. For example, the translucent orange jam door on a rapidstrike, when coated with Duplicolor flat black vinyl dye, will turn the same opaque black color as the other Rapidstrike components when coated. It doesn't discriminate based on color (or lack thereof).

There are 'thermistors-' they cut out with heat. Remove them.

The pcbs that are physically attached to the motors in a Stryfe are just inductant filters (to channel out RF interference to pass FCC interference regs). You can just rip those off, but those shouldn't physically have an impact on the performance of your DC circuit. The thermister however, is the yellow component on the pcb at the back of the stryfe connected to the battery terminal. That needs to go for modification purposes.

The biggest thing to keep a paintjob looking good, is to make a paintjob good from the start.

The main ways to do so are:
-Use a good priming method (some proven combination of vinyl dye, sanding, paint primer, and/or cleaning)
-Choosing good quality paints that will adhere well to plastic (that's another conversation in itself)
-Use good painting techniques when applying coats (there's a ton of guides/tutorials out there for proper application)
-Apply a good clear coat afterwards

As for the wear you're experiencing with moving parts, I believe that most people recommend applying some white lithium grease to areas with moving parts, then wiping away the excess as it can eat the paint away (someone correct me if I'm wrong here), resulting in smooth operation that won't tear into the paintjob nearly as quick.

The "ShortStrike" - a minimized, elite-ified LongStrike:

[Pre-minimization]


[End Product]




[w/ quick-lock stock]