jwasko

Thanks to all who participated. It was nice to see some new things on the site: the Homemades had a few new tricks, and the Modifications showed what could be done with a limited "base model." Seeing some info on paint and other aesthetics was great, too.

 

Perhaps folks already looked at the polls and figured it out on their own, but now that I had time to go through and double check my spreadsheet, hereare the results.

 

In short:

The highest overall score was Spud Spudoni's IPAC.

Second Prize (best score in the Modifications category) goes to Snoop for his Pump Action Sentinel.

 

Congratulations to both of you!

Would slightly heavier darts (fvj, waffle tip) be able to handle slightly higher fps via slightly higher voltage without fishtailing as badly as slightly lighter koosh darts?

I think I've decided on using a worker buffer tube and an airsoft grade butt stock that houses an 8.4v sub-c nimh pack and hoping it works well with mtb rhinos and slightly heavier ekind waffle darts without fishtailing. And hoping upgrading to canted metal flywheel cage will help with dart fishtailing.

A canted flywheel cage can cause whirlybirds. Most people go for straight cages.

 

But yes heavier darts are often more stable at high velocity (although heavier darts will also not fly quite as fast out of the same blaster)

Anyone ever hear of patience? I'm going to be paying the winner out of my own/my family's pocket and doing this in my "spare" time, after all.

 

It doesn't matter though; homemades and mods can both enter the contest and are just separate categories.

What he said.

 

You want to submit a blaster? Submit a blaster. We'll figure out what category it goes into before judging, I promise.

You may have already seen this, Slug, but there was a design posted on reddit for a magazine that used a rubber band: https://www.reddit.c...ed_stefan_mags/

 

It is made to use with stefans in a standard size magwell, so it won't fit in a pistol grip. But it might be something to consider.

Hi Bryan.

 

Introductory posts are generally not preferred, but you did ask some questions, too, so I guess it's cool.

 

1. I'm really not sure about Jolt spring replacement, but sometimes a blaster will surprise you with what it can actually handle. According to this threada [k26] won't fit but there is some debate as to whether an Ace 62 will destroy a Jolt.

 

2. I really don't know of anyone who has one of these high end air rifles you're talking about. They would probably need a barrel replacement and, if the "stock" caliber is small, it may not actually have the power to throw a larger projectile as far as you might think.

 

If you could get it to fire a dart, however, it would probably not fly very far, or very straight. Nerf darts (even homemade ones) aren't really made to be shot at 1000+ feet per second.

 

Anyway, welcome and enjoy.

 

PS: The steel nuts were almost certainly too heavy for a rampage, which is why they didn't fly far. Also, you should probably cover any metal on your darts with some sort of padding. You know, for safety's sake.

 

 

 

I feel like I act like a 2009 moderator with no powers...

And if you acted like that in 2009 you wouldn't have the power to post at all right now. The Code of Conduct does explicitly state "No back seat moderating." So knock it off.

There is definitely a difference, and IMRs are better in every way (aside from cheapness, unfortunately). See a previous post about them here.
 
Try to get at least 18 gauge wire, or 16 gauge (which is thicker) would be even better.
 
Make sure you get stranded wire (i.e. there are a hole bunch of thin copper wires twisted together), not  solid wire (which is hard to bend and easy to break). You can find PVC-insulated wire in Lowes/Home Depot. Silicone-insulated wire is better (the insulation is thinner and more flexible so it fits in blasters better, and is heat-resistant), but more expensive and you'll probably have to order it online.
 
There are $5 motors available from Containmentcrew.com, but I wouldn't run them on Trustfires.
 
If you are going to use trustfires, please don't buy ultra cheap ones from ebay, which are probably knockoffs and are rather likely to explode on you.
 
Edit: Also, I don't know if you already own Trustfires and a charger for them, but Lipo chargers can be as cheap as $13 and a LiPo as cheap as $3.50 (may want 3S instead of 2S, depending on the motor).

I have a recon shell in my homemades toolbag that is exclusively for tracing onto wood for handles.  I never understood the love for the maverick handle, the bumps never quite line up with my fingers.

Obviously the issue is with your fingers, Mav grips are pretty much my second favorite bumps to hold.

 

My favorite bumps are much squishier and don't quite fit in my hand as well, but they're really fun to play with.

 

Editting in something useful: http://www.smooth-on.com/media.phphas lots of instructional videos for mold-making and casting

Edit: This modification has been successfully completed by Zombona on an otherwise stock Rapid Madness. However, he had problems when he repeated it on his Bullpup Rapid Madness. For now, proceed with caution and be sure to test your blaster before making any permanent/non-reversible changes to it.


Zombona, perhaps the NIC's biggest Boomco fan, developed a method to seal the air release holes in Boomco clips (see here) in order to utilize blasters' air output more efficiently. This has been shown to substantially increase muzzle velocity/range out of the various spring-powered Boomco blasters like the Dynamag.

Unfortunately, the Rapid Madness (RM) has "dart sensors" that ride in these air release holes and thus prevent the use of sealed clips. Here's how to remove the dart sensors while keeping your RM functional:

First, you'll have to remove the ring that is glued around the RM's pump. It was quite a bit of work to pry mine off.



There is a second glued ring at the muzzle. I was able to just pry the blaster apart after removing the screws to break the glue at the muzzle, but you may choose to simply cut off the end of the barrel.



Once you've gotten the blaster apart, pull the firing valve assembly (infamously called the "black box") out of the shell.

The side of the black box that rested against the right side of the shell is the side of interest for this modification. It's this side:



Remove the circled screws to access the dart sensing mechanism, and you'll see this:



Remove the extension spring indicated by the red arrow. The piece indicated by the yellow arrow is what I'm going to call the bump trigger. It's essential in order to make the RM fire in full auto because when it's pushed by the dart sensing arms it lines up with this catch:



You won't be able to see this catch unless you disassemble the black box a lot further than this guide requires. It gets moved back and forth, and (if the bump trigger is pushed into place by a dart) gets rammed into the bump trigger, completing the cycle and releasing air down the barrel. We are going to make the bump trigger stay pivoted towards the back of the blaster (where the tubing connects to the black box), so that it will be lined up with this catch all the time.

Anyway, moving on with this modification, flip over the grey plate that you removed earlier. The circle molded into it matches up with the circle on the bump trigger:





You need to use something to keep the bump trigger in this position. I chose to simply place a screw to hold it in place. You could use a short 4-40 screw, countersink , tap it, etc etc. I didn't even have a small enough drill bit, though, so I used a #6 wood screw to drill a hole here:



And then put in a spare nerf screw:



You'll reassemble by placing the bump trigger back on its pivot point without the extension spring, and then turning it clockwise until it stops (aka moving it towards the back until it stops). I suggest putting it together and test-firing it at this point to make sure it works. You should be able to fire it with or without a clip inserted.

Now we need to remove the dart sensing armatures. Remove the right side cover plate again then remove these circled screws from the top of the black box:



Take off the top clip guide rail, which has that extra spring-loaded armature on it:



Do the same with the bottom guide rail.



At this point the front will look like so:



Take these three scews out of both guide rails.



Now you can take out the metal rod from each guide rail, which has the dart sensing armatures attached





Reassemble the guide rails. There is one more, torsion spring-loaded dart sensing part that needs removed from both the top and bottom guide rails. You could try punching out the pins, but I couldn't get them out. I suggest leaving the part of the hinge molded onto the black box, but you could cut the end off the spring-loaded armatures.



After this, reassemble everything and you'll be able to use sealed boomco clips.

Special thanks to Buffdaddy and Zombona for previously detailing how to disassemble the black box.

 

What happened to vacc I've heard so much about him but I have never seen him

I passed out at that party, but I've heard the stories.

As Langley alluded to, the Sex Dwarves delved too greedily and too deep. Too deep we delved there, and woke the nameless fear.

Vacc fell through fire and water...and then more fire, I guess? Now he's traveling through the Nine Circles of the Inferno to have one last war against Satan. From the lowest dungeon to the highest peak, they'll fight...until at last one shall throw down his enemy and smite his ruin upon the earth.

I'm sure someday Vacc will return to play 1:0 against us mere mortals with an army of demons behind him, Lucifer's head speared on Binky's barrel (barrel taps are allowed in hell, I hear).

Or something like that. Hard to tell with these things.

Since this thread has already been revived, I just want to add this (actually useful) information:

These motors contain metal brushes and have been shown to have poor durability even when using four AA batteries (which are around 4.8 to 6 volts total). Using a higher voltage and/or something that provides more current such as a LiPo battery pack will make them burn out even faster.

If you are just getting into modifying flywheel blasters, or if you are stuck using regular alkaline (AA or C) batteries, there's nothing necessarily wrong with using these motors...but there are other motors out there that will give better performance for not that much more money; however, you will need to rewire your blaster with thicker gauge wire and add a LiPo or NiMH R/C battery pack to use them.

Motor example: http://www.containme...op/mtb/mtb-001/

Mod Guide for a Rapid Red (basically the same as a Stryfe) (unfortunately the motors she used are no longer available; don't buy from that ebay link):
http://nerfhaven.com...showtopic=26150

Mod Guide for a Rapidstrike (this doesn't actually mention a motor swap, but it could easily be done during this modification):
http://torukmakto4.b...ated-guide.html

More torque helps to spin up flywheels faster, and to keep them near max speed while firing quickly. Especially since you're using metal flywheels, I can't blame you for wanting more torque.

That being said, I don't know of any 180-size motors with more torque off-hand...in fact, I don't even know how much torque an Extreme Pro 180 has. Do you have a link to a spec sheet for them? Also You say that RPM isn't as important, but what's a minimum RPM? There are plenty of motors with more torque (not necessarily in a 180-size can) but the trick will be finding a motor that still spins fast enough while having more torque.

Overall suggestion: If you really do need more torque, perhaps you should look into a larger size motor (like a 300-series)? That's what's in the Nerf Rival Zeus.

Legit necro-ish post?

In the interest of making this type of blaster cheaper, I found this video which uses a "sleeve valve" to pilot a QEV in a semi-auto manner. It's actually called a manual (or hand) slide valve.

Both amazon and ebay sell this type of valve for around $5 including shipping. This ebay listing is particularly cheap, although I have not been able to find any data as to its flow rate.

Now, this valve isn't nearly as sexy as the MJVO-3. Note that it is a manual return, but I figure there's gotta be a way to cobble something together to fix that.

The cheapest MJVO-3s I've found are around $25 shipped so the cheapness of this valve may be worth the extra work to some.

April 25th is the weekend of my 1yr wedding anniversary and even though she's pretty cool the 18th would probably work better.

Slugs are for little girls, not sexy dwarves, disco dollies, or my dumb chauffeur.

This is why I use pressure gauges. When you guys want replacement tanks, drop me a line.

That's your safest bet.

Other options:
1.The "if you have to lean on the pump to continue pumping, it's probably going to break" method: when it gets kinda difficult to pump stop pumping. You should get plenty of power out of the tank by that point anyway. (Note: If you have biceps the size of Texas, this method may not work)

2. If you bought a whole titan (not just the tank) it has a goofy little pressure gauge in it. Use it instead of throwing it out. Again, it might not read up to the absolute maximum pressure the tank can hold but if you max out that gauge I think you should still be able to launch a dart plenty far anyway.

For maximum efficiency?


1. Pump up. Count how many pumps.

2. Keep going until you hear a loud "bang".

3. Subtract one pump from the total. Rebuild your air [tank].


There you go.