AGD R&D Update
What's happening in AGD R&D?
AO,
It's been a while since I updated you so I thought this would be a good
time. SO what the heck have we been doing? Here is a recap but before
we go on I wanted to explain some of the terminology and how we (and you)
should think about things.
First of all we have two categories for research projects, 1: long term
and 2: short term. If it's a long term project that means its on a mental
list but we are not working on it weekly. Short term of course means we
are spending time on it regularly in hopes that it will happen in the
foreseeable future. Some things never come off long term, others come
to short until we get road blocked and they move back to long.
I am pleased to report that we are finally getting to the end of the
Xmag project and the last major snafu was the ACE boards that all had
to be sent back and rewired. At this point we are trying to look over
every one that goes out extra carefully so we don't screw up. Nothing
on the long or short term list for right now we just want to make the
darn things.
LvL10 Efficiency:
Definitely on the short term list and we have spent a significant amount
of time on the gun dyno looking at stuff. The problem is we can not find
any more than a 5-10% drop in efficiency from L7 to L10. This is looking
over several guns and comparing them back to back with the same paint
etc. We are beginning to think that maybe its not the big issue we thought
it was. If someone has a gun that is drastically worse L7 to L10 please
call us. For right now this one is moving to long term until we get better
info.
Slug Bodies:
It has gone from short to long term while we are waiting for someone to
mill one of these things. After the initial excitement it seems that its
way harder for people to get these milled than we originally thought.
This is making us think that maybe it was an idea ahead of its time and
we need to move in another direction. We remain hopeful that a bunch will
show up soon and get the ball rolling again. We are making another small
batch with the backs extended in hopes it takes off. We have had interest
from a few dealers but we don't have the price locked yet so its slowing
things down. Definitely not dead but holding.
ULE Bodies:
The ULE concept was a quickie thing from a year or two ago that stuck
in everyone's minds so we are going with it. Plan B on the slug bodies
is to just get on with it and make our traditional tube out of aluminum
in lots of pretty colors. You have just voted on the teardrop design for
this body and it is now going into production along with a screw in feed
tube (angel). There will be two cosmetic styles of short feed tube which
you have already seen. These should be out in weeks if things go right
ULE Warp Bodies:
Lots of people are asking about these but there is a problem. To make
it come out the side it has to go THROUGH the rail. This requires machining
and from the Slug experience this seems difficult for people to get done.
We are still thinking about it so it stays short term.
Detents:
Well I have complained about them long enough so now we had to step up
and make them ourselves. We (hopefully) fixed all the stupid stuff and
have a robust design. They are one piece and fit angel threads. Staying
with our attempt to look cool we are making them with the little grab
slots on the outer edge that you like so much. They have nylon balls and
are at the machine shop now. Look for them in a few weeks. Sorry to the
people that didn't get detents with their Xmags everyone was out of stock
hence we have to make them.
Roller Trigger:
My super hype job got these guys rolling so we spent an afternoon on it
two days ago and came up with a simple, elegant design that can bolt to
your existing trigger. You have to drill and tap holes but we think that
may be doable at your local store. We blasted prints to our suppliers
and we are expecting a batch of protos back this week (cool huh?!). We
will be selling these protos in the store asap with the idea that YOUR
TESTING THESE OUT. Just like the first Superbolt, don't buy them unless
your willing to deal with it. The design is slick and removable if you
don't like it. They will be cheap too!
Elec. / Mech Trigger:
Simon is currently working on his own version of this. It's version of
our switch that once you flip to mechanical mode blocks out E mode. It
has been on our long term list but might move off if the tourney's get
worse about it. I am waiting to see what Simon came up with.
Trap Door Feed:
Remember this one? No its not dead just on the long term list. With the
ULE body not working with warps and the Xmag needing a good warp module
this could be slated to get worked on soon.
Grips for Xmag:
We know you want them but the smartest thing for us to do is make our
frame fit existing grips. To do that requires re machining the frame and
a new pc board design. That is a lot to bite off right now and we have
a lot of grip frames in stock. This one is staying on the long term list
for a while more, sorry.
Y Grip:
Well the good news is that this one is right on the edge of getting on
the short list! When we have a chance we are going to rework the print
and see if it works out the way we want. If it does we will come to the
forum and survey for preorders. If the demand is there we will pre-sell
100 of them and tell our machine shop to start cutting. If we don't pre-sell
100 it dies forever! They will be somewhere between 100-125 dollars so
start saving.
Emag Battery:
We are spending a significant amount of time looking at the whole power
system on our e-guns. As you can imagine the battery/recharger system
is quite expensive and we would like to reduce that cost for all of us.
The problem is that the Plutonium power source we are interested in is
really hard to find . No news here but we are noodeling it daily.
Apparel, Promo:
Yes we do this too! We have arranged to have CSG the people that made
your AO jerseys do all our jerseys. We now have them in the store and
you can order them custom online! We also have hats with the AO logo on
order along with headbands, and a bunch of other stuff I cant remember.
We have also just upgraded our plotter to a 42¨ 1200 dpi HP system
that we can print glorious full color posters on. We are waiting for delivery
of a laminator so you can order wall candy of your favorite AGD products
/ people and they will be water proof no less! For those of you running
small tourneys, we have developed a generic 2' x3' full color scoreboard
that we can print out with the name of your tourney right on it! If you're
an AGD dealer you can order one for free!
So THAT'S what we are doing here in R&D!!! (See, it's all just for
you)
AGD
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