Semi-formal Regulator Testing

[nerobro]

Friday night when the tests were done, tom took us stragglers to see something really cool. well that's the impression I got. :-) He showed us a dark superman angel, which was a little cut up, and rigged so you could use the pressure sensors from the gun dyno on it.

There was one hose tapped into the side of the valve chamber, and then they had a volumizer that also had a fitting on it so you could test the LPR's preformance.

Tom showed use the preformance of the retrovalve. It's everything it's cracked up to be. And then the angel was hooked up and we got to see the graphs of it's preformance..... the angels' reg, even after 10 secconds hadn't fully recovered to it's set pressure.

This I found hard to believe. Very hard to believe. And if you check my seccond post on AO.. You'll see I voiced my oppinon on such matters.

Later that evening, while sitting around the AGd offices. We discussed what that angel had done, and it came up that we'd like to see another angel tested. Saturday night, tom had another 2 angels on hand for testing. We used a slightly less sophisticated setup to test the govinar's recharge time. But the results appeared to be the same on all three angels that were tested. The results were scary. Basicly you can draw the conclusion that the regs that come on angels.. SUCK.

Just to make sure the whole industry wasn't lame, we hualled in my cocker with it's palmers stabilizer on it. And put the stab on the angel to see what it would do. the LPR on the angel was still a very very poor preformer. but the recharge time on the valve chamber was very much better. We then tested it on my cocker, and got the same results.

We currently have data on 4 regs at the moment. the Govinair, palmers stabilizer, the automag's reg, and the RT's reg. We didn't see data on the automag's reg that night, but we did see that from the govinair, stab, and rt..

The Stab recharged most of the way in .044 secconds.. fast enough that we saw a funny spike in the recharge. We aren't sure where that came from, but it could be air heating, or it could be some other part of the regs design. either way the stab recharged VERY quickly.

We saw the rt. which instead of the normal recharge curve, you see a near vertical line untill the reg charges up to full pressure. and then you see it drop off a little as the air cools.

And we saw the govinair, which took amazingly long to recharge to the same level as the stab. If tom still has that reg around, I'd like to know how long it actually took for it to get to within 20psi of fully recharged.

Given the results from this informal testing.. I'd love to see a RT based inline reg...

[CRySyS]

How likely is an inline RT reg AGD? It would be simple to make and it would give you a use for any old RT reg bodies you have laying around. Just make a top piece to screw into like this...

http://users2.ev1.net/~crysys/images/miniRTinline.jpg

Its no tech drawing or anything, I just whipped it up with MSPaint a few minutes ago but the idea it sound. At least I think it'll work that way... ;)

[nerobro]

I'll be first in line for one. though now I'm really curious on the internal design of palmers reg. I'd also like to see the preformance of my maxflow.. pms minireg 1... and a few other regs on the market.

[Vegeta]

Heres my idea- ill model it in 3D Studio later. i guess u could call it the AGD Argonomic regulator.

[Vegeta]

Double output:

[CRySyS]

Wouldn't that be double input? This would be double output...

http://users2.ev1.net/~crysys/images/RTinlinedbl.jpg

[Vegeta]

Yea I should have connected htat small tube to the 2nd output, and not had it connected to the reg screw.

[hardr0ck68]

yeah i was gonna order a max-flow untill i heard about this....now im goin flatline. I think tom should put every reg for paintball on this dyno and lets see what performs and what is junk. finally force paintball producers to make quality products. i would buy a agd inline reg in a sec for my non mag guns. couldent they use the second air line (the one that ushally goes to the on off valve) for a low presure reg?

[CRySyS]

is how the reg will react in its new environment. In an RT it has to fill a relatively small chamber directly in front of it. As an inline it will have to fill any number of guns as well as the air line going to the gun. Thats going to mean a larger chamber to fill and at a much farther distance. Is it going to try to overpressure the gun like a poorly tuned max-flow can. Will it need a big honking relief valve like the max-flow or will it react fast enough to prevent too much pressure from building up before it snaps shut. Definitely something I'd like to see tested.

So come on Tom, were doing your R&D here for you, just build it! ;)

[nerobro]

You can place a restriction in the regs output. Remember, in theroy so long as the gun is more efficant than an automag, it will be using less gas, so there will be less heating. I think that the heating/overpressure effects are something we can live with or tune around. Just like when dealing with an RT. At least if we don't want to sacrifice the benifits of the RT reg... Because as we discussed at the supertour, tom can restrict the recharge speed of the reg, you just need to put in a really tiny hole in the flow path ;-) Though as he said then as well... people will just take out the drills and drill out that restriction. Hmm.... Replacable inserts with different sized holes for tuning..... maybe we could use the jets from carberuators (at least then the jets would be common)

[paintball8869]

there already is an automag vertical regulator. It's called the ANS GENX2 REGULATOR. Same exact design as the mag's regulator. Also, Air America has something that is almost exactly the same as the the GENX2 reg, just with slightly different design. The Air America reg (can't remember what the name was) has 8 holes inside where you can unscrew it and the ANS one has the 2 half moon shapes.

[nerobro]

Close but not quite. ANS, violator, unireg, black ice, and all sorts of regs are all near direct copies of the reg in the AIR. What we are talking about here is the RT valve. It's very different from the AIR's reg.. Whereas the AIR's reg sees dropoff in teh 10-12bps range ( this is an IIRC... if tom can chime in.. or anyone who's seen the data ) Where the RT is good all the way up to 26bps... What we're rooting for is a RT valve in a inline reg setup ;-)

[BlackVCG]

AIR valve in testing shows signs of drop off at 6bps. At 13bps there's about 10fps drop off. Watch videos of the AIR valve going FA around 13-16bps and you can barely notice the drop off.

[nerobro]

Where will I catch video of that? The only video I know of of mags shooting that fast are the oddessypaintball halo videos. and those are of a retromag and an e-mag.

[BlackVCG]

Actually, the video of the Hyperframe Mag on Odyssey's site is a Mag with a standard AIR valve.

[nerobro]

Well i'll be, you're right ;-) intersting.. 16bps on an AIR valve.

[laysomepaint]

im curious to see how well a number of regs would do in this test. mostly, the AKA sidewinder. they claim to have the highest flowing reg in paintball, and everyone i know that has used one agrees. well, prove right/wrong. hmm...also heard that the stab is equal to the sidewinder. never used the sidewinder...have a stab though.

[squidboy69]

did anyone ever hear back about the AKA reg?? my cocker's operating pressure is going rapidly south, as such I'm having a hard time keeping air to it, based on volume. I'm in around the 150-200 PSI range@ 250 fps. I'm looking to get an inline, as my dual regualted PMS system isn't capable of feeding much below 200psi without shutting off.
advice?

[laysomepaint]

id suggest the the stabilizer, sidewinder, or gladiator. everyone I know that has a cocker uses these with excellent results in low pressure set-ups

[ciaran.mooney]

Originally posted by nerobro
even after 10 secconds hadn't fully recovered to it's set pressure.

Maybe Angels dont need to reach their set pressure to work properly without dropoff? Maybe to work at their best they only need about 70%? So when they are rapid firing even if they only fill to 70% they still work without any drop off?

[manike]

Originally posted by nerobro
Well i'll be, you're right ;-) intersting.. 16bps on an AIR valve.

It can go faster! There are rumours of an Automag shooting 20bps... No idea if there was drop off though. The firing range was too short. Allegedly.

manike

[manike]

Originally posted by ciaran.mooney
Maybe Angels dont need to reach their set pressure to work properly without dropoff? Maybe to work at their best they only need about 70%? So when they are rapid firing even if they only fill to 70% they still work without any drop off?

It would be very interesting to see Tom's gun dyno results on this. He may prove what I am about to say completely wrong :) But it is possible that this kind of thing happens. With a well set up gun using the 'knock open' style valve then you can find that the valve design compensates for the pressure behind it.

For instance if the pressure is fully recharged and high then the valve is shut quickly by the extra pressure and so your dwell is short. If however the pressure behind the valve is low it stays open for longer and you get a longer dwell. Now if your gun is set up correctly the short dwell high pressure can give you the same velocity at long dwell low pressure. This definitely works on some guns and I guess it will also on the angel under rapid fire (although probably nowhere near as well as it should if it recharged faster).

Where I used to work they had a tippman SL68 (that's one for the older players ;) ) and this gun was pretty damn consistent. It was very used and abused. One day I thought I'd take it apart and see if it needed any work (yeah yeah if it aint broke don't fix it blah) and I found that the valve spring had rusted so the only thing shutting off the valve was the co2 pressure behind it! Funny thing was the gun was consistent on a full tank and a low tank (they weren't all).

My Autococker is tuned to a point that if you turn the pressure up the velocity goes down, and if you turn the pressure down the velocity goes down... If you think of this as a velocity Vs pressure graph you will see there are two sides on it (bell graph). One which gets the same velocity with high pressure and one which gets the same velocity with low pressure. Even though the valve is being opened by the same spring under the same force. I don't know if all angels operate this but it is possible that they do.

manike

[cledford]

Glad to hear that the Palmer tested well - I paid about $25 dollars more then any other reg available for mine, and I'm always glad to see I made a good choice.

Here is a quote from the Palmer web-site, I'm wonder if anyone cares to address it. Basically (Craig Palmer I believe) is saying that their reg is TWICE as consistent as a uni-reg. The AIR/RT/Air America stuff are all variations of the unireg, right?

Anyhow, it made for interesting reading. I'm looking forward to standardized reg testing - I want to see where MacDev and the MaxFlo fit in. I feel that reg consistency is the heart of accuracy.


Here is the Palmer quote:

What is the general difference between the unireg and the Stabilizer (i.e. effectiveness)?

The major benefit of the Stabilizer over the Unireg is that the Stabilizer will maintain consistency just about twice as well as the Unireg can. This is due to the design and dimensioning of the unit. Through any regulator there is a certain amount of inverse pressure variation in the output pressure that results from the variation in supply pressure. (as the supply pressure to the regulator goes up or down, the output pressure will go up or down, exactly opposite, and in a ratio that is proportional to the valve and diaphragm (or plunger) dimensions. (i.e. as the supply pressure goes down, the regulated pressure will go up slightly and vice-versa) In the case of a Unireg, that ratio of change is approx. 35:1; meaning that for every 35 psi of supply pressure change, the output pressure will vary approx. 1 psi. The Stabilizer will only vary about 1/2 as much. In other words, the Stabilizer is rated as a 70:1 regulator, in that it takes a 70 psi change in supply pressure to yield a 1 psi change in output pressure. Also, the Stabilizer weighs about half that of the Unireg yet will handle the same pressures. It should also be noted that the ONLY way to avoid the variables in pressure is to use two-stage regulation. This in effect, is 2 regulators in series, where the second regulator will reverse the inversion from the first one. It is actually the inherent use of 2-stage reg. that provides the consistency that is so highly proclaimed about the use of High Pressure Air or N2. (one regulator at the tank and the second stage at the gun. The AMag has the 2nd stage built into the gun, not the case with a "cocker.) I hope this is not too confusing, it is a difficult concept to explain.