air powered hopper

[zach rumchak]

well i had an idea to make a hopper agitated by air

so i tested it i took a v200 and melted a small hole at the top ,whilt it was still hot i screwed a 90degree angle adapter in it the a bottomline hose and an asa hooked up an on/off tank filled it with paint and turne on the tank

LET ME TELL YOU IT WAS CRAZY I HAD A BLUE AND YELLOW STEADY STREEK OF PAINT ulike a 12v witch feeds in burst

now how would this work if i could find a way too incorporat it with my gas system

i know it feeds fast compared to a rev what do you guys thik of this idea
you gues no ALOT more than i do

[zach rumchak]

anyone?got aniything to say?

[Redkey]

What kind of air pressure and flow are you putting into the hopper?

Where does the air go once it has been released into the hopper? Have you tried this on a gun? Unless the hopper is vented you would blow the cap off it the soon as your bolt closed.

Having to feed your hopper with a stream of air would be bad for your shots per tank count. Perhaps you could figure out a way to pipe exhaust air into the hopper to provide the agitation.

You could always hook up a solenoid that would send air into the hopper while you were firing.

Interesting idea... but, I think you'd be wasting valuable air pressure. Then again... if you could fine tune it to minimize air use you might have something worth while.

[Statik7]

my friend did something that with his sypder, drilled past the valve, put in a stock cocker front reg on a 90 degree, drilled a hole into the elbow.

[John Molloy]

Have you seen the power feed from the shoker? it fits onto the elbow below the vl sensor and uses CO2 that would be vented to push balls into the marker. Also I heard of a back pack feed system that used ait assist to feed, it needed a seperate air system to power it. I think it was didtched as a viable idea on that and the point that your carrying 1000 plus balls in a pack and if one breaks your stuffed.

[Vegeta]

COUGH
Tippmann A-5
COUGH.


Worth reading up on.

[John Molloy]

with if I am not very much mistaken a 150 shot count in the hopper compared with 180 in a Halo (which also looks better) and about 200 (but not quite) in a 12v revvy, admitted the only one thats close on speed feed is the Halo but not every one wants a Tippy.

[sniper1rfa]

"air agitation" is not a new idea. it was started with shockers and the air vented from the solenoid. this was routed to the front of the hopper, very near to the neck. i might be doing it on my raptor, see how well it works (also so i dont have to swap loaders and to make the raptor its own seperate, operating entity).

[aabokla]

air agitated hoppers were developed even before the shocker air assist came out. The earliest model i remember was a hopper adapter sold through I&I for a VM-68 which used the exhaust gas to agitate the paint.

[pballguy17]

What if...

You could keep the hopper filled with extra air... so that when the bolt did open the air trying to vent will push another ball into the hopper.... the down side to this would b...

Reloading: u'd get a nice space age sound..


WHOOOOOOOoooooooooooOSEEEEEEEEEEE

everytime u go to reload, and after u close it again it would some how have to re-gas.

The shocker air-assist may do this but...

What if there was a small hold pointing down on the feed neck of the hopper, so that a smal burst of air could help push the next ball into the breech. this obvouisly wouldn't work very will with powerfeed b/c of the elbow...

[sniper1rfa]

well, i did it top my raptor, works good. 2 hoppers and a never had to shake the gun once.

i also fiddled with the springs, and now its crazy efficient. it uses so little blow-back gas recocking that it only recocks with paint in it. it also automatically cocks if i screw in the tank fast enough. :D

pballguy: its called air assist. :-)

[yeahthatsme]

what about zachs idea but with like an electric reg that was inteli-fied so that when you shot it would blast some air in and push some balls down. kinda like air assist but in the main hopper not the elbow.

[ezrunner]

Air - Assist feeding is very old. It was even
put forward as a use for the air take off's on
the RT rail.

Spyder style blowback markers have to vent the gas
from the front of the hammer every time they fire.
Otherwise it acts as a bumper to keep the valve
from openning properly.

This gas has already been used in the cycling of
the marker and can be thought of as exhaust. Many
markers have some type of exhaust gas during
cycling.

Routing this exhaust to the hopper to help feeding
is a great way to use this waste gas. It is also
a low cost solution to an assisted feed on a marker.

The sypder is a perfect platform for this since you
can buy them for $100 and use air assist instead of
a revvy.

Keep an eye on Paintball Inc's GT series blowbacks.
Early next year they should have this as a factory
option!

-rob

[Wheelman]

Air agitated feeding (www.smokingnun.com)

I had it hooked up on my shocker and it worked really well, with every shot fired you had a burst of exhaust into the loader, just behind the neck. I was just enough to bobble them around so they wouldn't jam. As far as I know, there has never been anything to prove that air assist in the feed tube has given any advantage.

pballguy17, how are you going to pressurize a hopper? you could seal it off to your hearts content, but you still gotta have a big assed hole in the bottom.

[Conqueror]

As has been mentioned, this is not a new concept. Smoking Nun paintball was doing this to cockers, shockers, and all the blowbacks beginning several years ago.

CQ
[edit - oops, didn't see the Smoking Nun link in the post above me. Go there.]