q loader????

[batteryfree]

hey does anyone know when teh q loader is coming out????

[Fanatic]

if it ever comes out
will you be willing to fork out $250 for a LOADER!!

[Spartan X]

For a 100 round loader at that!! front men only!!!

[dinger]

q loader?? the fudge is that??


::has never heard of it:: :O

[Spartan X]

It's a Pod looking loader thats mounts on your gunj like a warp, it will have a feed rate of just over 30 bps.

I first saw one at IAO...had not the slitest clue of what it was at first...new warp???

[FalconGuy016]

Its a loader that does 40 bps I heard

Spartan, do you have an omen? If so, can we talk :)

[the_next_guy_]

go to warpig, they have an article

[edweird]

Yeah we saw them at IAO... and most of us are less than impressed.

list of problems.

1 its mechanical only... powered by some weird clock spring mechanisim.

2. its 250 friggin dollars

3. it only uses proprietary pods that will retail at something like 50 a pop.

4. the pods attach weird... and the plastic on plastic fails to impress me

in concept its a interesting idea... but hardly $250 interesting.

[adam shannon]

and last but not least you cant top it off. you either fire it dry and make yourself vulnerable...or you switch pods wasting whats left in the one you toss out...and you cant fire when the pod is disengaged while your reloading. and whos gonna toss a $50 pod? youll see alot of tourney ballers carefully putting them back in their packs.

at the nj nppl they had a new version...kinda funny, they countered the you cant top off by adding a second loader mouth and tube to the setup...so now you have this huge double pod thing under your gun...and the best they havent even developed the ball router to make the double loader work. they just lego'd it together to say it can be done but say the actual how its gonna work has yet to be devised. i know im just waiting to buy the $500 double sidecar loader...lol.

i hope the q-loader spurs tom to step up the development of the "smaller warp" that may or may not already be in proto stage, but was shelved for lack of interest.

[Nick O time]

I think Edweird summed it all up.

[batteryfree]

wel i personally want to get one couse it doesnt have batterys and i hate having batterys, and plus it feeds 40 to 50 rps.

[edweird]

Oh and I forgot some of the other dislikes I had about it..it uses a helical screw to load balls.... this is S.C.A.R.Y.!

Helical ammo systems are terrible enough when handling hard munitions such as 20mm, let alone something that can easly break such as paint. And imagine if a ball breaks inside that pod? OMFG yuk!

Yeha I agree this will be a step in the right direction by spuring some new mini warp. but this is a far cry from it.

In general I like the size and position of it. But the concept of winding up some clock spring midgame gives me the creeps.

If i was to remake this I think I would keep the pod concept but make it something that can replace the tops of the 2 peice pods and be basicly a small plate pushed by a spring. Cheap + Effective. Then the pod could constant feed into something like the old Jt slammer sleeve. from that point a warp-esque conveyor would take over.... but that is how I would do it. Show me some love if you rip me off though... I think 2 mill is fair :P

[GoatBoy]

1. I think people will be perfectly happy with a mechanical mechanism as long as it works. Come on folks, electronics don't necessarily improve *everything*.

2. Yeah, I'll give you this one. That is pricey. Too pricey.

3. The Warpig article states $25 a pop per loader. Someone needs to update the article if this has changed.

4. This one somewhat remains to be seen... I haven't seen the unit myself so I can't comment on the plastic, although I wonder if that's what they're going to production with.


The $250 tag, again, from the Warpig article, indicates it comes with 5 loaders.

Uhm... other things...

I don't understand the efficiency gained in "tossing" pods. No, I'm not talking about putting them back in your packs, I'm talking about the guys who seem to make an art form out of it. Just drop the damn things or lightly toss them aside. I don't think a 2-3 foot short lateral toss is going to bust these things.

I agree that the second loader thing is stupid. I can't believe they would actually try an argument like that.

But I can say this... man, you are vulnerable whenever you are reloading. I watch tournament players and I'm even aware of my own behavior while reloading, and I have to honestly say, I'd rather reload with a q-loader than a hopper. The fact is you've got two lids to pop open, and a hopper you're trying to keep upright or even tilted downward so as to make space for the new paint. And lets not forget where your eyes and concentration are when you're reloading a hopper -- they are, at least for a brief time, watching this whole thing take place. I'd rather just take the old one off and put the new one on and be done with it. I don't think I've ever seen someone reload on the run either with a hopper, but I think it would actually be doable with a q-loader. Not that I would recommend this of course but you know, you won't always be reloading your hopper in the most comfortable of positions. Like, say, laying down in the snake. Yeah, you might not be able to use all your paint, but I think it's manageable with skill. Obviously, it's not for these lumbering can-you-believe-I'm-wearing-an-entire-case-of-paint "back players". I'm not sure where I saw it, but that (evlution II?) ad of the player that brags about shooting up to 2700 rounds a game cracks me up every time.


I haven't seen the internals of the thing so I dunno about the helical loading thing. It appears that the warpig article states that you wind it up beforehand though, not on the field midgame. Also looking at the article, it looks like the paint is fed by rotating that spiral inner sleeve, sort of like those snack vending machines. The significance of this is that, like in the snack machine, each snack feels a little bit of the force, instead of, say, a piston coming from the back and pushing a stack of snacks forward. Someone tell me if this is in fact NOT how it works; I'm just going from the pics. Yes, yes, I know, I've seen these snack machines malfunction, it's just an example. :p Anyways, I think this system is far preferable to a spring pushing a stack of balls from behind or something. Ergo warp urethane disks and conveyor belt/chain drives, and now... the spiral drive?

And... we're feeding round balls, not cylindrical bullets. Single-stacks are more reliable than double-stacks, but most people don't seem to mind, eh. The severity of breaking a ball in the pod is probably more a result of having reduced paint capacity, as losing one pod when you only have 4 other 100 round pods could certainly come back to haunt you. But it doesn't seem uncommon for people to just toss pods that have broken paint in them.

Edweird, I know you saw the thing firsthand... but... are all of your facts straight?

[edweird]

well ... as a front player (as the target for this) would you carry 4+1 pods? Personally I wouldnt.

and on the electro issue... I can swap batterys on my warp and rest assured that the thing is not going to run down on me for that game in a tourney. I doubt a clock spring can rival the warp motor.

Tossing pods? yeah I chuck them to the sideline... last thing I want is one of my guys running through my refuse and potentially screwing up his transition to his second and third positions.

The dual helix system scares me because I see first hand how it chews up bullets. This system lacks the ability to compensate for it to my liking. nuff said. yeah its my feeling but last thing I want to do is pay 25 bucks for a pod that if it breaks a ball at the begining of my pod it will gunk up my entire works and then I have to not only worry about cleaning out my clockwork warp but also some 25 dollar pod.

most of all I dont see a bit of the KISS principle intergrated into this. And frankly that turned me off more than anything.

[Clockwork_Orange]

It has potential...
http://www.warpig.com/paintball/technical/loaders/qloader/twist_lock.jpg

[Clockwork_Orange]

Does anyone know where I can get a clear hose similar to that for a warp?

[billmi]

Originally posted by edweird
and on the electro issue... I can swap batterys on my warp and rest assured that the thing is not going to run down on me for that game in a tourney. I doubt a clock spring can rival the warp motor.

SNIP

most of all I dont see a bit of the KISS principle intergrated into this. And frankly that turned me off more than anything.

Those two statements appear to contradict. The combined system of a motor, gearing, drive link, battery and control circuit are far less simple, and more fragile than a wound spring.

GoatBoy - your description is right on.

IMHO, reducing the amount of paint you can cary in your pack to 71%, (100 round Qloaders vs. 140 round tubes) is one of the major obstacles to acceptance of the QLoader.

Also of note, many people have thrown around feed rates for the QLoader. I know of no independant tests which have been done to determine a rate, only a rate claimed by the manufacturer while they were still in prototype stage.

See you on the field,
-Bill Mills

[Spartan X]

I no longer have a Omen, i sold it for $472...for the X-mag!!! I will have to add it into my evil saying on my sig. some thime :) Somthing about the X-mag being the dominating force in this world.

[magman007]

http://pic7.picturetrail.com/VOL197/1133173/2471677/29964639.jpg

and



http://pic7.picturetrail.com/VOL197/1133173/2471677/29964658.jpg


the q loader is a col gimick, nothing more.... i wasnt thouroghly impressed with it, il tell you that

[SIGSays]

http://www.dppp.net/images/smiley/smiley961.gif

get a halo

[GoatBoy]

Originally posted by edweird
well ... as a front player (as the target for this) would you carry 4+1 pods? Personally I wouldnt.


You're right, I wouldn't carry 4+1 on the field. I'd carry 3+1 on the field. I'm not exactly a big guy, and I think 3's about the limit for what I can stand to have on my body.

The funny thing is, a long time ago, before the q-loader, I was pondering ways to reduce the gun profile. One of my thoughts was... man, I really don't need 200 rounds on the top of my gun. 100 would be enough. If my 50 round hoppers were motorized and easily reloadable, I'd probably be playing with those. More on this later.


Originally posted by edweird
and on the electro issue... I can swap batterys on my warp and rest assured that the thing is not going to run down on me for that game in a tourney. I doubt a clock spring can rival the warp motor.


Well, the numbers are on the warpig article. 100 rounds in around 2 seconds. I'm betting a system like this can easily keep up with the warp. We'll see when the system hits public hands.

As far as swapping batteries goes... Yes, you can make sure you always have battery power. But what happens if an IC goes? Or a capacitor? Or a sound sensor? Or your intellifeed connection breaks? I don't see a manual crank on the warp. Do you have a manual intellifeed switch on the side of the warp? Are you going to sit there during a game and swap PCB's? Change motors? Resolder a connection? Maybe you're going to carry an elbow with you onto the field so you can move the hopper back onto the gun and swap the powerfeed plug? Or change the breech on your x-mag? Or maybe you'll just stuff the hopper back onto the gun as-is and fire the gun upside down or sideways for the rest of the game? And if your halo's feeding the warp, what happens if something malfunctions there? Or how about an Evlution failure on a warp? No more impeller motion. What's the fix for that one?

If we're talking power source... if the spring on the qloader breaks, you drop it and go for the next loader. You're back in the game, albeit with less paint obviously.

The other common point of failure would probably be the gate on the front of the loader, which might break after wear. So your paint flies out before you can get it on the gun or something. Go to the next loader.

Now, if something on the MOUNT breaks, you're going to be up the proverbial creek without a paddle. I hope they took this into consideration when designing it. No different than the hopper neck breaking off the hopper feeding your warp.



Originally posted by edweird
Tossing pods? yeah I chuck them to the sideline... last thing I want is one of my guys running through my refuse and potentially screwing up his transition to his second and third positions.


Well, at the risk of going off topic, I'm just going to say there are probably other perfectly efficient ways of dealing with this without causing undue stress to the loader.



Originally posted by edweird
The dual helix system scares me because I see first hand how it chews up bullets. This system lacks the ability to compensate for it to my liking. nuff said. yeah its my feeling but last thing I want to do is pay 25 bucks for a pod that if it breaks a ball at the begining of my pod it will gunk up my entire works and then I have to not only worry about cleaning out my clockwork warp but also some 25 dollar pod.


Excess electronics scare me because I see first hand how they fail. I don't see any sort of hermetic sealing around any of the electronics I see here. No temp control, no humidity control, no vibration control. Last thing I want to do is pay 90 dollars for a warp and another 50 dollars for a hopper (sorry I'm not up on current prices) for a system that potentially WILL NOT FEED AT ALL if 1 little electronic component out of like 50 components decides it wants to make its contribution to the bathtub curve.

Anyways, we'll see the reliability of the system when it gets out to the field. I think it will work perfectly fine.


Originally posted by edweird
most of all I dont see a bit of the KISS principle intergrated into this. And frankly that turned me off more than anything.

Well, Bill already touched on this earlier...

Warp: 2 batteries, 1 intellifeed or sound sensor, PCB, probably a power transistor, motor (with gears), most likely at least one more capacitor, an IC, a resistor, a LED. I've never looked at the internals, but that's enough to make my point. There's probably a lot more in there than just that.

Oh. The warp needs another hopper on top of it.

Another 2 batteries (if not sharing), 1 sensor or intellifeed, another PCB, another power transistor, capacitor, resistor, LED, another motor (with gears), blah blah blah.

And this isn't even getting into the mechanics of what's going on with the gearing and the potential redundancy with a force feeding loader feeding into a force feeding warp and the raking of the urethane disks over the balls or god knows what else.

I can tell you I'm going to be very happy the day I can get rid of the only electronic component on my gun.

It's funny you should say something like this because the complexity of the warp is what turned me off.



I look at the q-loader as more of an enabler for a front player than a detractor for a back player. In the right hands, I think the advantages more than make up for the disadvantages. I don't like to sit in the back of the field and just throw paint. I'll let the backer do that. If something like this allows me to reduce my ridiculous gun profile, yank the batteries off, and increase the speed and reliability of feeding overall as well as my reloads, I'll gladly take the capacity reduction.


Can't take the price though. Argh.


The deciding factor may very well boil down to the mounting options. I would not want it facing forward, I would want it facing backward, on top of the gun, maybe offset to the left side. And I would want it to feed straight into my mag without a tube. And I'd want it to feed from the top of the loader downwards, so that if you were reloading, you still would have a few balls in the pipe that could gravity feed downards.

[kosmo]

I think they should motorize the thing and put it beneath the barrel, but low enough that you could take the spring out of the tube and make it gravity fed by angling it upwards.

[kosmo]

BTW, I dont have the best MS Paint skills but the black thing would be a warp type motor, and yes that is Brass Eagle paint. What I think would be cool is a bottom feed body for mags where paint could be fed up through a hole in the frame through a foregrip. Id like that a lot better than a bunch of plastic hosing.

[batteryfree]

i dunno all i really wanted to know is where can i buy one lol.

[A to the G-Dizzle]

It's not the worst paintball idea, but it's definatly not the best.

[LaW]

I would compare it to the warp feed in a way. Its an idea that appears to be revolutionary but few will invest in it and I doubt it will catch on and be a maintstream thing....

[TheClapp15]

Loader.......$60
Warp Feed....$150
5 pods.......$10
Batteries....$15
Total........$235

QLoader......$250

Not far off

and I used cheap prices I'm not even talking about Halo or Intellifeeding.

[Dayspring]

Good-
The thing is TOTALLY independent of gravity. As we saw by Magman STEALING my pics, you can fire it upside down.

Yes, the mount CAN be moved to other places on the marker.

And yes, the feed rate is fast.

Bad-
Reloading a pod takes more time than refilling a normal one. AND you have to use their loading contraption.

COST. I'd rather have a pod I don't really care about and can pay $3 to replace.

No positive pressure on the ball stack once that pod is pulled off the loader. Meaning, you'll have MAYBE 1-2 shots.

God forbid you get mud/paint into a pod. There's no way to clean it on the field/ dump out the spoiled paint and use the remains.

Good idea in theory. Bad idea in practice.

Not to mention the fact that the young guy (designer apparently) was as arrogant as they come. You'd ask him (at NJ NPPL) what it was and he'd say "Better than a warp feed."

[Star_Base_CGI]

It looks like a p3n1x pump.

[personman]

Originally posted by TheClapp15
Loader.......$60
Warp Feed....$150
5 pods.......$10
Batteries....$15
Total........$235

QLoader......$250

Not far off

and I used cheap prices I'm not even talking about Halo or Intellifeeding.
More like
Loader.......$50 (http://store.yahoo.com/actionvillage/014-9060-2.html)
Warp Feed....$115 (http://store.yahoo.com/actionvillage/014-5103.html)
5 pods.......$15+ (http://store.yahoo.com/actionvillage/041-3002-1.html)
Batteries....$10 tops? probally $7 for three batteries
Total........$187

QLoader......$250 (plus if you want 5 pods your gonna be shellin out alot more than that :))
Also you gotta take into consideration that most peeps already have a lodar ;)

[TheClapp15]

Allright, Allright...I smell what your stepping in. I'm not down playing the warp in any way. In fact I have one and plan on keeping it as I work on revamping my mag. But what I am saying is these qloaders are true force feed loaders that no matter what way you put the gun it will always fire and for a front man...low pro, constant feed in any position, and compact. well I'm gonna give it a try. My second gun currently is a Gen-x 4 and when my mag is done the cocker is going down for a qloader.
I say keep airgun products together.
So to buy another loading system I would be paying about the same amount...I'll foot the extra cash for the reasons described above.:)

[AkumA]

ok, hold on. this thing hasn't even hit the market, im sure the price will drop.

will it? yes, it always does. good example is the tippy A-5. $300 for a smaller ver of the 98c with a cyclone feeder? overpriced is what i thought at first. now you can get r/t ver. of those for under 300.

it may not catch attention to tourny players, but senario, probly. heck, if it'll go for 200, i'll think about getting it.

[FistS]

[i] I'm not sure where I saw it, but that (evlution II?) ad of the player that brags about shooting up to 2700 rounds a game cracks me up every time. [/B]

Well,
If you get a chance to view either a tourny or practice for most pro teams,
You will see that some of the backplayers, Ala Bob Long carry 15 or so pods /w them onto the field.

I have watched games where backplayers will go thru those 15 pods easily.

The sport of paintball has become the amount of paint you can shoot to keep your opponents into thier bunkers rather than shooting for accuracy.

Now, If i was capable of shooting that much paint, actually, if I was able to afford shooting through a case of paint a game, I definately would. And it is possible to shoot that much paint in a game, especially for most 10 man backplayers and some 7man.

[Albinonewt]

Saw it at IAO. A neat little concept and I'm sure by the time they get to the 4th or 5th generation it will be a really useful product. Until then, I'm counting a more traditional hopper solution.

[schiesz]

Originally posted by personman


QLoader......$250 (plus if you want 5 pods your gonna be shellin out alot more than that :))


If you read the article, it says it comes with 5 pods.

[GoatBoy]

For starters... $15 for 9v batteries is not hard to imagine. They are a recurring expense. To make it so that they are not a recurring expense, you need to buy rechargeables. You'll need a full set of rechargeables, plus perhaps some backups. Unless you buy disposables for your backups I guess.

Also, if you take into consideration that they already have a 'lodar', then they don't need that loader anymore with the q-loader and can sell it. Sooo... taking that into consideration might actually reduce the Q-Loader price.




Ah, and now, onto the "tourny" argument. I like the way that one line from my posts was selected, out of all the other things I said. Like, for instance, the two lines above it:


Yeah, you might not be able to use all your paint, but I think it's manageable with skill. Obviously, it's not for these lumbering can-you-believe-I'm-wearing-an-entire-case-of-paint "back players".

Or how about:


I look at the q-loader as more of an enabler for a front player than a detractor for a back player. In the right hands, I think the advantages more than make up for the disadvantages. I don't like to sit in the back of the field and just throw paint. I'll let the backer do that.


You see, I DO ACKNOWLEDGE THE PRESENCE AND PERHAPS EVEN THE NEED FOR A BACK PLAYER, TOURNAMENT OR NOT.


Basically the weight of your 15-pod argument rests on this "tournament" aura. Otherwise, it would have no punch.

But quite frankly, I neither look up to tournament players nor aspire to be one. I don't even think they necessarily represent the best of paintball, in either skill or... personality. I don't mean to harp on all tournament players; don't get me wrong, there are some great guys out there. AO is full of 'em. I'm just saying I'm not going to kneel down when someone breathes the word "tournament".



Only time will tell, but who's to say the 15-pod behemoth won't one day become extinct.





But then again, bad practices and misinformation in paintball seem to linger on for years.

[AllAmericanMag]

Originally posted by Star_Base_CGI
It looks like a p3n1x pump.

You'd know. ;)

[Albinonewt]

Originally posted by FistS
The sport of paintball has become the amount of paint you can shoot to keep your opponents into thier bunkers rather than shooting for accuracy.


Dude, its called supressing fire, and it's pretty important in a game. The goal isn't always to hit the other guy. A lot of the times your simply trying to keep him down so your front players can work an angle.

It's not easy being the guy whose job it is to scare everyone so your teammates can get all the credit for the take downs.

[Hasty8]

Originally posted by edweird
Oh and I forgot some of the other dislikes I had about it..it uses a helical screw to load balls.... this is S.C.A.R.Y.!

Helical ammo systems are terrible enough when handling hard munitions such as 20mm, let alone something that can easly break such as paint. And imagine if a ball breaks inside that pod? OMFG yuk!


Helical systems do not work on gunpowder ammunition becase they are not round, more ovular if you will.

Helical systems have been in use to move round objects for decades, for everything from sportsballs to produce to even lightbulbs.

If a lightbulb can survive a helical transportation system a paintball should be no problem.

Also, Adam, this system doe not waste any paint.


Originally posted by adam shannon
and last but not least you cant top it off. you either fire it dry and make yourself vulnerable...or you switch pods wasting whats left in the one you toss out...and you cant fire when the pod is disengaged while your reloading. and whos gonna toss a $50 pod? youll see alot of tourney ballers carefully putting them back in their packs

The same holds true for the warp feed Adam. When the hopper is emptied there are still a few balls in the tube leading from the WF to the marker so I'm not sure what your point is. And yes, you can fire with out a pod on. The double mounting system, which now works according to the company, allows an individual to have one pod on the marker feeding the system while replacing the empty loader. Essentially this will allow back players to fire continuously.

In my $.02 I do not see this as being a speedball loader but more for the req player. As for price I don't see it as being too much. For 250 you get the Qloader itself, 5 pods and a reloading hopper with a 500 ball capacity. Considering that a Halo alone costs about 120 or a X-Board Revvy costs 56. Use that Revvy with a Protemas Warp and you just spent $236 and you still haven't bought any pods yet.

[SuiciDal Sn Y p ER]

...$200 for a few pods that hold 100 rounds that are pushed into your gun with a spring

...i would call that a waste of money.

but then again i don't know everything about the q-loader all i know is that it's useful in some places but it has its disadvantages.

[Dayspring]

Ain't THAT the truth...


Originally posted by Albinonewt
It's not easy being the guy whose job it is to scare everyone so your teammates can get all the credit for the take downs.

[iownamag]

I just plain can not see how any company in there right mind can charge $250 dollars for something that would probaly cost about $10 for the materials to build all 5 of them. Not to mention that it is merely a wound up pod with a hose sticking out of it!! that price is just absurd. if someone wants to pay me $250 I will make the best damn spinning pod ever :rolleyes: . I also don't like the thought of having so much weight so far forward. I would use it the way they showed down near the end of the warpig review, with it hanging off your barrel, that is if someone put a gun to my head making me play with one of those crazy things. Otherwise... use the money to buy yourself a halo and a warp! and have money left over. Or I prefer vert feed so I personally would rather buy a halo and like 3 cases of paint to shoot out of my nice, apparently reasonably priced :rolleyes: , and plenty fast halo b. :) . And heck, I'll have all 140 balls or whatever it is the halo holds and if I am about to make a move or I gotta get something done I'll just dump some more paint in and throw my pod down in seconds... see what i'm getting at here. In other words I agree with all the other post disapproving the Q loader. Go halo! :cool:

[50 cal]

It's expensive and very few have seen it so far....it will sell like hotcakes.