XValve Came In The Mail Broken!

[QUINCYMASSGUY]

Ok, I am in need of some real help. My XValve arrived yesterday. I hooked it up to my gun and air started leaking out the crack where the valve body lines up and down the barrel a little. I THINK I fixed it by taking it apart and adjusting the oring but my tank had 1000psi so I'm not sure. So I put the tank on, gas it up, and although the trigger is pressurized it's not shooting! One thing I noted is that when I removed the On/Off Assembly to make sure that was not the problem the little oring always came off on the On/Off Pin. It went back in fine but figured I'd mention that. The on/off assembly also seems to not sit flat like the previous on/off assembly did. Like it can't go in all the way. I have tried pressing with plenty of force, is it built to not sit in flat with the valve body? I really want to play this weekend but at this rate it might not be functional. Please help. Any experience with these problems and the solutions would be nice.

[QUINCYMASSGUY]

followup

Oh, a quick followup in case it'll help somebody give me an answer: The trigger pressurizes but does not fire, I then remove the on/off for the nitro tank and unscrew the tank which releases plenty of air like normal (gauge said 1100psi when it wasn't firing). The gun then stays pressurized. I undid the air hose connecting to the valve, and the valve is STILL pressurized and after about a minute or two it'll make a noise like "hssssssssssst" and the valve will be unpressurized. I pushed real hard on the valve on/off and pulling the trigger caused the bolt to move forward a little (this is when the tank was at 600psi). I assume it's the on/off or something, but why would it not sit flush with the valve body? Has this happened before, has AGD had problems with this? I have a Minimag with air input to the valve on the right (probably irrelevant) and had a Level 10 in my previous valve and using a preset tank so I know it's not that air input. I also don't want to keep turning up the velocity nut for concern it might not be that and it'll get damaged too. Hope this helps sort this out!

[TheTramp]

Are you going to play with us at Ultimate paintball on Sunday? If so, I can take a look and see if I can tell what the problem is.

I'm not really sure exactly what the problem is from your description though it does sound like an on/off problem. Did you get it with the quad o-ring and short on/off pin? That's the E-Mag set up but I thought it should still work with Classics and RTP's.

[QUINCYMASSGUY]

On/off

Hi Tramp,

Thanks for responding. I am definitely keeping the on/off in mind. Does yours stick out a little from the hole? the oring is still in the hole and sealing the air (it pressurizes) but concerns me it doesn't sit flat like the regular one. Has the valve ever slid on uneven so the sear doesn't trip the pin right (although I doubt that is the issue).

I got it with the blue (I think) oring which holds the pin in the valve hole when I pull the on/off assembly out. Like I said, it gasses up fine, and I feel trigger tension, but the air never gets released or even tries. Does one work better than the other? It's a regular mag so if the emag pin was used it would be too short and it would leak air, not prevent shooting.

I'm going to go to PNL and get an airfill today, i MIGHT have got it working (longshot) and I read something about setting the bolt by holding it back before gassing if using a preset (Crossfire 3000psi, I want to sell and move to 4500) which would be a pain in the butt if I have to do it every time. Those jokers at PNL have been telling me for 2 1/2 weeks that a delivery with an Intelliframe was supposed to be in 3-4 days from when I asked and they keep telling me another 3-4 days each time it doesn't come. Totally lame. And I EBayed my old frame and got to ship it tomorrow so I might not have a trigger Sunday! If they don't have it in by tomorrow I'll order through AGD online but that's irritating how they handled getting this frame. Goodie himself Emailed me a week ago from last monday and said it would be in last friday. Totally lame!

Anyways, any more ideas by all means fire away, and I will make sure to let you know about Sunday as soon as I know. I definitely am interested, but throwing paintballs would not work and that's all I might be stuck doing at this point

[TheTramp]

I've got an extra frame so don't worry about that.

As far as the on/off assembly goes...you've got a "blue" o-ring? I don't know of any blue o-rings. Strange.

Have you tried pushing the trigger rod further back by pushing on it with an allen wrench? It might be that your trigger is not pushing the rigger rod back far enough thus not releasing the sear, activating the on/off, ect.

[QUINCYMASSGUY]

I forget the color of it actually, I got it at 8pm last night. I know it's not the wrong pin though. Cool about the frame, Goodie from PNL actually just emailed me apologizing for the lack of frames and explained why, their distributor keeps sending RTs to them. So I'll have to order online, but he was cool about it and has offered to lend me a good frame or give me a stock one for free. Like I said, they're great guys. This just stunk.
I'm going to work on it tonight as I ran out of air last night. Depending on how it works, I will know if I'm going Sunday. If it's busted I'm just going to wait and work on it next week for AO day. I will let you know tomorrow exactly what my game plan is.
Any more Retrovalve stuff, fire away (pun fully intended)

[Tunaman]

Is the air leaking out of the little hole forward of the X-Valve logo?

[QUINCYMASSGUY]

POSSIBLY OK

No, it was the space between it. OK, here was some need to know info that should have been included that Mr. Ontiveros from AGD Tech just emailed me. They are very helpful by the way, he really is helping me fix this issue. They get sent with bare minimum setting on the velocity. I figured they got at least close to 260fps so it would shoot on installation. So I got to crank that up. He also said carriers are sent usually too tight and the Level 10 is untuned, so I need to change that. Yikes! We shall see what this does but if these are wrong that explains the issue.

[QUINCYMASSGUY]

FIXED

I fixed the thing last night and didn't even realize it because I was out of air... I take it to PNL, get a tank fill, the guy gasses it up and as I'm telling him "when you pull the trigger you feel the tension but it doesn't fire" and BOOM! The thing fires and makes me look like a total idiot. So it was that it was sent at too low a velocity. The level 10 carrier also had an air leak but I took that home and fixed it, after two of them I think I'm getting good with them.

A Level 10 question for you guys: If I want to run at a lower pressure so the pull is lighter would I want more shims/less shims and that compact spring or the longer one that isn't missing a loop? I'm trying to fine tune the Level 10 so I can get sick rates of fire with a light trigger pull and still be soft on paint. Seems it's firing the bolt a little hard right now (vents and resets but still too hard on my finger in the breach) but that might be the velocity being too high right now. Wasn't chronoed but is in the range. Any tuning tips would be valued.

[Dayspring]

Shims affect where in the stroke the air will vent. To run with the velocity/pressure lower, you should use the short spring. The longer the spring, the more you have to bump the pressure.

There's the trade off. With the smaller spring, it won't be as soft, but still will work and not chop paint. But you'll also get a lower operating pressue.

[QUINCYMASSGUY]

So what is the benefits/appropriate tuning for where the air will vent? I mean, how does that affect how the gun shoots? Do you mean if there are none it will go forward but not back, but if I use too many it'll be venting even before I shoot? Where (roughly) in the cycle do I want it to be venting? What are the benefits/problems with it venting further up or further back?

Spring question too, which is the harder (stronger spring)? There's the short one that is wrapped tighter but then the long one (the one without the cut ring) that is longer but with coils further apart. Which spring is for lower pressure, lower force on the ball? Do I want a hard shot or a real soft one, what are the benefits of each?

My goal is to have a smooth, light trigger pull without any loss of rate of fire possible. I know if I use too loose of a spring and too low a reg pressure I'll be shooting at 280fps but the bolt won't come back fast enough to maintain a fast trigger pull/recock/shoot again rate.

Does the level the reg is set at affect the reactive trigger effect or is that entirely input pressure into the whole gun, in other words tank pressure?

[TheTramp]

Originally posted by QUINCYMASSGUY
Spring question too, which is the harder (stronger spring)? There's the short one that is wrapped tighter but then the long one (the one without the cut ring) that is longer but with coils further apart. Which spring is for lower pressure, lower force on the ball? Do I want a hard shot or a real soft one, what are the benefits of each?

The longer the spring the softer the bolt will be on paint. The trade off is that it also increases the force the L10 has to overcome to fire. Thus, it can be too strong so the bolt will "stop" even before it fires. The way to combat this is to turn up the velosity but you could reach a point where it starts venting out the back of the valve because the pressure is too high even though the gun will not fire yet,

[/QUOTE]Does the level the reg is set at affect the reactive trigger effect or is that entirely input pressure into the whole gun, in other words tank pressure? [/QUOTE]

Yes, the reactivity of the Retro valve is entirely based on the input pressure. The velosity the valve is set to has nothing to do with the reactivity.

[athomas]

The shortest spring is the lightest and will give you the lightest trigger pull as well. Like it was stated before though. You will sacrifice some of the level 10's antichop ability by giong with the lighter spring. Its still much better than the level 7 though.

The shims determine where the bolt will start to vent in the event of a jam/object stuck in the breach. Too many shims will cause the gun to leak all the time. Too few may cause the gun to have bolt stick/not vent if it comes in contact with a piece of dirt or a foreign object/ball in the breach.

The pressure in the chamber of the valve determines the trigger pull. The pressure into the valve from the air source determines the trigger return force. The difference between the two is the reactivity.

[QUINCYMASSGUY]

So a preset tank stinks for adjusting the retro effect. Oh well, I was looking at Regs anyways. Any good suggestions? a $350-400 system for 4500psi is something I can't buy, I was thinking Thor Reg or something affordable. Vertical grip reg and drop forward maybe. Any ideal input for the retro effect? Like I say, I like a short crisp pull that can keep up with me. High retro, light pull would be nasty!
So if I want a lighter stroke that still won't chop paint the shortest spring with an additional shim to have the venting start earlier would be a good setup? I have one in now so it vents around halfway through the breach. One more would have it vent earlier in case of something in the way, correct? And this would prevent chopping more without having to go to the middle spring?

[athomas]

When adding shims, use the most shims that will not leak while the gun is at rest. I check where my bolt vents by holding a dowl in the end of my gun (without barrel) against the bolt and pull the trigger. By gently allowing the dowl to be pushed forward by the bolt, I can hear exactly where the bolt starts to vent. Venting doesn't affect how hard the gun is on paint. It just affects where in the stroke the gun actually lets air out of the chamber so the gun will recock. Too soon, it leaks. Too late it sticks on the item it hits.

In order to have any kind of noticeable reactivity you will need a high input pressure. The level 10 also works better when supplied with a high input pressure. By adding a third regulator, you will actually be reducing the input pressure to the gun. You can reduce the reativity but not increase it. The retro valve uses input pressure to charge the chamber of the gun but is regulated by an ongun regulator to control when the flow of air starts and stops. Any regulator, in order to work properly requires about 200psi differential pressure from input to output. Therefore, the regulator supplying pressure to the AIR regulator on the gun must be set to at least 600psi to prevent air starvation and to allow the reg to be consistant. That means that the regulator on the bottle must be at least 800psi to supply the middle regulator so that it won't starve as well. The 600 psi input to the gun won't give you much reactivity. It will reduce it while not reducing the pressure you feel at the trigger. That pressure is controlled by the chamber pressure.