EMAGs in the real world?

[cockerpunk]

They are being programmed to cheat by the operator

bolded the most important part.

as i stated in my third post:

the good news is that electronics still does not mean you an inherently cheating

[Patron God of Pirates]

no, no, you first argument is that every electronic gun inherently cheats. that is not the case.
the problem as always is the human component

I'm not sure we are having a disconnect. They do not cheat unless programed to do so, which in my limited testing has been always. I define cheating for the purposes of this conversation as a marker producing more shots than the user produces trigger pulls. They are not cheating by virtue of being electronic. They are being programmed to cheat.

"IC'less"; is that no integrated circuits at all, or just no microprocessor? A pair of timers (556 chip) works fine and is not a microprocessor and only partially digital. It lacks something you two haven't addressed yet though, which is shot buffering.

When you actually "filter" switch response, you are throwing bounces and flailing finger pulls in the trash. That's where your poor trigger walking is exposed. Most boards will buffer any trigger "pulls" that occur during the filter window and apply them as a single pull at the end of the filter window, making your flailing fingers look quite professional. It's when you don't actually let the trigger up that you can flail away and still not see a shot. Buffering is the only way you ever maintain 13.5 bps with consistency, until you get your fingers trained for 13.49 bps.

Just a couple of resistors and a couple of Capacitors really. You'll have to forgive me if I get terminology wrong, I'm entirely self taught. I found a guide online to hardware debounce a switch in this fashion and I simply followed the instructions. It ignores additional switch pulls until a capacitor has recharged after the previous one. If I did my math right it should allow for up to 30.3- cps. I was able to get it into the 20's using an Arduino board to virtually pull the trigger, but with humans the result is rather pathetic.

I can't think of a reliable way to buffer shots without a microprocessor. But that goes to my point since the shots that require buffering would have been short strokes or chops in a mechanical system.

[cockerpunk]

Exactly! I totally understand that some (even most) people have no issue with this at all. I just kind of think it's a shame and takes a little integrity out of the game. There was a time when trigger skill was a factor in paintball. Now these things are "optimized" so a guy off the street can practice for 10-20 seconds and be rippin' with the best of them. (Yes I know I'm exaggerating).

no, no, you first argument is that every electronic gun inherently cheats. that is not the case.

the problem as always is the human component

[Spider-TW]

Agreed again, but I don't have to imagine it, I built one. I had a working IC'less trigger system that used a hardware debounce configuration that actually worked quite well and had working eyes (well, a break beam eye out of an arcade ticket dispenser that would ultimately be replaced by eyes). Trouble was, it was utterly unwalkable above 7-8 bps. In theory It should be capable of a cycle speed in the 30's. The cycles were erratic, sounding very much like when someone "walks" a pneumag or ULT.

That is what started me on my little quest that ultimately led to this conversation. I have since removed the "eyes" and noid. I replaced the later with an led to prove to people that without the help of the software they could not "walk" the trigger with any kind of consistency.

"IC'less"; is that no integrated circuits at all, or just no microprocessor? A pair of timers (556 chip) works fine and is not a microprocessor and only partially digital. It lacks something you two haven't addressed yet though, which is shot buffering.

When you actually "filter" switch response, you are throwing bounces and flailing finger pulls in the trash. That's where your poor trigger walking is exposed. Most boards will buffer any trigger "pulls" that occur during the filter window and apply them as a single pull at the end of the filter window, making your flailing fingers look quite professional. It's when you don't actually let the trigger up that you can flail away and still not see a shot. Buffering is the only way you ever maintain 13.5 bps with consistency, until you get your fingers trained for 13.49 bps.

[Patron God of Pirates]

i was proposing imagining a gun without switch filtering
its that users dont want that, and fields/leagues don't care enough to force them to.

Exactly! I totally understand that some (even most) people have no issue with this at all. I just kind of think it's a shame and takes a little integrity out of the game. There was a time when trigger skill was a factor in paintball. Now these things are "optimized" so a guy off the street can practice for 10-20 seconds and be rippin' with the best of them. (Yes I know I'm exaggerating).

[cockerpunk]

Agreed again, but I don't have to imagine it, I built one. I had a working IC'less trigger system that used a hardware debounce configuration that actually worked quite well and had working eyes (well, a break beam eye out of an arcade ticket dispenser that would ultimately be replaced by eyes). Trouble was, it was utterly unwalkable above 7-8 bps. In theory It should be capable of a cycle speed in the 30's. The cycles were erratic, sounding very much like when someone "walks" a pneumag or ULT.

That is what started me on my little quest that ultimately led to this conversation. I have since removed the "eyes" and noid. I replaced the later with an led to prove to people that without the help of the software they could not "walk" the trigger with any kind of consistency.

i was proposing imagining a gun without switch filtering

and i agree, most people can't walk the trigger for ****. the best way to show this, i think is high speed video. simon did some work on this a while back, posted a few videos.

but again, i don't think this is a problem with the gun, as much as a problem with the users, and the policing bodies. there is nothing inherently wrong with the technology, an electronic trigger, on any gun, can be made to be a true one shot per pull trigger. its that users dont want that, and fields/leagues don't care enough to force them to.

EDIT: simons videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dr-L3WzTEDw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGBDgtXCaOo

[Patron God of Pirates]

i agree completely. esp about using a hardware low pass filter, not a software setting for debounce.

i was merely stating that all boards do use some kind of switch filtering, typically in the board logic, and typically a delay. and if they didn't, then you would have one of those "dumb" boards, but in reality those kind of boards do not exist because, the gun would not function, because it would attempt to start the firing cycle with each trigger event. you can imagine how this would end. depending on the operation of the gun, it would be like short stroking a gun 5 or 6 times in so many milliseconds ... ew. it might manifest in the best case as bad efficiency and consistency, at worst, as chopping, clipping etc etc. again, depends on the function of the gun as well.

this was actually a major problem in the first generation of electronic guns, and why all of them, and all guns today, use some form of switch filtering system.

Agreed again, but I don't have to imagine it, I built one. I had a working IC'less trigger system that used a hardware debounce configuration that actually worked quite well and had working eyes (well, a break beam eye out of an arcade ticket dispenser that would ultimately be replaced by eyes). Trouble was, it was utterly unwalkable above 7-8 bps. In theory It should be capable of a cycle speed in the 30's. The cycles were erratic, sounding very much like when someone "walks" a pneumag or ULT.

That is what started me on my little quest that ultimately led to this conversation. I have since removed the "eyes" and noid. I replaced the later with an led to prove to people that without the help of the software they could not "walk" the trigger with any kind of consistency.

[cockerpunk]

This would be true in a "dumb"system that transmitted the signal directly to the noid. In modern markers this is not the case. The switch signals are sent to the board logic which determines when the noid signals are sent. The filtering you are referring to (software debounce) is a number in milliseconds that the software is programmed to ignore additional signals after the first. Typically it looks like this:
delay(200);
where 200 is a fixed value. Variable debounce is one of the possible explanations for what I'm seeing (but not the most likely one IMO. Variable debounce looks like this:
int debounce = 200;
//elsewhere in the code we would find something like this
if((millis() - lastTriggerPullMillis) < bounceLoweringThreshhold){
debounce = 50;
}
//elsewhere we would find the debounce statement:
delay(debounce);
In my hastily typed example the software is checking to see how recently the last full switch signal occurred and is lowering the variable integer used to debounce the switch. It would not be much more complicated than than that.

I have reason to believe that (at least in most cases) it is signal thresholding that is the culprit variable. This is irrelevant to the results. BPS second limits actually allow the manufacturers to be more flagrant. What they aught to do is disregard any switch pull that exceeded the cap. What they do instead is say:
if(ROF > 12.5)
ROF = 12.5;

Now the sound signature that used to be a tell tale sign of cheater modes just sounds like the marker firing at the capped rate.

If the "profesional" leagues were serious about enforcing 1 shot 1 pull and the rof cap, they would insist on markers using hardware debounce.

i agree completely. esp about using a hardware low pass filter, not a software setting for debounce.

i was merely stating that all boards do use some kind of switch filtering, typically in the board logic, and typically a delay. and if they didn't, then you would have one of those "dumb" boards, but in reality those kind of boards do not exist because, the gun would not function, because it would attempt to start the firing cycle with each trigger event. you can imagine how this would end. depending on the operation of the gun, it would be like short stroking a gun 5 or 6 times in so many milliseconds ... ew. it might manifest in the best case as bad efficiency and consistency, at worst, as chopping, clipping etc etc. again, depends on the function of the gun as well.

this was actually a major problem in the first generation of electronic guns, and why all of them, and all guns today, use some form of switch filtering system.

[Patron God of Pirates]

the signal to the noid will be messed up, and cause the gun to malfunction.

This would be true in a "dumb"system that transmitted the signal directly to the noid. In modern markers this is not the case. The switch signals are sent to the board logic which determines when the noid signals are sent. The filtering you are referring to (software debounce) is a number in milliseconds that the software is programmed to ignore additional signals after the first. Typically it looks like this:
delay(200);
where 200 is a fixed value. Variable debounce is one of the possible explanations for what I'm seeing (but not the most likely one IMO. Variable debounce looks like this:
int debounce = 200;
//elsewhere in the code we would find something like this
if((millis() - lastTriggerPullMillis) < bounceLoweringThreshhold){
debounce = 50;
}
//elsewhere we would find the debounce statement:
delay(debounce);
In my hastily typed example the software is checking to see how recently the last full switch signal occurred and is lowering the variable integer used to debounce the switch. It would not be much more complicated than than that.

I have reason to believe that (at least in most cases) it is signal thresholding that is the culprit variable. This is irrelevant to the results. BPS second limits actually allow the manufacturers to be more flagrant. What they aught to do is disregard any switch pull that exceeded the cap. What they do instead is say:
if(ROF > 12.5)
ROF = 12.5;

Now the sound signature that used to be a tell tale sign of cheater modes just sounds like the marker firing at the capped rate.

If the "profesional" leagues were serious about enforcing 1 shot 1 pull and the rof cap, they would insist on markers using hardware debounce.

[Spider-TW]

A lot of this is why I like mags. E-mags are mags plus electronics. Instead of "classics" and "old", I'm thinking "mechanical" and "simple". A mag is about as simple as you can get with a regulated marker. That is a lot of the attraction to pumps, but a regulated pump doesn't have much over a mag.

Ever since the hand held chronies have started measuring bps, I haven't had much trouble playing RT at fields, other than having to tune them down. With a single trigger carbon frame, I can do 4 balls at 12 bps out of a gravity loader rather regularly. What's terrible and outdated about that? No lpr, no board, no battery, one screw take-down, single trigger, and still, I have to turn it down. The only thing electronics do for me is to give me the opportunity to play right up against the limit of the rules while giving the field owner some false reason to believe that I am doing so.

[cockerpunk]

What happens if the extra trigger events are not filtered out?

the signal to the noid will be messed up, and cause the gun to malfunction.

[El Zilcho]

this means every board, adjustable or not, uses switch filtering to filter out those extra trigger events. this is most often done with a delay, but can be done other ways (low pass etc etc).

What happens if the extra trigger events are not filtered out?

[cockerpunk]

ICD 8200 board - has modes(semi, 3 shot, 6 shot, FA), dwell(6-12MS) and RoF(max 13bps) adjustments
ICD 9300 board - fixed board with no adjustments
WDP LED board - dwell and RoF.

you could even add in the 22 pin 8200 which was fitted to the LCD guns, but that's semantics...

so there's your 3. any other questions?

all of those boards use switch filtering.

it is inherent in the design of every single paintball gun board. it has to be, because every single trigger event, no matter what ROF, is anywhere between 2 and 5+ trigger events when viewed electronically (sub millisecond is some cases). this means every board, adjustable or not, uses switch filtering to filter out those extra trigger events. this is most often done with a delay, but can be done other ways (low pass etc etc).

it seems you do not understand the electronics we are talking about .... your move.

[BigEvil]

ICD 8200 board - has modes(semi, 3 shot, 6 shot, FA), dwell(6-12MS) and RoF(max 13bps) adjustments
ICD 9300 board - fixed board with no adjustments
WDP LED board - dwell and RoF.

you could even add in the 22 pin 8200 which was fitted to the LCD guns, but that's semantics...

so there's your 3. any other questions?

[Nobody]

ICD 8200 board - has modes(semi, 3 shot, 6 shot, FA), dwell(6-12MS) and RoF(max 13bps) adjustments
ICD 9300 board - fixed board with no adjustments
WDP LED board - dwell and RoF.

you could even add in the 22 pin 8200 which was fitted to the LCD guns, but that's semantics...

so there's your 3. any other questions?