Love springfeeds, but hate reloading?

[GoatBoy]

This is up in Onshape if you want to look at it there. Not a lot to look at really.

Body:



"Kinda Parabolic" plug with the hole for the screw:



And there's a back cap to keep the torsion spring from flying out, but that's about it.

And just for fun, I actually broke my pusher (snapped the screw off in it) so I made a new one, but moar fancy:

[knownothingmags]

No they are not cocks!!!!!

is that the tool you use to design is onshape?

[GoatBoy]

No they are not cocks!!!!!

is that the tool you use to design is onshape?

Yeah, it's kind of my go-to tool now. Kind of feel like I'm cheating on OpenSCAD, but there are some things are just really hard to do in OpenSCAD. I tried FreeCAD too but the interface is absolutely awful.

[Nobody]

I do love Archer... And how its drawn...

[river031403]

Would it be possible to just cut a slit in the existing empire power feed plug area and just design your new feed plug similar to yours but using the exiting platform or am I missing something here

[captian pinky]

so you basically made a keyed powerfeed plug with out orings correct?

i think i would have changed the position of the screw so that up was the reloading and down was the shooting. that way if it spins on its own it likely won stop you from shooting. thats just me though. Might have to try this on a empire spring feed.

[GoatBoy]

Would it be possible to just cut a slit in the existing empire power feed plug area and just design your new feed plug similar to yours but using the exiting platform or am I missing something here

Yes, but follow your idea to its conclusion.

If you slot the plug, then _______.

Fill in the blank.

so you basically made a keyed powerfeed plug with out orings correct?

i think i would have changed the position of the screw so that up was the reloading and down was the shooting. that way if it spins on its own it likely won stop you from shooting. thats just me though. Might have to try this on a empire spring feed.

Kinda. I consider the keying to be on the housing, not the plug.

The plug won't rotate out of place on its own. That's what the torsion spring is for.

Reload lever up would be useful if you want to hold it back with your reload hand, but in that case I'd prefer a lock anyways.

Speaking of preferences -- going_home, do you reload with right or left hand?

[going_home]

Yes, but follow your idea to its conclusion.

If you slot the plug, then _______.

Fill in the blank.





Kinda. I consider the keying to be on the housing, not the plug.

The plug won't rotate out of place on its own. That's what the torsion spring is for.

Reload lever up would be useful if you want to hold it back with your reload hand, but in that case I'd prefer a lock anyways.

Speaking of preferences -- going_home, do you reload with right or left hand?

Left always.

[TheJackal28]

This is awesome I made us a sight rail and used bt empire feed necks and spring tubes for a while now but I have to say you took it the next step is also had a mag well designed around the sight rail and body to allow the zeta mags to run down the side on the body and rail.

I now have a new project of a mag well that screws on to the side of a rt rail the feeds warped bodies like my tac one. Dead cell was my original designer, I now also help design micromods facebook group. We have designed up a vert off set feed neck, we also designed a more popular feed neck as the ego feed neck adapter. So I would like to maybe run a few ideas past you and maybe it will help you out in the long run.

[GoatBoy]

This is awesome I made us a sight rail and used bt empire feed necks and spring tubes for a while now but I have to say you took it the next step is also had a mag well designed around the sight rail and body to allow the zeta mags to run down the side on the body and rail.

I now have a new project of a mag well that screws on to the side of a rt rail the feeds warped bodies like my tac one. Dead cell was my original designer, I now also help design micromods facebook group. We have designed up a vert off set feed neck, we also designed a more popular feed neck as the ego feed neck adapter. So I would like to maybe run a few ideas past you and maybe it will help you out in the long run.

One of my old designs from a long time ago was in fact an RTP rail bolt on for a warp left ULE body. That... has its own issues.

The problem was spring feeds, magazines (paintball magazines have technically been around a long time), and 3d printing sucked back then, so I had to wait for the world to catch up.

Anyways I'm open for bouncing ideas around. If it's Zetamag related, maybe it should go in the other thread, or whatever...

[bowcycle]

I really like the way my springfeed sits on my marker. I modded the housing to make sure it sits low and tight. I'm sure others have done the same.

So if your housing, the SA17, and Empire housings all use an inset diameter of 23mm; is it possible to make this insert (with rotating parabolic face, lever, etc) a self-contained unit that fits snugly into whichever of these housings you want to use? Theoretically, if it's built as a drop-in unit, the slot for the lever can be designed with a "lock" so you don't have to hold it open.

Seems like this would be the more universal solution and shouldn't be too complicated to do now that Goat has the functioning system. However, admittedly I haven't touched CAD in about 12 years and even then worked mostly in 2D - "layered" neighborhood planning and not 3D design.

and I understand that all the different housings have different insert depths, but if this "universal insert" is as long as the longest one, the others housings would still be able to use it, just with a bit more of the insert showing.

My parabolic plug sits into my Empire housing very snugly (which is part of why it's such a pain to reload) so I don't think you'd have to worry too much about the entire unit twisting. But if you're that worried about it, you can just drill a hole for a set screw through whichever of the housings you're using and lock the drop-in unit in place that way.

Thoughts?

[GoatBoy]

The touchy parts are 1. the lock and 2. fitting into the metal versions which may be slightly different diameter/shape, which matters for a press-fit part, which is what I'm going for. The bail-out option is to require a set-screw.

The lever/actuator can be be moved to the back of the assembly where it hangs out since the axle comes all the way back out anyways.

It's the lock that I'm trying to figure out. A lock implies a second spring to keep the lock engaged, but I want to avoid a second spring.

The option then is to make the lock out of flexible filament so it has a built-in spring. So you pull the lever over a flexible latch that holds it in place while you reload, then you just pop the latch when done.

And then, you know, trying to fit all of this into the space and still actually be printable in as few parts as possible.

Sometimes when things get this complicated I get the nagging suspicion that I'm missing something obvious...

If you guys got ideas, draw 'em up.

[going_home]

If you guys got ideas, draw 'em up.

Only thing I can draw is flies.....


"Times fun when you're having flies" Kermit THEE Frog

[bowcycle]

[bowcycle]

So with the sketch above, here's what I'm thinking:

You have an outer housing that is a housing for the actuator plate and has a hole out the back for the axle. A basic pen spring goes on the axle and provides tension between the back of the outer housing and the actuator plate so that there is a constant forward tension on the actuator at all times.
This outer housing has a "C" shaped channel that locks the actuator at either end. These two point correspond to the parabolic face being in the firing and loading positions.

The axel continues straight through the inner housing. This is basically nothing more than a fat cylinder. There are no inner workings, it's just the contact point between the spring feed's housing and this unit.

The axel terminates in the parabolic face.

EDIT:
After thinking about all of this a bit more, I realize that the way I designed this would have the pen spring fighting against the spring of the spring feed as it is feeding the paint. Thus, I advise to switch the channel in the outer housing to a backwards "C" and put the spring between the actuator plate and the front of outer housing.

This would mean that you push the actuator knob forward and over to flip the parabolic face and it keeps you in the same motion as you slide the spring feed knob down.

I think that's a better way to go all around and it allows the parabolic face to sit against the front of the inner housing so there's no slop there.