Love springfeeds, but hate reloading?

[GoatBoy]

How is this different from the current "turn and dump" plug? Is there a second spring in there that I don't see?

If you don't have a way for the plug to rotate back in place by itself, you don't actually need a lock or spring. You have... the existing BT system, which is just a plug you manually rotate both ways.

This design might be a little easier to turn, but if that's all you wanted, all you need is a flip-out lever on the existing plug to give you better leverage.

[bowcycle]

How is this different from the current "turn and dump" plug? Is there a second spring in there that I don't see?
If you don't have a way for the plug to rotate back in place by itself, you don't actually need a lock or spring. You have... the existing BT system, which is just a plug you manually rotate both ways.
This design might be a little easier to turn, but if that's all you wanted, all you need is a flip-out lever on the existing plug to give you better leverage.

I didn't know where in the system your bearing went, but I hoped you would add bearings into this system where appropriate so that it will turn as smoothly as yours appears to in the video.
If that is possible, it would be a huge improvement over my current setup even with the finger lever I mounted into it.

For the "torsion-spring effect" I was thinking about opening both ends of the pen spring so that it had a wire sticking up on each end that would fit into channels on the actuator plate and the outer housing. Hopefully, this would give both lateral and rotational tension.

If both tensions are high enough, then you can do away with the lock in the "feed" position and only have a minimal lock in the "reload" position.

[GoatBoy]

I didn't know where in the system your bearing went, but I hoped you would add bearings into this system where appropriate so that it will turn as smoothly as yours appears to in the video.
If that is possible, it would be a huge improvement over my current setup even with the finger lever I mounted into it.

For the "torsion-spring effect" I was thinking about opening both ends of the pen spring so that it had a wire sticking up on each end that would fit into channels on the actuator plate and the outer housing. Hopefully, this would give both lateral and rotational tension.

If both tensions are high enough, then you can do away with the lock in the "feed" position and only have a minimal lock in the "reload" position.

/me pops open a fresh can of Dr. Pepper.

Yes my design does have a bearing inside, in fact I just switched it out to a 16mm OD 5mm thick one (instead of the 608zz), which I put a spacer around to fill it out to 23mm. The spacer was where I was planning to sneak some extra functionality in.

The cylindrical space we have to play with is about 16mm deep. I'm currently taking 5 extra for the parabolic plug that I could probably give up, but the bearing takes 5, and the spring takes about 4.5. And then 0.5 for safety/slack.

I haven't seen a spring in the configuration that you described, and a pen spring won't be able to provide enough force to be... satisfying. You want something about badge-holder strength. It would definitely be nice to combine two springs into one.

Springs so far have been a real PITA. Last set of projects (the FSR loader, 2 different Zetamag releases, and now this spring feed) have all had me scrambling and racking my brain trying to figure out spring sources. I think it's possible to 3d print a torsion spring, but ... I will need to beat it out of the software because it's not cooperating.

May need to give up certain aspects of the design and swap with something else...

[bowcycle]

I think it's possible to 3d print a torsion spring, but ... I will need to beat it out of the software because it's not cooperating.

oooh, does that mean (in theory) a helical machined spring could be printed with tabs on each end so it functions as both a compression spring and a torsion spring? That would be nifty.



Edit:
What about a conical spring? That would save us space on the compression side and (if the wire is decently thick) provide "satisfying" torsional strength. Again, the ends would need to be bent out to form tabs.

[knownothingmags]

printed springs are a game of wonder some times.

depends on a bit of variables

[GoatBoy]

oooh, does that mean (in theory) a helical machined spring could be printed with tabs on each end so it functions as both a compression spring and a torsion spring? That would be nifty.

Edit:
What about a conical spring? That would save us space on the compression side and (if the wire is decently thick) provide "satisfying" torsional strength. Again, the ends would need to be bent out to form tabs.

Yeah..... let's not get ahead of ourselves yet; just a single proper torsion spring would be great.

Incidentally, the process for drawing a spiral in Onshape is to put a helix onto a cone.

https://forum.onshape.com/discussion/809/spirals

printed springs are a game of wonder some times.

depends on a bit of variables

Well what i wanted was a single-wall spiral, which I think would work, but the slicer refuses to do it as a single wall.

PETG or even PLA would probably work great.

May have to resort to manually writing gcode or something...




Oh, forgot my original reason for posting... Actually used the springfeed in-game today. Had a few hijinx with the pusher plug unlocking from the force of the paint entering the tube; need to carve up a deeper groove for that thing. Also need to break my old reload motion habits which are no longer applicable.

The other thing is there is a practical limit for how small you want to go, depending on how fast/easy your reloads to happen. The current spacing, which is damn near bare minimum spacing from body to feed tube, isn't a multiple-of-ball-size distance away.

Which means when it comes time to non-empty reload, there's a ball sitting in the dead space that will block the parabolic plug from rotating. So I have to tip that ball out before I can reload. This isn't a problem with the BT adapter as I think the spacing is correct.

I could probably fix this, but I think I will just live with it as I put a premium on the lower profile.

[bowcycle]

Does anyone have the inner diameter and insert depth of the stick feed on the fixed-stick-feed bodies Luke did?
Would be interesting to know if this project could work for one of those bodies (as long as it were drilled for top-loading).

I'm planning to rock pistols at OK D-Day this year. It would be pretty amazing to have the ease of reloading that we're talking about.
Since I don't have the ability to print stuff (down side of living in one of those 3rd world countries that uses the metric system), I guess at the very least I could stick a couple of bearings into a nylon bushing and stick a parabolic face on one end of the axel and a lever on the other.

Still a few months till I'm back in the States, so we'll just see when the time comes.

[bowcycle]

BTW, if anyone is looking for a BT/Empire spring feed (trracer/SA-17), they are getting a bit scarce.
You can buy a number of the parts for them at jtpaintballparts.com, but not the full system and not even everything to build the full system.
I recently found that criticalpaintball.com claims they have them in stock. I ordered one so we'll find out soon if it's true.

Again, seems like these are going extinct so if you have plans to do the trracer rail mod with all the different options (hopper fed, spring feed, rip clip, etc.), you should probably start grabbing the parts now.


EDIT:
Just got the email from Critical saying that they are out of the spring feeds. Put in an order with JTP for all the parts to build one (minus spring guide). Cost $50 with shipping. We'll see if that one comes through.

[GoatBoy]

I just happened to look back myself at some guns and noticed a number of them are discontinued, so I was expecting this.

It's too bad they never upgraded the Empire Trracer; it's one of the few non-Mag guns that I like (despite its warts).

But it was clear that some of these markers just weren't sustainable as-is.

That was the other reason why I wanted to make this adapter as well as the other accessories that could replace the top rail. So don't fret if you can't get a top rail because that's a printable part.

Things like springs and main tube and the cap for the feed tube might make it worth the scramble to pick up what you can.

[Nobody]

The design path of the Trracer was for a lot more, but Empire didn't want to invest the money on a "low end" gun where the margins were going to be less than their hivher priced guns. I got this straight from the man who designed it. He hated the bean-counters that would look at the numbers and not see the benefit of the product to the community or to the line of products.

[bowcycle]

A note on my order from JT Paintball:
I received an email from customer service saying that the springs and plunger knob were discontinued and out of stock, but the rest of the order could be processed.

Basically, if you want anything having to do with the Trracer or Empire spring feeds, jump on the last few parts now while you can.

[going_home]

http://www.paintballgateway.com/geemsnunspfe.html

http://www.paintballgateway.com/emsnpugunpas.html

[GoatBoy]

The design path of the Trracer was for a lot more, but Empire didn't want to invest the money on a "low end" gun where the margins were going to be less than their hivher priced guns. I got this straight from the man who designed it. He hated the bean-counters that would look at the numbers and not see the benefit of the product to the community or to the line of products.

I'm not privy to what happened with the Trracer; I can only look at... what I can see. I think when you're in a situation like that, you have to be very careful about where you add value, and more importantly, where you take away value.

I was going to do this in another thread, but screw it I’ll just do it here.



It’s 2016 and I still do not own a bench vise.

I had this idea a really long time ago. This part is like 95% of the way there… but the last 5% was a killer.





(Ignore the extra cutting at the backend -- failed experiment from something else).

That’s right, you can fashion a mag-cocker barrel adapter out of a Trracer body, which costs like $25. The problem was the detent. The Ego detent alone is not sufficient; you need minimum 2 opposing ones. Putting a second detent slot in there is outside my scope, so the entire idea was jettisoned. I haven't actually fired the thing yet, but the measurements are really, really close to AGD spec for the chamber. Unless you go smaller than .680 barrel, I don't think it will matter.

But really if you’re looking to FSR up a classic mag, then the detent doesn’t much matter. Meanwhile this is cut for the D shape and already has the cocker threads. You just need to put a TL pin divot in the right place, which is pretty easy to do. And you guys are probably sick to death of me talking about weight, but it only weighs about an ounce, which is 1/3 what Doc's version weighs.

So the reason I’m bothering saying this is since the Trracer is discontinued, the spare bodies are getting kind of scarce.

I hope hope hope there isn’t some pile of Trracer bodies being turned into slag right now. You guys should check with “The Creator” to see if you can snatch up these bodies. You’re really only a divot and a detent slot away from some nice adapters.