can someone explain to me what "freeflow" is.

[steveg]

Conqueror what is being claimed as 100% efficiency and
how was that number arrived at?

Wouldn't I love to get 1800 shots with my matrix

[thei3ug]

Originally posted by Conqueror
I've lost some respect for Ethan and Freeflow lately because of the ridiculous and clearly false claims they've been making of late.

Hey CQ, could you help me over at paintballresource? Some shmoe started spouting the rhetoric, and I started to look things up... but can't find all the math involved with the time I have. Did you happen to save any of the posts made in the past on this subject?

[AutoMaggot]

I could shoot over a case with my Freeflow on a full 88/45... it was NUTS. The 45/45 story was with no paint, and a FULL 45/45 fill. He tanked it up, let it sit, then tanked it up again and shot until it sputtered.

[dcmander]

Originally posted by AutoMaggot
I could shoot over a case with my Freeflow on a full 88/45... it was NUTS. The 45/45 story was with no paint, and a FULL 45/45 fill. He tanked it up, let it sit, then tanked it up again and shot until it sputtered.

Wouldn't it be LESS efficient with no paint??

[lonsch]

yes it would be less efficient without paint. and i thought they were saying 1700 on a 45/4500. thats still hard to belive. but if they are shooting at 250 fps it is posable

[i-luv-my-rt]

I can stick up for Ethan's sayings b/c I know him very well and have seen alot of his stuff proven. Why is 1800 shots out of a cocker unusual. I know alot of the lockout players run 45's on there guns and throw about 6-7 tubes easily. hats not 1800 but i can still believe it with a full fill.

What was the math to get 100% efficiency?

[AutoMaggot]

Dude, I'm tellin you... it was with no paint when he did the test!

[Ov3rmind]

Oh God AutoMaggot, get that beautiful piece of art off the ground!

I've shot a Freeflow before, VERY nice Cockers (probably my favorite, right next to the Revenge V2). IMO, they're the perfect combination of looks and performance.

[mykroft]

Freeflow mods to Angles just replace the Angel LPR with an External Cocker one. Very mild efficiency improvements on LED's, no benefit to an LCD or IR3.

And I get a case or more out of My Angel from a 88/45 on a full-to-the-brim fill, just takes a well tuned gun.

[Conqueror]

Originally posted by AutoMaggot
Dude, I'm tellin you... it was with no paint when he did the test!

No, it was definitely with paint. The story on their website says he shot numerous pods. You don't dump empty pods into an empty hopper.

CQ

[Conqueror]

Originally posted by i-luv-my-rt
I can stick up for Ethan's sayings b/c I know him very well and have seen alot of his stuff proven. Why is 1800 shots out of a cocker unusual. I know alot of the lockout players run 45's on there guns and throw about 6-7 tubes easily. hats not 1800 but i can still believe it with a full fill.

What was the math to get 100% efficiency?

1800 isn't unusual on a cocker with a larger tank, but it's not possible on a 45/45.

When I confronted Ethan with the math, he admitted that the last 400 or so shots were below 200 fps, if I recall correctly. So while it may be true that his gun cycles 1800 times with a 45/45, hundreds of those will be useless cycles. That's like claiming my shocker gets 1500 shots on a 45/45, simply because it still cycles at 30 psi and makes a little farting noise and pushes the ball 4 feet.

I'll try and dig up some of my old posts on the subject.

CQ

[Conqueror]

OK, found them. I'm gonna copy and paste the posts that were "meaningful" from a bonch of the old threads. Here goes...

Originally posted by lockoutethan
In house testing looks promising. Our goal is to get everyone on the team using 45ci tanks so we need about 2500 shots to make it happen.

Originally posted by Conqueror
I'm not sure that's even physically possible Ethan... it takes a shade over 13 Joules of energy to accelerate a paintball to 300 fps. In a 68/3000 tank, there is enough stored energy to shoot a little over 1700 balls, IF all energy from the gas went into the paintball (which it doesnt, since there's sound, recocking, etc). Those are what I'm pulling from memory, because I don't feel like doing any math right now. I seem to recall that a 68/4500 tank had enough theoretical energy for 2200 or so - how do you propose getting more from a smaller tank?

CQ

Originally posted by Conqueror
The average paintball weighs 3.23 grams. Flying at 300 fps, (91.44 m/s) it has 13.378 Joules of Kinetic Energy (1/2mv^2). Thus, a 100% efficient paintgun needs 13.378 J to fire the ball.

Let's use a 45/4500 tank for the next bit, since that seems to be the topic of discussion...

45 in^3, at 4500 #/in^2.

Multiply Pressure times volume, you get 202,500 in-lbs of energy.

Divide by 12 in/ft, you get 16,875 ft-lbs of energy.

1 Joule = 0.73756 ft-lbs. Divide 16,875 ft-lbs by .73756 and you get 22,879.49 Joules stored in a 45/4500 tank.

Remember, each ball uses 13.378 J. 22879.49/13.378 = 1710 shots on a full fill.

So, a 45/4500 tank has enough stored gas to shoot 1710 paintballs. HOWEVER, you'll never get a 100% efficient paintgun. The noise of the gun, the porting, the pneumatic recocking system, etc. will all subtract from the usable energy of the tank. Thus, the shot count from a 45/4500 tank must be under 1700.

CQ

Note - After I showed this to Ethan, he actually raised the claimed shot count to 1900 on a 45/45.

Originally posted by lockoutethan
I am no master of physics so the 101 class I barely passed tought me nothing. Maybe it's impossible. Right now we get about 1700 from the stock valve using our standard springs.

-Ethan

Note - he admits that he may be stating the impossible, but then he immediately does it some more.

Originally posted by Lockoutethan
In Chicago Paul O'Malley shot his 45ci Paintball Maina SS4500 Free Flow tank running 350psi directly into his RaceGun equipped Boxxer minicocker. He filled his bottle with the NPPL fill station (I don't know if it was set right or not). Then he went onto the field and shot nearly a case of paint (a few rounds were left in his loader). Paul regularly shoots JT Maxim paint at 290fps with a JT 12 inch Aluminum barrel.

He told me this and I talked to everyone else on the team and they were telling me that coming off the field they had tons of air. Our back players who normally shoot 1500 rounds per game had about 3000psi left in their 68ci tanks after a long game.

I naturally questioned this so I tested it when they got home. I took Paul's gun and filled it using our compresser (I filled it to 4500psi - let it sit for about 1 hr - then topped it off). Then I shot the gun over our chrono at an average of 285 fps for 2000 shots. The last loader was shooting about 200fps (it dropped off drastically to 200 fps about 3/4 through the last bag of paint in the case.

-Ethan

Note - The last paragraph is where he finally admitted that the last X number of shots were essentially unusable. Also, note the middle paragraph - he claims 1 ball per 1 psi on a 68 ci tank, which would yield 4500 balls with his wundervalve. But he only claims 2600 shots on a 68/4500 in his other posts, meaning he's contradicting himself. Also, his only evidence is that he shot an "average of 285 fps" for 2000 shots. Averages mean nothing - he could have fired the first 300 shots at 500 fps, and that would jack up the average to 285 even if the last half-case was at sub-par velocities. Of course, it's probably giving him too much credit to think he actually wrote down and averaged the velocities.


That's all I can remember or care to look for right now.

CQ

[steveg]

Thanks C!

interestingly, by your own math, at 280fps 100% efficiency
would equal 1945 shoots.

[Conqueror]

Originally posted by steveg
Thanks C!

interestingly, by your own math, at 280fps 100% efficiency
would equal 1945 shoots.

Yeah, but you know Ethan doesn't chrono at 280 when he plays tourney ball...

I based my math on the premise that 300 fps is a "full-velocity" shot. Even at 280 fps, his numbers are impossible (like 99% efficient), so it's moot anyway. He's lying, or stupid, or both.

CQ

[steveg]

https://www.media.mit.edu/people/aries/portable-power/node5.html

conqueror if you follow the above link you will see that the
author calculated that a 1Litre (~62in/3) 3000psi tank
has a stored energy capacity of 43 729J

a 68/3000 tank has 114000 psi/in3
a 45/4500 tank has 202500 psi/in3

almost twice the energy capacity

someones math here is wrong.

I do not defend ethan I don't even like cockers!

Another thing that I do not do is leave the field after
my velocity drops under 300psi (more like when the balls
drop after 3')
this ethan did infact state that he was including shots
down to about 200psi.