My Emag was oddly efficient...

[Spartan X]

It would kind of make sense
Because if the air was regulated before the on/off, why would the input affect the reactivity???

[Kevmaster]

yeh, i've yet to see one good reason why the pressure of the air, before it is turned down to 400psi makes a difference in how many shots a marker gets. If the 2nd reg turns it down to 0psi, then no air ever comes out regardless if the 1st reg is at 600psi or 800psi. Its the same thing with the 400psi reg

[Mossman]

Originally posted by Kevmaster
yeh, i've yet to see one good reason why the pressure of the air, before it is turned down to 400psi makes a difference in how many shots a marker gets. If the 2nd reg turns it down to 0psi, then no air ever comes out regardless if the 1st reg is at 600psi or 800psi. Its the same thing with the 400psi reg

Hrmm kev, I dunno. Since the unregulated air that works the on/off eventually goes into the dump chamber, right?

All i know is that i've heard people get better efficiency with emags and Retro mechanical mags, the lower they ran their input, at the expense of a reactive trigger.

The air that actuates the on/off assembly (unregulated, that's why higher inputs make more reactive triggers), does get regulated and is used to shoot a ball right? Or is it released out of the on/off in some way i can't notice/hear or understand?

[speeddemon]

OMG people. Go and look at the RT valve diagram now. Don't bother posting again until you do. The on/off valve is the absolute last thing the air hits until it gets into the dump chamber. Input pressure will not do anything to effiency, its simple math. To get a paintball to 300fps using a dump chamber it takes X volume of air at Y pressure. The air in the dump chamber is regulated. Input pressure can't change anything about efficiency.

The air is input in the valve close to the on/off, so that initially as air is coming into the valve, unregulated air hits the on/off. As the valve fills up, the air balances through the valve, and the regulator closes off the entire valve to air. Its not like an inline reg feeding into the on/off valve then to the dump chamber, its all kind of mashed together.

[athomas]

The front chamber is always at a set pressure determined by the valve regulator no matter what the input pressure to the regulator is.

For example, the front regulated pressure is typically around 400psi to produce 280fps. This is based on the volume of the front chamber and the rate at which the air can flow out the front of the bolt when it is forward. These factors are not at all affected by the rate of recharge or the input pressure. The volume is always the same and the bolt system is always the same. Therefore if the chamber pressure is always the same(and it is because of the reg), then the volume of air use to produce a shot is always the same. The input pressure could be 600psi or 1200psi and the chamber will still be regulated down to 400psi producing the same velocity using the same volume of air.

[AzrealDarkmoonZ]

Could heat be the answer? Ie the air releases more heat @ 800 psi than 600 psi?

Az

[pito189]

So if the valve only uses 400psi, where does the other 400psi go if you have your input at 800psi?

[athomas]

Heat has an effect on the shootup or 1st shot drop-off depending on how you look at it. I don't think that the valve heat affects the efficiency. The gases loose heat as they decompress and gain heat when they recompress. The front chamber has gas that compresses from ~50 psi to about 400psi. This happens as the tank loses only a few psi because the tank volume. The heat that the tank loses is hardly noticed. The heat that the front chamber gains is noticed because of the higher heat value due to the large increase in pressure.

Pito189, the other 400psi is blocked by the regulator built into the retro valve. 800 psi is the regulated output from the air bottle. 400psi is the regulated output from the retro valve regulator. As soon as the pressure in the front chamber reaches the desired set value, the regulator closes off the air passage that feeds the chamber.

The final psi value is always the same once the process of recharging the front chamber is complete.

[pito189]

So the other 400psi is blocked until you shoot. So then the blocked 400psi comes into the valve. So that means that the valve blocks 800 psi next time? Then 1200psi the shoot after that and so on and so on...

That doesn't make sense to me.

[speeddemon]

Yeah thats it
Read this.

http://www.warpig.com/paintball/technical/regulators/howtheywork/index.shtml

[pito189]

speeddemon was does that have to do with anything?

So if air could be supplied to the valve instantly, the Automag would run at 400psi?

[speeddemon]

Originally posted by pito189
speeddemon was does that have to do with anything?

So if air could be supplied to the valve instantly, the Automag would run at 400psi?

Uh, you were asking how the mag valve works, and since the mag valve is a regulator, I gave you this link to show how a regulator works. Basically a mag is made up of a regulator going to a dump chamber.

[pito189]

So if air could be supplied to the valve instantly, the Automag would run at 400psi?

[athomas]

Originally posted by pito189
So the other 400psi is blocked until you shoot. So then the blocked 400psi comes into the valve. So that means that the valve blocks 800 psi next time? Then 1200psi the shoot after that and so on and so on...

That doesn't make sense to me.

The regulator output on the bottle shuts off(blocks) the flow when the pressure at the output reaches 800psi, which is the preset output pressure. If you were to measure the psi in the line between the bottle and the retro valve, it would be 800psi. It will always be close to 800psi. The regulator on the bottle will allow flow to top it up if it gets below that value.

The regulator on the retro valve shuts off (blocks) the flow to the front chamber when the chamber pressure reaches ~400spi. The pressure in the chamber will always be 400psi if the on/off is open. The regulator on the valve will allow flow to top it up if it gets below that value due to a leak or something else.

[pito189]

Thanks for the good explanation athomas.