3-way (4-way) functionality in an Autococker: resistance to fire, reset force?

**ezrunner** · 10-21-2003, 09:35 PM

Re: 3-way (4-way) functionality in an Autococker: resistance to fire, reset force?

1.) What is the maximum PSI that the average (Bomb, Orracle, Palmer, etc) 3-way can handle, and the minimum it can handle? The LPR reg can put up to 200psi out I believe but I wasn't sure if the 3-way can handle that.

> To address this first we start with your LPR. The LPR will output about 0 - 200 psi depending on the model, the palmers closer to 200, the sonics venting at about 160.

The 3ways are different, some need a certain amount of pressure to seal reliably, this is due to the way the oring is forced out of shape to seal the air passage. The bomb can work as low as 35psi, but is best about 45psi+.

The Palmer and Orracle should work at higher pressures than the bomb. The shocktech bomb was built to have a short throw and that was about it. IT does suceed at that. You can get a smoother pull with the other 2 but the bomb is (As Far As I Know) the shortest I've installed.

2.) What types of resistance/push do the 3-ways provide to the 3-way rod and the actuating rod? For example, how much would the 3-way add to pulling the trigger before/after the ram begins to cycle, but also would it add resistance/momentum on the return? Some ideas on the air dynamics/kinetics involved in the 3-way moving would be great. Would there be a way to have the return stroke part of the movement actually aid the trigger reset by providing force to aid the momentum? So by pulling the hinge trigger, it pushes the 3-way pin, and when it's released the 3-way pushes back with more force.

> The way a 3way (Actually a 4 way but you mentioned that in your title) works is by shifting airflow from one port to another, and venting on the non-flow port.

ie, when you are in the "pre pull" position, the air is allowed to pass from the LPR to the gun end of the ram, thus holding the ram shut.

When you pull the trigger and the actuating rod actuates the valve (3way/4way) it moves the rod forward. As the rod moves forward, an oring passes under the barb that is sending air to the back of the ram. When that oring passes under that port it allows 2 things to happen, A. it stops air from flowing from the lpr into that end of the ram, B. it allows the ram to flow the air back from that chamber out the barb and into the atmosphere.

Another oring then passes under the opposite port of the valve and allows LPR flow to enter the front side of the ram and pushes back the bolt/backblock/cocking rod.

This whole time there is air coming into that center barb, and then leaving from one of the 2 side barbs. The resistance added to the trigger is the drag from the orings under pressure inside the body of the valve, along with the extra mass of the actuating rod and the valve rod.

There is no assistance to the pull from this action.

The 4way valve has 4 outputs and 1 input. You put air in the middle and it goes out the barbs into the ram. Then air comes out of the ram, back trough the valve and out the ends of the valve (the ends are the other 2 outputs).

3.) Do the QEVs have a significant effect on the resistance involved in cycling the marker? Meaning, by using QEVs could the trigger return spring be lightened just a little bit as the force needed to be applied to the 3-way would be less (I'm talking 1-2 ounces max, but its something)

> QEV's allow the air to vent at the ram instead of at the 4way valve. This is especially usefull on electronic markers where the backflow of the solenoids used to controll the pneumatics is not as high flow. I never needed them but some people like them. The RAINMAKERS had them back in the late 90's and now people are putting them on cockers, it is a way for someone to over charge you for an air fitting that is large bulky ugly and not needed.

Since they do not effect trigger tension then no they should not allow you to change you spring tension.

If you want the lightest pull I would reccommend the Besales Bullet 3way valve. The internal finish is incredible and the orings have a low friction so the operation of that 3 way is especially smooth.

If you want the shortest I reccomend the bomb.

for a good combination of short and smooth then Glenn Palmer and his QuickSwitch 4way is the best one to use.

Best of luck
-rob

Thoughts? [/B][/QUOTE]

**QUINCYMASSGUY** · 10-21-2003, 10:18 PM

response

Hey, thank you for the response. You did answer some good questions, I actually do know exactly how a 3-way (4-way, whatever) works pretty well, alot of what I am curious about is if the current ones can take 120-180psi or if that would just blow them to heck. So I do appreciate you helping me out on that. Sounds like the blow to heck one, oh well.

So the air itself probably wouldn't add resistance to the 3-way? It would only be the oring drag and the weight of the rod? Would that probably be within 3-4 oz? I'll probably play with that, set it up so it cycles but doesn't shoot (pulling out the hammer).

I am going with The Bomb, I'm dying to get the pull down real short. I have a hinge w/ cam adjuster too. But that's offtopic.

Cool, thanks for some info. Anything else you can think of, fire away. Anyone else?

**ezrunner** · 10-22-2003, 09:08 AM

Drag / Pressure

The oring is being pushed from the side and top with air, think about the shape of the oring and the channel it is sitting in at this point.

It is in a square cut channel, and compressed slightly. The air only contacts the top quadrant on one side or the other.

The pressure pushes the oring back into the channel and compresses it against top, back and opposite side.

The more pressure you add, the more this compression, and thus the more surface area as the oring is pushed against the top channel of the valve.

So adding more pressure could add more resistance, but that effect on the equation is more subtle than the overall construction and materials used.

-rob

**ezrunner** · 10-22-2003, 09:13 AM

BTW of all the hinges I've found, the best one seems to be the Eclipse Blade hinge (the original non-electro).

It is very smooth and has plenty of leverage on the actuator rod so the 3way makes less difference in the pull.

-rob

**QUINCYMASSGUY** · 10-23-2003, 07:22 PM

hinge

True, but I liked the cam adjuster feature. I will check an eclipse out soon though, I hear their rams are real smooth.

**the electrician** · 10-25-2003, 08:56 PM

the first solenoid 4way I made for an autococker was a KAPP 4-way with a solenoid mounted to the front of it. I tested it to see the minimum and maximum operating pressures. I could get it to work up to about 200 psi. anything over that and it started to leak and the ram didn't like it much either. I could take it as low as 30 psi before it started leaking. but I did notice that the higher the psi, the more the rod did not want to move. call it what you like, that is the end result. the weight of the rod seems to have very little effect compared to the operating psi.

the only way QEVs could lighten your trigger is the fact that you could possibly lower your cocking psi maybe 10 psi. then you might feel a difference in the trigger, but I doubt it.

ezrunner- most solenoid valves have plenty of flow. more so than mechanical 4-ways that use the sub-mini hose barbs and small exhaust holes such as used by the 3 o-ring type.
QEVs are not "needed", but they help all air cylinders to move easier. A way for someone to overcharge you for an air fitting ? it's not a fitting. it's a valve. palmer didn't beleive either, 'till I told him to look again. now he puts them on gun his own guns with noticeable effect.

quincymassguy- if you try the QEVs, you will see. I set-up a freinds cocker with a bomb 4-way and QEVs. very short and very responsive at a low cocking psi.

**QUINCYMASSGUY** · 10-26-2003, 12:35 AM

electrician

Always a pleasure to have you contribute electrician, you always have the info I am looking for. I like the sound of the 3-way, but I guess my question is: was it enough to fire the marker properly? What was the psi you set up to run to the ram to fire the hammer that hit the valve? Please tell me more about this as this is where my focus is. Thanks!

**the electrician** · 10-26-2003, 09:10 AM

oh, I see how you are

alright, you mean my springless, hammerless contraption?
the ram that opened the valve was a 1/2" bore, 1/2" stroke ram operating at 50 psi. it opened the valve(which has a 200 psi input) about 3/16" and would fire a ball at 300 fps with a solenoid energize time of 5msec on a MAC 44 series 4-way being fed 9 volts. remember, that's with no hammer, or springs. oh, and QEVs on it.

a 4-way solenoid valve is going to be adversely affected by too high of an input psi. BUT, more psi through a given orffice size means more flow in the specific amount of time, so you don't want to go too low either, so if you find that with the given cylinder your using, you can do the required job at 30 psi input, I would go to a smaller size cylinder and that would bump up the needed psi input to do the same job. this might produce a better reaction time because of the higher flow at the higher input psi. or it might not.
this is research you just have to do through testing to find out the answers.

most solenoid 4-ways are going to work best between 30 to 70 psi. a direct acting solenoid valve will operate at lower psi better than a piloted valve because piloted valves have higher minimum operating pressures. but I beleive that the piloted valve might work better than the direct acting at higher operating pressures. either one will start acting funny and leaking at pressures that are higher than what they are rated at. but some more expensive models can handle pretty high pressures. I beleive some of the skinner models can run fairly high psi.

**QUINCYMASSGUY** · 10-26-2003, 03:05 PM

I SEE

See how I am? Lost me there, just love the info and you know your stuff. Harmless curiousity

lol

Thanks for a little more info on your hammerless, but what I was more curious about was how much air you had running through the Kapp 3-way and how much it took to use that to operate a hammer to fire. This is close to what I am looking to do and I wanted to figure out if it was feasible or even worth doing. The air going through the 3-way wouldn't be the firing air, it would be pushing the ram. I was going to use an Orracle 3-way (a 2nd one) to cycle the ram but was interested in knowing if it could handle the air pressure needed to effectively fire. If it would leak alot, take way too much force to move, etc, it wouldn't be worth doing. What are your thoughts on using a manual 3-way instead of a noid. No electronics at all. Just the 3-way.

**the electrician** · 10-26-2003, 04:47 PM

oh, my bad.

make sure I have this right.
you mean a cocker that operates on two mechanical 4-ways?
one to control a valve opening cylinder and one for recocking the gun?

**QUINCYMASSGUY** · 10-26-2003, 05:22 PM

yup

Yup, the normal one and another back under where the hammer is, higher than the first one for one key reason: you could set a trigger with the ram 4-way set to connect higher on it so the extra fulcrum distance from where the trigger pivots (lets say a 50% increase) pulls that one further first, hence activating the ram to shoot before the bolt cycles. If the 4-way has negligble pull weight, this would result in the pull being as short as the front 3-way needs and pretty light too. Plus no sears to worry about. So it would basically work on the same principles as the electrococker 2 4-way wise but actually have the firing part work more like a mechanical Viking. Bizarre, but might work. Thoughts?

**the electrician** · 10-26-2003, 07:06 PM

it seems like it would work, but It would be seriously complicated. not really worth the effort to just have it mechanical.

think about that trigger pull:
first the valve 4-way would activate and send air to the valve ram to open the valve. now with the valve still open, the recock 4-way would activate the recocking ram. the valve would stay open till you let go of the trigger!!
even if you made a custom 4-way to vent, and let the valve close, when you let the trigger comeback, it would activate the valve ram again. you would have to make a seriously complicated air ciruit to make it work. and it would still be able to be short stroked, unlike an electro.

if you could pull it off, the trigger pull would be softer and smoother and the bolt recock would be separated from the valve action, giving it less needed cocking force, more available cocking speed and less recoil.

it could be done. but is it worth it?

**QUINCYMASSGUY** · 10-26-2003, 07:27 PM

complicated

Yeah, electro would be easier, I think it's more playing with the technology that I'm about. I guess it would be way too complicated to make it worth it. It would be sickly short, but the timing and avoiding short strokes would be a key issue.

**MDethCKR** · 11-20-2003, 03:46 PM

the 3-way doesnt have a max psi......the pnum hoses do...and the orings

look up stats on the hoses and orings?

3-way (4-way) functionality in an Autococker: resistance to fire, reset force?

3-way (4-way) functionality in an Autococker: resistance to fire, reset force?

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment