E-boards: what are the specs and diff's, and why is a new WAS needed for Impulses?

[QUINCYMASSGUY]

OK folks, you've seen my repeat threads on pneumatic functionality but now I've ventured into a different PBall Engineering subject matter: Electronics. A while back I emailed Jim Drew about if a Viking WAS board could work in an Angel, Impulse, or even for a Mag. I also asked if the board for a Timmy could be interchanged with that of a Viking, letting dwell settings and such compensate for any differences. The answer was also "no, there are way too many differences between the board."

What immediately came to my mind was: how different can these boards really be? And I'm mainly speaking of LED boards, I know the different boards need different LCD screen configurations and output, but for the basic firing process, how different can they be? Most markers even utilize the same specs in their noids. And if guns are so similar, why is Jim Drew having so much trouble with the Impulse boards? Doesn't seem like it would be a major leap. So please, entlighten myself and others on the various specs that are involved in boards, and please definitely involve the Morlock board, which has become so popular due to its availability in any gun, and the board AGD uses, since it's utilized in a marker much different from the Angel/Bushmaster clones. What I'm interested in "Deep Blue-ing" is a comparison of the key specs involved in a board, what makes them different, what noid they can use, and what features make them incompatible.

As an add-on, ideas on why flaws exist in some boards would be good. I know code is tricky, I work for a software company that can't seem to get their code right (no names and no I don't program it), but it seems the basic code function in something like a PBall board would be more easily diagnosable. Thoughts?

[AGD]

I would be amazed if there were true differences in boards that don't do any more than turn on and off a solenoid in a timed sequence. If they are having issues I would think that its more likely inconsistency on the part of the gun or sloppy tollerances than board issues.

AGD

[shades]

The only things I can think of is if the noids from gun to gun are different and triggering components to make them work. For example most air soleniods in most markers are 5V
low current. Where in an Emag you have something like a 12-18V solenoid at high current. Plus the power requirements for the board itself would be different. But that does not mean you cant adapt them. Sounds like money to me if you can figure it out. $$$$$

[Miscue]

Originally posted by QUINCYMASSGUY
As an add-on, ideas on why flaws exist in some boards would be good. I know code is tricky, I work for a software company that can't seem to get their code right (no names and no I don't program it), but it seems the basic code function in something like a PBall board would be more easily diagnosable. Thoughts?

The actual part of the software that makes the marker shoot should be very small... and I don't think there becomes an issue of needing to diagnose it because it is so simple - assuming competent programming. It takes literally about two instructions to detect a trigger pull, and then turn on a solenoid. Then you have to add a timer to shut off the solenoid, which is not that big. Pull trigger, turn on solenoid, turn off solenoid.

That's pretty much the foundation of getting an electronic board to fire. Everything in addition to this fundamental action, is an extra feature... and it cannot improve upon the board's most basic operation of pull trigger -> shoot ball.

When you throw in an ACE, shot buffering, ROF cap... etc... what has changed is that you've placed some extra rules on how it goes about doing its thing of pull trigger -> shoot ball... such as when it can detect the trigger, and when it can shoot the ball. I'd estimate that 90% or so of what goes into the typical PB software is feature-related... features that could be removed and the marker would do the bare minimum of firing when the trigger is pulled, even with shot buffering... which hardly complicates things. Heck, adding rudimentary ACE support adds maybe 1-2 instructions really, well on the EMag board at least.

Each marker has different needs as far as solenoid dwell, or having multiple solenoids and such... and some boards are set up specifically for particular markers, so that would be a reason why you can't mix them up - well, also there could be the issue of a particular board physically fitting in another marker. However it's not a big leap to change the software on a board to work on another marker.

So, I'm not sure of the nature of the "flaws" you're talking about. I think these flaws can really be attributed to oversights made by the people doing the developing - and not outright mistakes. My guess is that the programmers for particular boards didn't 'really' know how the paintball gun should operate, and designed it as they were told... without having the insights to cover all the nuances. It's hard to get all the small stuff down on paper, and tell somebody exactly how it should behave. It's much easier when the programmer already knows how it should work, and what paintball players want in a marker... down to finer details.

[QUINCYMASSGUY]

boards

First off, nice to hear from the man himself, Mr. Kaye :)

This all relates directly to a response I got to an email I sent Jim Drew over on PBN. With the Timmy and Viking being identical in eye setup, firing style, and such, I wouldn't see any reason, other than the display which could be transferred for a timmy and retrofitted into the solenoid rail on a Viking for example. Whether that would work would be a whole other discussion, but anyways.... I'm not totally sure, but I swear the timmys and vikings use identical solenoids, maybe not same brand but same specs, and any differences in design would perhaps be compensated by adjustments to dwell and such. However, when the response I got from Jim when I asked what, besides displays, is different between Timmy and Viking boards, the response was there were numerous things that would make retrofitting a timmy board into a viking impossible. The one possibility that keeps lingering is he just didn't want to lose sales by people buying one board for both guns or deal with warranty issues related to people trying to transfer them.

So what I guess my next question is, what are all the possible variabilities for boards like WAS and the AGD boards:
1.)Battery type
2.)Solenoid features including voltage
3.)Dwell
4.)Noid input pressure
5.)????????

[CoolHand]

I had about a week long discussion with Drew about using his Timmy boards in our electro vert frames, and this is what I gleaned from that interaction:

1) He is totally full of crap. (in my opinion)

2) See 1)

The guy beat around the bush for more than five days, without ever answering any of my questions. I tired of that very quickly, and told him that we would be going elsewhere. He responded with an elegantly worded email telling me I was out of my league.

Bottom line is this. He may be a very smart guy, he may even be a good business man, but he is a very condecending fellow, who would rather talk you in a circle to try to prove his own intelligence to himself, rather than sell his product.

Plus I never could get over the fact that they do not have telephones, and that the Lake Havisu (sp?) City directories say that their shipping address is an empty lot between a Moose Lodge and a used RV dealership.

I guess they could have built a building, but I figured that a company "with anual revenue in excess of 100 million dollars" could afford nicer digs than that.

Now maybe there is a good explainantion for all that, but I sure didn't see it.

Simply put - I wouldn't take anything that guy says at face value. You are most likely much closer to the truth than he would like for you to be.

[QUINCYMASSGUY]

coolhand

Coolhand, you definitely made some good points about Mr. Drew. One thing I have noticed in this industry is manufacturers doing all they can to prevent anyone following in their footsteps. Gauges and threads being obscure, complicated explanations to prevent civilians figuring it out, etc. I've been trying to fabricate a custom marker for a little while now but getting the right gauges and such so I can use current gear to prototype has been impossible due to this stuff. It's a shame, my idea could be pretty revolutionary. Patents is another, but whole other argument.

That info about the WAS address is very shady, I understand cutting costs but yikes.

I guess my next question is: when it comes to direct firing functions, how different are the markers? Display is excluded here, I'm talking a NYX vs. Xmag vs. Timmy vs. Imp, all with some eye detection system, how different is the process they use to fire consistently?

[vector9]

I posted on a debounce post on the WAS forums and asked how exactly it worked.....WAS said that it controlled the sensitity of the boards sensorship of the switch, so that when the recoil from the gun activated the switch it would notice and cycle again or whatever. I then asked how could that work when the gun is degassed (we all know you can put it on D 1 and you get like 3 or 4 a pull). He then said it senses and controls electronic bounce..... ive never heard of such a thing.....and even with the sensoring of the switch it makes no sense.....alot of switches are 25 grams + of need actuation pressure. Can some one explain this to me in good detail.

[jwigum]

sure.


Electronic switches come in two types(at least those widely used in paintball guns), leaf and dome switches. These switches do their jobs pretty well, which is opening and closing a circuit. The problem is at different points in their use lifetimes, they do it differently. Contacts wear, metal starts to show fatigue. As a result of this(supposedly), a certain company has decided to include something called Debounce in it's product. The "Debounce" setting on a WAS board allows you to adjust how long the board ignores the trigger switch after it hears a change, before listening to it again.

Remember how I talked about how switches trigger differently at different points in their lives, and how stuff wears out? That period of time in which the electronics package of the marker ignores the trigger switch is to solve the problem of a switch closing more than once when someone only meant to close it once. This keeps what amounts as "chatter" in the switch from being read as a trigger pull. The lower the debounce setting, the more likely the board is to "hear" something that isn't you pulling the trigger again.

It's interesting to note that other board makers do not include a "debounce" setting that is adjustable. They simply choose a value that is effective at eliminating shot generation(shots that are caused by the board hearing bounce), and stick with it when they program the chip.



If you look around for an article about someone visiting smart parts, and taking a look at what the shocker was doing when it came out with "Turbo" for the all americans that first year, it might give some more insight into the situation. I can't find the article for the life of me at the moment, but I'll keep an eye out for it.

[SlartyBartFast]

The "tubo mode" article is on WARPIG I believe.

As for everything else, it would be possible to create a VERY small board with one generic program that could effectively fire every marker available and include ALL the possibilities for intell-feed etc.

Vikings used poorly programmed/designed boards that would go dead.

The WAS claim of "electrically" produced shoot-down on timmees proved to be false. However, the WAS boards certainly had a better program than the original timmee boards.

[Joni]

Well, I think that the biggest reason for impulse owners to get WAS is that it has a better eye and eye handling than the original board, which makes it faster. I don't know if this is true, just what I've read from reviews.