Is recharge rate all ther is to it?

[Pain For Pleasure]

Not really sure if this belongs here. I wasn't sure so I thought I would start here. Feel free to move it to general.

PGI produces a magazine titled What Paintball Gear? which does technical reviews of many products. One thing they measure is recharge rate of tank regulators. I see lots of people on other message boards flaunt this data and claim one tank is superior solely because of its recharge rate. I was just wondering if that's all there is to it (in the technical sense). Disregarding quality or the company that makes it, are there any other factors that can also be looked at. I was thinking of flow rate, but I'm not exactly sure if that is it, or maybe there is something else. For example, my thinking would be that a tank with a low recharge rate and a low flow rate would be comparable to a tank with a higher recharge rate and a higher flow rate.

One tank that got me thinking about this was the ACI Bulldog III. It has a relatively slow recharge rate, but it was advertised as being 15% higher flowing than other tanks on the market. Maybe that is just advertising.


Thank you for looking at this, and feel free to correct me on any ignorant or completely wrong statements I have made.

[Dayspring]

Both are equally important.

Recharge Rate- how quickly they can refill a volume after that volume is exhausted, & how close to the set value (psi) it can get.

Flow- How quickly they can empty that volume without restriction.

[ScatterPlot]

As dayspring said, you also gotta remember repeatability- how close does it come to the same value every time it recharges?

[Pain For Pleasure]

So basically you shouldn't claim one regulator is better just because it has a lower recharge rate? Flow rate and consistancy of the recharge rate are equally important?

[SlartyBartFast]

So basically you shouldn't claim one regulator is better just because it has a lower recharge rate? Flow rate and consistancy of the recharge rate are equally important?

How is "recharge rate" being measured?

I don't understand how it can be separate from flow rate. In order to quickly recharge, you need to have a high flow....


But I honestly doubt even the "slowest" of tanks and regulators has any problems providing air to a marker at humanly pulled firing speeds.

[Pain For Pleasure]

The rates are listed in miliseconds. For example, the ACI BD III has a recharge rate of 122ms. If my math is correct, that means you will start to notice shootdown at about 8bps, going on recharge rate alone. Now that seems pretty pathetic compared to Crossfire's 10ms recharge rate. Here is the list of numbers I was talking about from PBN:

http://www.pbnation.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=836422

I'm just wondering if someone should base the superiority of a tank based on these numbers alone.

[ojhspyro89]

Wow thats lame with the shootdown at 8 bps.

But hey, i have a crossfire woot! But with the Aci, would you have to use an extreemly large volumizer to achieve lower shootdown at over tghe 8bps measure? I dont see why people dont try helium thatd be kinda funny. I dont see why helium wouldnt work anyway. Its lighter so less pressure and volume of air would have to be consumed for each shot.

From my pneumatic cannon experience (i need real thick black glasses to say that seriosly) you can only shoot something super sonic with gasses lighter than air or heated air.

So i think helium would be lots more productive but itd be too much to ever afford.

[ScatterPlot]

I've heard that He would be too small and would leak a lot more than N, but that's not backed up by anything. Don't remember who said it.

[SlartyBartFast]

I've heard that He would be too small and would leak a lot more than N, but that's not backed up by anything. Don't remember who said it.

YUP. You'd need much tighter tolerances and seals for He.

What do you thing the diference between good quality He party ballons and 'regular' party ballons is?

He leaks right out of 'regular' ballons.