Public Domain!!!!!

[questionful]

Put yer ideas here!

I'll start with my idea for a valve that I think would be faster than an automag. It would at least compete. It is mechanical, has RT, and is a spool. It has an ion style bolt, which runs off a mini reg that would have to supply higher pressure than the main regulator. Now that I type that, it seems stupid, but I'm sure I had a reason to go air over spring. Anyway, the heart of this design is the regulator. It was my way of combining the automag's regulator and on/off assembly. All it is is a standard poppet regulator with the stem extended to act as an on/off. When the trigger is depressed, it will keep the poppet from opening until the sear catches the bolt and allows the trigger to swing forward. The opening of the poppet also provides RT. There are several possibilities for the trigger mechanism; it could be a cam, a lever, etc. The sear could take several shapes too. The problem is that it will put a lot of pressure on the bolt as the bolt slides over the sear. This poses the problem of what materials to make the bolt and sear out of, and how often they will need to be replaced. So this idea is faaaaaaar from finished. I will continue to think about it, and I welcome you to try to work out its kins too. In all likelyhood, you will point out some obvious flaw and the whole idea will be dead, but here it is. It is now public domain so no one can patent it and anyone can do anything they want with it free of charge. My hope is that it will be improved upon and that it will remain public domain as a small step towards the goal of AO'ers designing and building a completely opensource marker that kicks butt.

I'll type and draw more later, but here's what I have right now. These drawing are not to scale and many aspects of them have different possibilities. These are just sketches.








Sorry I didn't label anything, or illustrate threads, I hope you get the idea.

[y0da900]

Unless I'm missing something incredibly obvious with those drawings, that will not work.

The bottom 2 look like a not working hollowpoint bolt for an Ion. In order for the air in front of the bolt to reset/push back the bolt, at the same pressure as the firing chamber, it would need more surface area on the front of the bolt than on the rear. Part of the reason that a Hollowpoint bolt has a stepped interior (Nicad probably had more reasons than just that). I know that you say you can run it at a higher pressure than the firing chamber, but that creates another problem: how does the bolt move forward? If there is more force in front of the bolt than behind in order to keep the bolt open, then that would need to be vented to subsequently move it forward. Making a sear completely worthless.

Do you plan on having an on/off valve built into the reg that is controlled by the trigger? I can only see extending the reg piston and using that as an RT like device as a terrible idea. Heavy fingers will allow too much pressure to build in the chamber, tuning it with heavy fingers will cause a light pull to give a wimpy velocity. Not that the drawings would work as an RT anyways, if you have to release the trigger to allow the reg to fill the chamber, the trigger is already back before pressure could build and the reg could assist. That's how you get the RT out of an RT valve, there is always full pressure air present at the on/off which is linked to the trigger, it acts before the reg starts filling the chamber.

Please don't take any of this the wrong way, I don't mean to be offensive or disrespectful. I appreciate your enthusiasm for the project, and I see that you have written down "So this idea is faaaaaaar from finished", but it is far enough from finished that to make it at all functional would be an almost complete redesign. Nicad also has a patent application in for the hollowpoint, so this style of air release in a blow forward may very well be covered in it should it ever be granted. But the application hasn't been publicly released yet, so it might not be, only time or Colin will tell.

[questionful]

Unless I'm missing something incredibly obvious with those drawings, that will not work.

Aw crap.

The bottom 2 look like a not working hollowpoint bolt for an Ion. In order for the air in front of the bolt to reset/push back the bolt, at the same pressure as the firing chamber, it would need more surface area on the front of the bolt than on the rear. Part of the reason that a Hollowpoint bolt has a stepped interior (Nicad probably had more reasons than just that). I know that you say you can run it at a higher pressure than the firing chamber, but that creates another problem: how does the bolt move forward? If there is more force in front of the bolt than behind in order to keep the bolt open, then that would need to be vented to subsequently move it forward. Making a sear completely worthless.

I haven't figured out whether the reset pressure and Dump Chamber pressure are from the same regulator, but they are about the same. In this example, they are fed from two separate regulators with the same output pressure.

• The bolt is biased forward, but the sear keeps it back. When the trigger is pulled. . .
• The sear let's go of the bolt
• The bolt shoots forward because of the greater area of equal pressure behind it
• DC vents
• The regulator piston, now with no pressure in front of it, is biased forward due to spring pressure but does not move due to the trigger mechanism chain described below (mechanism not illustrated (yet))
• *The bolt keeps the sear in the "down" position throughout the bolt's travel
• *The sear in the "down" position keeps the trigger in the "pulled" position
• *The trigger in the "pulled" position keeps the poppet closed, thus the pressure behind the bolt remains atmospheric after DC venting
• Reset pressure returns the bolt
• When the bolt is reset, it no longer keeps the sear from popping up, so the regulator spring pushes the poppet open, the trigger forward, and the sear up.
• When desired DC pressure is reached, the poppet closes and the valve is ready to fire again.

That's how you get the RT out of an RT valve, there is always full pressure air present at the on/off which is linked to the trigger, it acts before the reg starts filling the chamber.

The pressure is provided, in the case of my valve, by the regulator spring. The trigger's "push-back" is neutralized by the pressure in the DC, thus providing push-back only after a shot has been fired.

Please don't take any of this the wrong way, I don't mean to be offensive or disrespectful. I appreciate your enthusiasm for the project, and I see that you have written down "So this idea is faaaaaaar from finished", but it is far enough from finished that to make it at all functional would be an almost complete redesign. Nicad also has a patent application in for the hollowpoint, so this style of air release in a blow forward may very well be covered in it should it ever be granted. But the application hasn't been publicly released yet, so it might not be, only time or Colin will tell.

I very very very much appreciate your response, thank you!
But I have no idea what/who Nicad is and what their hollowpoint bolt is, but the bolt in my valve is pretty much an automag bolt with an o-ring and a bumber, like the front part of an ion bolt. I really hope this hasn't been patented, that would be lame.

Anyway, I hope I explained it right this time. I think as long as the regulator poppet is of low durometer, this design might work.


BTW new image (still incomplete)

[y0da900]

http://www.deadlywind.com/tech/Hollo...ons/index.html

The Hollowpoint is an aftermarket Ion bolt kit made by Deadlywind. Nicad (Colin) is synonymous with Deadlywind. The bolt releases air in a similar fashion to your drawing.

Your new description helps me understand it a bit, and it might possibly work with perfect materials. It is honestly way overcomplicated with both a sear and pneumatic return. The spring in the regulator will not give you an RT effect, it would do nothing more than any other return spring, just a hell of a lot harder. As you noted, there would be a huge amount of drag on the bolt from the reg spring pushing the sear into it. One of the main things that initially prompted me to say it wouldn't work is that you couldn't connect the reg piston to the trigger, they would have to float independently of eachother, or you could never pull the trigger.

I think that coupling the action of a reg to any other function that takes in an uncontrollable relatively unpredictable outside force is a recipe for disaster. There was a design on PBN for a while (the idea guy or some such user) that talked about using the motion of the reg piston to accomplish some sort of switching elsewhere, but the thread is long gone. But it also wasn't attempting to interact with anything that you have instantaneous input with (trigger).

[questionful]

Without a pneuframe, I guess shootdown will occur. Without a pneuframe, the DC pressure would be

..................lbs of force applied to trigger..................
(area of rear regulator hole) - (area of forward hole)

less than the desired psi right?
If so, I guess you could make the shootdown minimal by increasing that denominator. But I hate having it work wrong in theory anyway.

I really don't know what to do about the bolt. I was originally going to do just the regulator and just say that it would be for any spool valve, but the trigger mechanism couldn't be applied to just any spool, so I designed a compact spool (I'm trying to make everything as small as possible) with the weird sear thing. And the reasons I wanted to do air return instead of spring return were size (a compressed spring takes up like half an inch :/ ), adjustability (turn a knob on your lvl10 instead of opening up the gun and swapping springs, which come in three increments/settings instead of infinity), and because the DC can be smaller since it doesn't have to hold the energy needed to put energy in the spring. I am going to change the whole bolt return thing. It's really confusing in my head, and I know it would be simpler to just use a spring, but I'm gonna see if I can't think of something cool first. Anyway here is a new pic, I tried to copy the color scheme from ZDSPB's automag animations.

[y0da900]

That formula means absolutely nothing, it will have no bearing on the pressure in the chamber or really anywhere else. You still have a spring in there for the chamber to work against, it is just an air spring instead of a coil spring. It will still absorb energy, and it will still increase in resistive force as you move against it.

My advice is as follows (in general, not just this design)

- Don't think about pressure when you are such an incredibly early point in a design. It has little bearing on things other than designing safe housings for the pressure, and appropriately designed seals. That said, don't ignore it either. If an average gun needs ~200 inch pounds of pneumatic energy to operate, don't make a .1 cubic inch dump chamber that will take 2000 psi to operate, no tank will feed that readily.

-Don't start from the very beginning assuming anything. First line in the first post:

I'll start with my idea for a valve that I think would be faster than an automag. It would at least compete. It is mechanical, has RT, and is a spool.

full of things that should come only after it is built. Very difficult to predict speed this early on. This design would be nowhere near as fast as an Automag, and has no RT. Early claims are presumptuous at best.

- Clean airflow is incredibly important for an efficient gun. Avoid sharp edges like the plague (like the bolt guide in yours).

- Limit room for expansion. Expanded gas not pushing the paint or bolt is wasted gas.

- It can often be easier to separate ideas on paper. Work on a good delivery/bolt system. Then work on a good timing system. Most modern regulators work great - don't reinvent the wheel until you are ready to. You can learn a lot looking at these things independently.

- Look at the system before looking at size. Don't wok on a system from the ground up with the intent to be tiny. You will sacrifice too many things. Make a good system, then tweak it small. Look at how small a Mini is, the King Cobra it came from isn't all that tiny, it evolved there.

- KISS: Keep It Simple Stupid. It applies to many things; this can be one of them.

- Spend hours and hours analyzing not jut how things work, but WHY they work. Pour through the animations at zdspb.com like you did with the mag animation. Read patents on haveblue’s site.

- There is no shame in tweaking a successful existing design, or taking design cues from it. Being different just for the sake of being different is a lot of fun when designing things. Doesn’t mean you’ll end up with anything decent. Taking those designs and running with them can teach you a lot as well.

[questionful]

Okay, I'm getting used to the idea that this will end up nowhere, but let me first make sure there are no misunderstandings. I don't see, for example, how the regulator would not provide RT. I'll go on windows and draw up a trigger mechanism, and I'll try to make an animation including pressure changes.

Today at school I thought of a way to keep the pneumatic return, but it requires a 2-way, another reg, and it's a little weird. It made me think, if (hypothetically) the design were made, it would be marketed towards "tinkerers", like a cocker. But I'm forgetting about that for now, I'll just make sure I work out the regulator (though the bolt return has to do with the trigger mechanism which has to do with the reg, so I'll only go so far without worrying about the bolt return).

I'll type more when I finish the animation.

[y0da900]

RT, as it has been used in Mags, Tippmanns, and on Boston Reflex Cockers, relies on pneumatic pressure forcibly resetting or helping to reset the trigger.

RT on a mag has unregulated air (unregulated by the Mag) push against the on/off pin helping to push the pin down and trigger forward. This unregulated air then is allowed to both slam fill the chamber (hence the insane recharge speed), and to act on the reg piston, allowing the reg seat to seal when the appropriate pressure in the chamber is reached.

RT on a Tippmann diverts a portion of the blowback gas to a small pneumatic cylinder behind the trigger, again forcing it back to the resting position.

RT on a cocker uses diverting switched flow from the x-way on the front block to reset the trigger via a cylinder (much like in a Tippmann).

Your system dumps the chamber. You now have unregulated air pushing the piston closed, a spring fighting to push it open. Spring return does not equal RT.

Remember the KISS principle.

[questionful]

The trigger does not make contact with the regulator stem until you pull it. When the DC is dumped, the poppet opens and pushes the trigger back.
The unregulated air wouldn't keep the poppet closed if you did something like this:

and/or this:

instead of this:

[y0da900]

The upper 1 would not bias it closed, correct. But it also would not supply a large pulse of air to reset the trigger, which is what RT essentially is.

[questionful]

Here is an animation that doesn't include the trigger mechanism or the bolt return mechanism. I think I'm just going to have a sear just like the front of an automag sear, that somehow releases the bolt when you pull the trigger, and doesn't let the trigger return until the bolt is caught. I haven't figured that out yet, but I do want the trigger to be at least as far forward as the center of the breach. Here's the animation:



The reg stem would be different as described in the above posts so the input pressure doesn't keep the poppet closed.
About what I was saying with the shootdown. The thing I hate most about this design is that the harder you press on the trigger, the less pressure the DC will fill up with. So unless the difference is minimal (still crappy), a pneuframe would be required. But that would bring the reg total up to three if you have an air-returned bolt, which I think I still prefer. Wait. . . I just frickin realized you can't have an automag style sear because the sear is in the breach.

frick.

I'll keep thinking. If I don't come up with anything I guess a spring will have to do.

[y0da900]

I think you need to abandon the idea of trying to design a reg that will work like this, and work the kinks out of a gun like this by itself using an existing regulator. I still don't mean any offense, but having the reg piston pushing against your finger, or anything else for that matter that is not in perfect control, is a terrible idea. And a pneu-frame would NOT help you overcome some of the problems in the design.

[questionful]

But a pneu-frame would always provide the same pressure against the regulator piston, I don't see why the regulator wouldn't be consistent.

[y0da900]

But a pneu-frame would always provide the same pressure against the regulator piston, I don't see why the regulator wouldn't be consistent.

It might be consistent, but as you push against it, the pressure will increase, subsequently your resistance will increase. Venting the trigger at different rates by releasing the trigger quickly or slowly will still result in variance to the system. Unless you had an automated pneu-frame setup that will cycle and vent consistently no matter how quickly or slowly you pull the trigger.

The purpose of a reg is to quickly and consistently close off the air source from the downstream destination, resulting in a lower downstream pressure. Anything that effects the rapid action or can alter the net force on the piston will be detrimental to the performance of it.

[Hilltop Customs]

I think the easiest way to explain is this:

For a consistant shot you MUST have a controlled shot volume.(and pressure) To have a controlled shot volume you need 1 of two things:
1. A 100% sealed dump chamber. This can only be accomplished with an on/off or other means of completely stopping flow into the chamber.
2. Precises control of the dump time. The can be accomplished with electronics or spring loaded hammer that applies the same force every time.




If you look at your drawings, the design will have more than an RT effect....it will basically be full auto RT whenever you ride the trigger. Your "RT rod" will be pushing your trigger MUCH harder than you think. It will be pushing back at (dump chamber pressure)*3.1415*(radius of the rightmost reg o-ring)^2. Say you design it for a nice LP dump chamber....say 100psi. Even if your springpack is only 1/8" radius.....your RT effect has 5lb of force resetting your trigger. If you increase pressure, its going to only increase your resetting force. Decreasing the diameter of your rightmost seal is the only way to decrease the resetting force....but by doing that you are going to create an extremely inconsistant.


This doesnt even take into account that as the bolt moves forward your dump chamber drops pressure....in turn opening the reg.....completely screwing up the velocity.


The only way your setup works is the way you have it animated....pull the trigger, hold it extremely hard till the bolt resets fully, release the trigger, and fire again with the same procedure.

The reg will react faster than the bolt resetting.....the same way that if you forget a seal in your mags on/off, it will go full auto.



It is an interesting idea tho....

[questionful]

This doesnt even take into account that as the bolt moves forward your dump chamber drops pressure....in turn opening the reg.....completely screwing up the velocity.

Well the trigger mechanism is held in the "tirgger=pulled" position by the sear. Just like on automags.
Thanks for the reply! I haven't really done anything with this recently. But I will some day invent a valve faster than the automag!!!

[Hilltop Customs]

Well the trigger mechanism is held in the "tirgger=pulled" position by the sear. Just like on automags.
Thanks for the reply! I haven't really done anything with this recently. But I will some day invent a valve faster than the automag!!!

oh, so as the bolts moving it would hold the trigger in the back position, effectively keeping the dump chamber sealed. Once the bolt is in the home position, the sear is able to latch back onto the bolt, resetting the trigger, and allowing the reg to open to fill the dump chamber?

that would work a lot better than I had pictured it, but you would still have the extremely strong RT issue to contend with.

Good luck with the faster valve than a mag....its hard to beat a regulator slapped on the back of an on/off. Only way I can see to make it faster is allow the dump chamber to recharge while the bolt is on its return stroke.(pneumatic return of the bolt with a seal close to the end of the powertube would allow the pressurization of the dump chamber while to the bolt is returning)


If you dont mind me asking what did you use to draw that up?

[FinchMan]

vaguely similar to the xvalve. The on-off and reg are built together and feed a dump chamber.

One problem, The bolt return pressure would need to be higher than chamber pressure to work in that design.