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Thread: So I was Thinking about a New Gun Design.....

  1. #1
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    So I was Thinking about a New Gun Design.....

    All,

    So I was sitting around the other day watching Top Gear and thinking how advanced the latest sports cars were. I think to myself, "they are advancing just like paintball guns" and then I had to stop a minute.... I was wrong. If a paintball gun was transformed into a sports car, you would have an electronic sensor on the gas pedal that opened the carberator, THAT'S ALL!!

    That got me thinking about what it would take to make a marker as advanced as today's Ferrari's. First of all, to get advanced control, you need to know what the car or the marker is doing. For the marker this means it knows what the velocity is for every single shot. Once it knows the velocity, then you need a way to control the velocity on every shot regardless of other factors like tank pressure etc. Just like fuel injection, this would require direct injection of the gas into the bolt chamber behind the ball. You could then dynamically adjust the timing so no matter what the tank pressure was, you would get the same velocity out. No regulators in the gun, at all. Just the tank feeding high pressure into the computerized injection system and your good to go.

    So that was a cool idea, and it got me thinking further. If you could control the gas injection directly into the chamber, you can control the profile of the power pulse to the ball. Longer-lower pressure or higher-shorter but for this you would need to control two injection ports. This would allow you to shoot really fragile paint and make the gun very quiet with a long pulse at the expense of efficiency. Conversely you could make it bark with stronger paint and get much better efficiency.

    Then I thought about how you could combine those parameters to best suit your game. It suddenly made sense that if I had a marker that did that, I would program it to shoot the first couple shots very quietly but once I started jack hammering it would automatically go to the high efficiency mode. This would allow me to sneak in the first couple shots without alerting my opponent but still give me great efficiency!!

    But that lead to more ideas..... If you can inject the air into the chamber, at a pre-determined time, you could do it WHEN THE BALL WAS ROLLING PAST THE PORT! If you did this, it would rub the ball against one side of the barrel and induce a spin. With three independently controlled ports, below and on each side, you could get the ball to float or hook left or right just with the press of a button!

    This would be like stepping out from behind your bunker or tree about 10 feet to take the shot. I also will bet you that a ball spinning and hooking left or right will be more accurate (left and right but not up and down). This is because you are controlling where on the back of the ball the vortexes are being shed from. They are NOT random. Cockerpunk should test this.

    So why would I mention really cool designs on a pubic forum? Because I don't think there are any companies left in this industry with the ability to conceive, design and then finance a truly revolutionary product at this time. There are some guys with the ability (Chris Goddard and Simon come to mind) but there are no companies that I would have confidence in that could do it.

    Just thinking out loud.....

    AGD

  2. #2
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    watch out with the air-induced spin ideas. the high speed video shows that doesn't work too well. now you can use friction to induce spin, but pure air is difficult. quite frankly, it is really hard to beat out the apex for induction and control of spin. i would like an apex though that was smaller profile so i could actually aim my gun with one of those things.

    a solenoid that is fast enough and resolute enough to control that much air would be a pretty sweet engineering feat! although your solution is pretty eligent and solves a multitude of other technical issues.




    sorry to sound negative, i am actually not trying to shoot down your ideas in the least. im very pleased to hear that your thinking paintball again. we'd all love to have you back.

  3. #3
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    Cocker,

    Its not air induced, the air pushes the ball against the opposite wall of the barrel to get it started.

    AGD

  4. #4
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    Quote Originally Posted by AGD
    Cocker,

    Its not air induced, the air pushes the ball against the opposite wall of the barrel to get it started.

    AGD
    thats how some people claimed backspin bolts work, push the ball up against the top of barrel to get them to spin.

    just giving you a hard time tom, im very pleased to see you mulling these ideas around. i would love to dream that something was in the works ...

  5. #5
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    So when are you releasing this new gun?

    Oh, and I want mine in a red to gold fade and serial #1.

  6. #6
    Its true especially with the state the economy is in.

    However wouldn't this require a new regulator on your HA tank?


    and in another note

    OMG its TOM!!

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    hey tom you think weve come far with todays tech in cars they are working on variable compression engines to go from regular ignition to auto ignition giving gas motors deisel like efficiency..

    It is a very good idea though I think put to design, gremlins would start showing up everywhere, consistency of the injectors, actual ability of the injectors to control pressure and so fourth.

    Though we could do one better with the use of piezioelectric sp? injectors perhaps using them to boost pressure and ultimately have a lp gun that fires hp amounts of air, for those that dont know those are the uber expensive injectors used in deisels and direct injection gas engines that put out about 20,000 psi fuel sprays.
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    I would look into diesel injectors since they can handle the pressure, 60,000psi no problem & have the speed, 2000rpms is something like 33 cycle per second. The Cummins ISX injectors use fuel to adjust the timing.

    I havent been around a diesel since Feb, job change, so Im a little rusty on the details but I have the info here.

  9. #9
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    Interesting thoughts. I particularly like the silent 2 shot/efficient rapid fire idea. XXX-Mag?
    Superbolt

  10. #10
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    The only true way to know how to shape the shot is to know the exact pressure in the tank. You could do that with a pressure transmitter. Also, with the miniaturization available today, this idea is not that far fetched. I could see this working with just two solenoids.
    WOW, sigs. Havent seen these in a while here on AO.

  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by AGD
    So why would I mention really cool designs on a pubic forum? Because I don't think there are any companies left in this industry with the ability to conceive, design and then finance a truly revolutionary product at this time. There are some guys with the ability (Chris Goddard and Simon come to mind) but there are no companies that I would have confidence in that could do it.

    AGD
    I think you just challenged yourself, along with the rest of the industry

  12. #12
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    Some time ago I had an idea that would help control a marker & give a much more consistent fps reading. You would need a chrono on the end of the barrel like the old PVI Shocker, a pressure sensor that would tell the controller what psi the ball will see & if its an ep marker need another sensor for the LP air that feeds the noid. A tank pressure sensor could also be used & be like the Angel Air & tell you how many shots are left in the tank. You could take it far enough to be crazy but could help, ball weight sensor. By knowing the weight of the ball you could lower the amount the controller would be guessing.

    The first shot would always be the worst one since it would be used to start the base for the shooting session. The ball would sit in the breech & be weighed. The controller would take that info & compare it to a permanent chart & base the dwell of the noid on that. Which would give the controller its first chrono reading to adjust the fps on the next shot along with the pressure in the marker.

    Just looking at current ECMs in cars & trucks, they take info from coolant temp, air temp, air pressure & more just to figure out how much fuel to inject to try & achieve the best fuel ratio for its current driving condition.

    I did a search for injectors, diesel, & watched this video first. Liked it & didnt bother looking for anything else.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGwV9ueHcz4

    The injector allows several injections to better the overall combustion cycle which would allow for a very very soft burst to get the ball moving. Then after that dump enough to get the ball up to speed. It would also let you get a few quite shots then ramp up like Tom said.


    Ok, working thrid shift & thinking this hard is hurting my head.... time to cool down.

  13. #13
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    Just to be sily, it would take a fairly large valve to do this with air. (at least the controlled profile valve chamber injection)

    Maybe feed a diesel injector with liquid CO2? That would allow use of common parts for testing. IIRC, they've started using peizo technology in that sort of injector to allow them very precise timing. And a carefully controlled fuel curve.

    Perhaps a simple/cheap solution would be to run two different valves, one for slow injection, one for fast injection. Or, with a $8 servo, you could potentially move a valvebody to switch between quiet pressure rise and fast pressure rise. that may be cheaper than going with a crazy injector capable of being driven with PWM and still give the same quiet-fast switch.

    Aprillia has done high pressure air/fuel emulsion injection, that might have some relation to what we're looking at here.

    Would a single port be enough to setup a consistant spin? Would a carefully designed groove do better?

    The controllers to do this are out there... You'd need to step it up from the low end pics and avr's that are common now, and you'd probally need to revive the emag style battery pack. This could go places..

    There we go, Tom's got me thinking again.

    Excuse me while I go look at injectors...

    EDIT: This would also allow for a player to "fix" paint breakage issues on the fly. If you're breaking paint, hit a button, goto delicate mode, and now you can shoot eggshells.

    EDIT again: And why hasn't anyone introduced damping into guns? it seems that companies are finally starting to address how the guns "feel" to the user. the last time I saw anything that really addressed damping were the timing shocks on the tippman F/A.
    Last edited by nerobro; 09-16-2009 at 09:48 AM.
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  14. #14
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    Haven't we gone over this idea before in some bits?

    We're talking about integrating a chrony into the gun again, which I think is a good thing, But that does give some technical issues.

    Is there any way to do that and not have it integrated into the barrel?

    Would you even still need a bolt, or would you go to a feedgate like an epic?

  15. #15
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    Successful gun designs are always simple. Feedgates aren't easy to seal, and run into the mag problem of kicking the ball stack hard, and they're defininitely not simple. Bolts are better, especially once you get the rof up.

    I wouldn't suggest integrating a chrony into a gun. There's to many potential ways for that to be a problem. It's a neat trick, but the ref at the chrony is the one that matters.

    The spin idea would require some barrel integration. The machining necessary to make that work is pretty simple. Almost dremel simple.

    We are looking at several technologies here. First is electronically controlled valving, this has never been done beyond a "digital" implmentation. Second adaptive firing profiles, this has been done in the past, but not always well implemented, and always only applied to maxrof. Third is electronically controlled spin. They should be treated separately for purposes of our discussion. Each technology could be game changing.

  16. #16
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    Ahh, but see, he's saying for an efficency point you'd have to integrate a chrony.

    I'd pass on the spin thing for the inital generation of the gun. TBH, you could release a whole series of guns with this idea. Just implement /sell at each stage.

    Stage 1 being an injection style firing system, then move on from there.

    This gun is sounding very complex from the get go. I think it could be done and it does sound interesting.

    As to the idea about weighing the balls: not sure you can really do that for the following reasons:
    1) Forcefeed loaders
    2) The gun isn't always going to be perfectly vertical.

  17. #17
    Nice

    Tom, I hope you do get back into the sport that you so obviously love/loved. I know if you do you will have the complete support of this community as you always have.

    Oh and I'll take SN0002 in dust black kthx.

  18. #18
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    To do the injection could be very simple. A nearly off the shelf injector, and some driver circuitry. Especially with using liquid co2 feeding a diesel injector. That's a junkyard solution and cheap.

    it's also dead simple. The gun would need three moving parts at that point. The injector pintle, a solionins to move the bolt, and a ram to move the bolt.

    I agree, weighing balls is a losing battle. It adds another layer of "easy to break" into the system. the gun orientation could be compensated for, as could gun movements. however it takes some time for the system to settle to get an accurate weight. you'd need to add a gyro and orentation sensors. A system to get accurate weights of paintballs at 20 rounds per second would be a heck of a project in and of itself. .... That said I can think of a couple ways to do it, reliably. none of them are small or simple.

    Like "normal" paintball guns, I think the gun would need to operate blind. Use a programed amount of gas for all paintballs, instead of compensating for anything.

    the only sensor I think would be "sane" to have that could tell us about ball acceleration would be a fast acting pressure transducer. And I say sane, only loosely. It's an expensive and large part. But it also means not putting eyes down the barrel.

  19. #19
    My guess is that the ball would simply bounce off the other side of the barrel, and bounce back. Plus with everyone going slightly underbore for efficiency it kind of a moot point?

  20. #20
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    That's why I suggested a groove. A groove could keep the ball against the fall wall long enough to be effective. Provided you could get even gas release along the groove. But..... that would require testing :-)

  21. #21
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    Quote Originally Posted by AGD
    So why would I mention really cool designs on a pubic forum? Because I don't think there are any companies left in this industry with the ability to conceive, design and then finance a truly revolutionary product at this time. There are some guys with the ability (Chris Goddard and Simon come to mind) but there are no companies that I would have confidence in that could do it.

    Just thinking out loud.....

    AGD
    Honestly, Tom...why did you mention this stuff here? Why don't you just do it (we all know that you are the man to pull this off), patent the technology/designs, and let every other marker company use it without paying royalties...EXCEPT for SP...they would have to pay out the booty in royalties.

    Seriously, Tom...when are you going to do it? Or...have you already done it...

    BTW...I'll take SN0003, in Tequila Fade...

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    Thumbs up

    nero, see i TOLD you to visit the forums more often

    AGD, Dont give up....we can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel

    Glad to hear ideas flowing

  23. #23
    Quote Originally Posted by cockerpunk
    thats how some people claimed backspin bolts work, push the ball up against the top of barrel to get them to spin.

    just giving you a hard time tom, im very pleased to see you mulling these ideas around. i would love to dream that something was in the works ...
    Well he was talking about a 3rd port in the breech to get this started i think, which could possibly work but it would only cause intense friction for the time that the port is pushing that against the side of the barrel and it would quickly diminish as the ball continued down the barrel. You could probably get some spin this way but i doubt it would be comparable to the apex.

    Sorry for not reading the rest of this thread, i have diff. eq. homework i should be doing, but Tom i think i need to send you another email regarding my design, it has drastically changed since the last time i showed you. I definitely have some questions, so if you wouldn't mind if i email you to take a look at it let me know.

  24. #24
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    I think it's a pretty rad idea... I've done a bit of reading on the injectors my VW is running (direct injection piezo-electric doohickeys) and its a pretty amazing technology.... and I know they're running REALLY high pressure.

    Cleaning up a marker by running just high pressure would be nice just by itself... reduce the number of moving parts, and potential leaks would be awesome too.

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  25. #25
    I'm just thinking..
    What affects the fps of a paintball? Air Pressure and Volume..
    How do we control these variables? Regulators and Dwell..

    I've always thought that inconstancy of a paintball gun was caused by two main issues, paint and the regulator supplying the dump chamber with either less or more pressure for each shot. Am I correct on this?

    So if we put an electrical sensor in the dump chamber to measure the pressure right before a shot (and therefore calculate an estimated fps based on that pressure and volume).. couldn't we then automatically adjust the dwell to compensate for higher and lower pressures?

    In the case of a matrix/intimidator where the lpr pressure also affects the fps that would be a good spot for a sensor also... In the case of the intimidator we have gauges to tell us what the lpr and hpr is set at.. so how hard would it be to replace those with electronic sensors??? after that its just a matter of coding... might be the easiest way to get a proof of concept..

  26. #26
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    Quote Originally Posted by Fred

    WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR TOM!?!
    ^^^What he said!

  27. #27
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    hmm how did i miss this one i see one issue with this spin/chrony idea, wouldnt the friction and the fact that no paintabll is exactly the same cause some major issues? since the sensor would be trying to take into count the ball from the previous shot it would adjust to try to either compensate for that shot which would be different from the last shot causing inconsistency every shot. one would almost have to make a self sizing barrel or better yet more consistent paint

    other than that lil bit i catch there everything else seems like a great idea
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  28. #28
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    Dend... depends who you ask.. some people say there is no friction relationship between the ball and barrel

    I'm digging the groove idea... even if it was a short section of straight rifling (your control bore) that allowed the air to be directed along the groove... with a rotating bolt (sorry I'm trying to concentrate on too many things.. with out enough sleep...zzz) that can direct that flow. If you slotted the bolt radially and the air came out of the slot from center to barrel id that would possibly help.

    I need to sit and draw this out. An engineers nightmare is to start thinking it through with out pen and paper.. I always forget some factor or really important bit.

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  29. #29
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    Tom, when you, Glenn Palmer, and various others revolutionized the industry you did not do so by depending on the big companies. You did so through your own brilliance, hard work, and perseverence. You risked your own money to do so, and considering the business you and others built it was not that much money. It was intelligence, hard work, and desire that drove you.

    The next big thing like what you describe will not come from some 9-5 engineer at a company, but from someone who spends countless hours of there own blood, sweat, and tears likely in their own garage or moonlighting it as a secondary project (ala AKA) in an established busines that has nothing to do with paintball.
    "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. Its not" - Dr Suess

  30. #30
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lohman446
    The next big thing like what you describe will not come from some 9-5 engineer at a company, but from someone who spends countless hours of there own blood, sweat, and tears likely in their own garage or moonlighting it as a secondary project (ala AKA) in an established busines that has nothing to do with paintball.
    Which is why he released the idea here. So that someone who has the time and the drive will get started on it

    IIRC, Tom's big on progressing the industry / sport / whatever else you call it. I think it's more important that the idea is explored and possibly produced than a matter of who does it.

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