Pneumatic Paintball Loader

[AutomagSam]

Hey, I am trying to get some idea's for a pneumatic paintball loader. I want to be able to using pneumatics, feed a ball through a feed kneck, and into the breach using pneumatics. Any suggestions would be great, or ideas.

[Rocket Man]

are you looking for hopper style or magazine fed... or chain fed.

i've seen a few different designs, enough to fudge together something that will work.

also, what materials are you looking to use and what pressure are you working with?

 

if you can machine metal parts you may be able to boost the reload rate without turning your gun into shrapnel.

[AutomagSam]

are you looking for hopper style or magazine fed... or chain fed.

i've seen a few different designs, enough to fudge together something that will work.

also, what materials are you looking to use and what pressure are you working with?

 

if you can machine metal parts you may be able to boost the reload rate without turning your gun into shrapnel.

 

Definetly hopper style. I don't want to have to modify the gun itself, but rather engineer a hopper that works efficiently.

[GutZ]

Are you going to use the same source for the pressurized air as the gun? Why not just have a hopper with a longer neck and have the peumatics hook or welded to the top of the neck at a downwards angle. If you did it from the top of the hopper I am not sure weather you will get lock up. Then again I could not know what I am talking about, which is often the case.

[AutomagSam]

Are you going to use the same source for the pressurized air as the gun? Why not just have a hopper with a longer neck and have the peumatics hook or welded to the top of the neck at a downwards angle. If you did it from the top of the hopper I am not sure weather you will get lock up. Then again I could not know what I am talking about, which is often the case.

I'd use the same air tank, I would not want to carry a seperate one with me. and can you please go into further detail about the longer feed neck with the mounted pnuematics, I have been thinking at one point of having it blow the ball in by having some sort of valve right above the feed neck, is that sorta where you are going with your idea?

[Rocket Man]

are you looking for a heightened firing rate or a more reliable reload?

 

basically, a hopper is a hopper. and you can't really do much to make it better unless you're prepared to modify the gun itself.

 

what gutz suggested was that you actually inject air between the bottom two paintballs after every shot, blasting one of them into the barrel.

 

if you're starting with a bought gun, you'd be better off trying out parts at a shop.

[zapdoug]

If you are simply looking to agitate the balls to improve the feeding.....the simple way is to tap into the side of body of the marker and run a line (macro line works well) into the bottom of the loader. A drill, 1/8th inch NPT tap, macro line and fitting is all you need to do the job. Denny Tippmann ( Jr.) and I have both done this is the past and it work surprisingly well. Every time you fire the marker a burst of gas blows the balls around. You of course need to be careful about the placement of the macro line going into the loader. And you need to be real careful where you drill into the marker body. You want to steal the wasted gas not the gas needed to re-cock the marker.

This is relatively simple to do on say... a Spyder. If you take the grip frame off you will notice that on the body that there are holes for the grip screws, a hole with a brass screw that holds the valve in, and in between it and the milled slot where the sear goes, another hole. This is a pressure relief hole. It relieves the air trapped in front of the hammer as it goes forward. Without it, air gets trapped between the hammer o-ring and the valve and acts as a cushion there by reducing the velocity. Of course when the marker hammer blows back to re-cock......it vents the blow back gas. Any pressure vented is wasted......and this is the gas you use to agitate the loader. Of course this only works on blow back markers.

Now if you are looking to feed one of the modern day hose beast at 20+ balls per second......well that is another thing. Just remember, to shoot 20 per second you have to feed 30 a second, the bolt takes up a lot of your feeding time and balls can't feed through it.

 

Regards,

 

Doug

[zapdoug]

Duh ! Automag Sam would probably mean you are using an AutoMag. I suppose you could tap into the side of body and use the blow forward gas. Never tried that. My best guess would be to tap where the rear of the bolt reaches the limit of its forward stroke. This would probably reduce your velocity, but you could adjust that.

Did I mention that the depth of the macro line fitting in the body is critical. Needless to say if the fitting is sticking inside the chamber when the bolt (or hammer on a blow back) goes forward your going to ruin the bolt, macro line fitting, and very possibly your day? I'm not sure the wall thickness on an Automag has enough room to get a seal on the fitting and not have it enter the bolt chamber. Been a long time since I fooled with one. But hey you wanted ideas.

 

Be careful,

 

Doug

[AutomagSam]

Duh ! Automag Sam would probably mean you are using an AutoMag. I suppose you could tap into the side of body and use the blow forward gas. Never tried that. My best guess would be to tap where the rear of the bolt reaches the limit of its forward stroke. This would probably reduce your velocity, but you could adjust that.

Did I mention that the depth of the macro line fitting in the body is critical. Needless to say if the fitting is sticking inside the chamber when the bolt (or hammer on a blow back) goes forward your going to ruin the bolt, macro line fitting, and very possibly your day? I'm not sure the wall thickness on an Automag has enough room to get a seal on the fitting and not have it enter the bolt chamber. Been a long time since I fooled with one. But hey you wanted ideas.

 

Be careful,

 

Doug

Hey thanks, lol you really know alot about this stuff, yeah I own a 68 classic, my friend owns an RT, but I'll seriously consider what your said.

[zapdoug]

Yeah and everything I know I learned the hard way. Try not to imitate me:-)

 

You will be OK. 9.2 balls a second is the fastest recorded trigger speed on a standard Automag. With a gravity loader, I think you can get close to 11. I'm sure there are some guys on this forum that have the education to make that calculation for you pretty quickly.

Call it one inch of travel (back and forth). Gas moves at sonic velocities so the bolt speed should be close to that on the forward stroke.Spring return on the retrun stroke will be slower. A good engineer should be able to calculate the best possible time pretty quickly. Take about 3/4s of that number and you will be real close to reality.

That is one of the things I have learned real well. The engineers save a lot of trial and error.

Your friend will have to go the battery route. That is until you figure out how to feed faster than gravity with pnuematic power. The R/Ts cyclic rate can get insane when you start turning up the pressure.

 

Good luck,

 

Doug

[AutomagSam]

Yeah and everything I know I learned the hard way. Try not to imitate me:-)

 

You will be OK. 9.2 balls a second is the fastest recorded trigger speed on a standard Automag. With a gravity loader, I think you can get close to 11. I'm sure there are some guys on this forum that have the education to make that calculation for you pretty quickly.

Call it one inch of travel (back and forth). Gas moves at sonic velocities so the bolt speed should be close to that on the forward stroke.Spring return on the retrun stroke will be slower. A good engineer should be able to calculate the best possible time pretty quickly. Take about 3/4s of that number and you will be real close to reality.

That is one of the things I have learned real well. The engineers save a lot of trial and error.

Your friend will have to go the battery route. That is until you figure out how to feed faster than gravity with pnuematic power. The R/Ts cyclic rate can get insane when you start turning up the pressure.

 

Good luck,

 

Doug

 

Yeah thanks for ur input and all, but I know the limit of our guns, as the RT can cycle up to 34bps, and my mag 19, tho odviously no one can shoot that fast, but anyways we both have battery loaders, we are just designing to be inovative here not cause we need to lol . So its not a question of what our gun can handle. Oh and do you use pbnation or Automags.org, if so what is ur handle?

[calbiterol]

Sam, are you looking to do something like a cyclone feed on a Tippmann?

 

Long story short, they use a waste gas-driven sprocket to force feed paintballs into the chamber.

 

With very few exceptions, it doesn't skip or chop paintballs, and it can be "tweaked" to feed up to and in excess of 25 bps.

 

I'm a paintball guy and an engineering guy; modding and tweaking is a bit of a hobby. I'm currently working on building a (rather unique) gun from the ground up.

 

In my spare time, that is (hahahahahaha).

[zapdoug]

Automag Sam,

Neither one. I'm in the biz and just cruise around trying to stay in touch. Getting too old, too fat, and too blind to play a decent game. Being chained to a desk for 15 years will do that to you.

Your post actually got into my inbox with a Google e-mail alert on PAINTBALL or I never would have found this place.

 

Good luck on the project.

 

Doug

[GutZ]

So how was my idea, is it crap?

[calbiterol]

GutZ, it really depends on what the pneumatics are.

[AutomagSam]

So how was my idea, is it crap?

 

It is a good one, I had been considering it for a while in my plans.

[Rocket Man]

"cyclone". that word makes me think of running a small blower through a chamber with the balls running around the outside walls, also, you could have an injector run a blast of air as you pull the trigger to put a ball in line (lower track?) with an outlet tube which leads to a modified breech.

[calbiterol]

Cyclone is a trademark.

 

http://www.ultratwistedpaintball.biz/mm5/animations/tippmanncycloneanimation.gif

The driveshaft you see in that animation is connected to a sprocket that forces paintballs into the chamber.

[Rocket Man]

i realise it's a trade mark, but the term used in context can give alternate inspiration which can be safely marketed.

[calbiterol]

That's fine, I was just making sure that you weren't speculating on what the cyclone is.