SpudFiles

Well the airsoft community has been abuzz for a while and just exploded with Polarstars revelation of their newest product, here is a good review:

http://www.airsoftretreat.com/forums/in ... ic=99267.0



My questions for you guys: How do you think this works? and what is your opinion of it?

The way it looks to me is that they used a balanced piston and 2 3-way solenoids rigged in parallel; this way they could vary the FPS independently from the ROF.

Personally, I think that Polarstar took the "easy way out" in designing this system. Don't get me wrong, it is an amazing piece of equipment and something that I think the airsoft world has been needing for a long time, a step back in the right direction of Classic Airsoft. That said, I think that it is over engineered and very inefficient to use 3 way valves to vent precious air out of the system, after all, the widely accepted idea is that the best system for airsoft or small cal. in general is a high pressure, low volume set up, thus it would make sense that for a marketable system there should be no reason to be venting any air, in order to maximize efficiency and have to carry as small a tank as possible. That said, I am very curious to hear what the forums take is on this system, maybe I missed something and it does not operate in the way that I believe, maybe there is something revolutionary in it; it is just my humble opinion that it could be made more efficient.

It looks like it could be a spool valve design, which instantly makes this page a convenient source of info:
http://www.zdspb.com/tech/misc/anim_spool.html

Judging from the side profile and air inlet points I wouldn't be surprised it if was similar to an Ion or Proto Rail.

I wonder why the need for 2 solenoids? Paintball design has proven that ROF and FPS can be controlled rather easily by using 1 3-way solenoid and controlling the frequency of pulses (ROF) and the duration-aka "dwell" (this leads to alterations in FPS).

Very nice and clean design though!

Yeah I saw this on Airsoft GI and it looks really cool... I think it is possibly one of the coolest airsoft guns on the market. Probably REALLY expensive though. I'd say 1,500 at least. Dear Santa...

Edit, wow just looked around, found that it is only 650... not much more expensive than King Arms' Colt M4 Gas Blowback... wow I want one of these!

But still then the HPA rig is another 200 bucks!

In true spudder's fashion... I'm sure a homemade tank could be made... the thing only runs off 65-120 psi!

Where is this second solenoid then.

I see one certainly and since it seems to be centred... the other is...?


Had a look on the MAC website, suspect it to be a direct acting 2/3 poppet valve thing. Small orifices but who cares, it's high pressure and airsoft pellets. Don't need much.

Indeed, that looks exactly like the insides on an ION only with two fat solenoid valves instead of the custom 3/2.
If the nozzle is in fact the bolt, then it doesn't seem to have a tail and so wouldn't cut off the inlet...

Although...

You’ll even have the option to select whether you want the rifle to cycle the air nozzle and chamber a new round first before firing, or fire first and then chamber a new round in a true closed bolt configuration.

... it seems the nozzle may be independent from the piston. Which changes things slightly.

In true spudder's fashion... I'm sure a homemade tank could be made... the thing only runs off 65-120 psi!

Off fridge compressor pressures most certainly, the main problem being how clean the air is. I've actually fired my ION off the fridge compressor, autonomy is limited to a few tens of shots. But this airsoft calibre seems to allow many more shots per tank.

I think that it is over engineered and very inefficient to use 3 way valves to vent precious air out of the system, after all, the widely accepted idea is that the best system for airsoft or small cal. in general is a high pressure

3 way valves are the way to go period.

I'd go as far as to say that you can't build a gun that isn't a 3 way valve gun. Even if you've got a simple BV pneumatic you still need a check valve or another ball valve to fill the chamber - so you can't say that there is just a 2 way valve

you use two 2 way valve to 'emulate' what a 3 way valve does

This is true even for hammer valves - first you have to fill the chamber - and again that requires a valve... so you need that one and a hammer valve

POLAND_SPUD wrote:3 way valves are the way to go period.

I'd go as far as to say that you can't build a gun that isn't a 3 way valve gun. Even if you've got a simple BV pneumatic you still need a check valve or another ball valve to fill the chamber - so you can't say that there is just a 2 way valve

you use two 2 way valve to 'emulate' what a 3 way valve does

This is true even for hammer valves - first you have to fill the chamber - and again that requires a valve... so you need that one and a hammer valve

You make a good point there poland, I've never really looked at it that way. Mainly what I was thinking about when I said that was that I don't see the point in having to vent air in order to operate a system (since that is typically they way 3-way valves are set up in a system, and if that is in fact how they are operating it). Especially since you dont need that much to operate airsoft and you want to carry as small of a tank as possible.

I said that was that I don't see the point in having to vent air in order to operate a system

That's how most pb guns operate. Venting air is wasteful in both cases but as you can guess they (PB guys) would love to reduce air consumption as much as they can

sooooo.... there is a reason this is done this way and that's more less what I wrote above

Think of air cylinders - they extend and retract (or the other way round) and in each cycle the system (3 way valve + air cylinder) vents air. If you want to use an air cylinder to do that for you, which is very reliable method, you have to vent air.

Quite a lot of PB guns have something that uses the same principle to load ammo


anyway it's not that you have to vent a lot of air. In a well designed gun piloting volume can be minimal.

POLAND_SPUD wrote:I'd go as far as to say that you can't build a gun that isn't a 3 way valve gun.

Hammer valves.

My opinion is that someone on this website could probably build a better and more powerful APG (airsoft pneumatic gun) and possibly even a higher rate of fire. I am wondering why they went through all that trouble when they could have made a vortex block or something.

warhead052 wrote:My opinion is that someone on this website could probably build a better and more powerful APG (airsoft pneumatic gun) and possibly even a higher rate of fire. I am wondering why they went through all that trouble when they could have made a vortex block or something.

Because hosing out projectiles with no control isn't the aim.

Each projectile in that is fired with its own burst of air and can be fired singly, auto or burst.

warhead052 wrote:My opinion is that someone on this website could probably build a better and more powerful APG (airsoft pneumatic gun) and possibly even a higher rate of fire. I am wondering why they went through all that trouble when they could have made a vortex block or something.

efficiency, reliability and consistency

warhead052 wrote:I am wondering why they went through all that trouble when they could have made a vortex block or something.

I dont think that vortex blocks will ever be a marketable design for production, not because they arent awesome, just because airsofters tend to go for realism as opposed to paintballers. So this set up lends itself to to a number of further developments i.e. recoil simulation. Also, there is a large number of airsofters who only use standard cap. magazines, so having the RoF of a vortex block would not only blow through air, but they would only get about 0.5 sec. of fire time per mag.

Bob, put it this way, if it was a mounted browning m2 .50 cal machine gun, that would scare the s**t out of anyone who ran near it... Think about it, you would get recoil simulation, but not much. Also, use the edit button if you are going to quote. With a vortex block, you could use a box mag, and maybe even make it into a M249 saw body. That would be one hell of a airsoft machine gun...

Hotwired wrote:

POLAND_SPUD wrote:I'd go as far as to say that you can't build a gun that isn't a 3 way valve gun.

Hammer valves.

I don't think you've read my post.

You have to fill a gun to vent it later - there is no other way.

Hammer valve is just one of the valves used on hammer valve guns.
First you need another valve to fill the gun

So you can't say 'my gun has a hammer valve so it's a 2 way valve gun... so I say P_S that you and your 3 way valvez iz retarded'...


You need at least a 3 way system (either as one valve or more than one). You can't build a gun with ONE 2 way valve.

sure you're going to say 'hey what if I fill the gun through the BV and then attach a barrel to that port ?'
Well if you think of it you still have to fill the gun to vent/fire it later.
So you can't say 'hey I used just a 2 way valve and it works' it's not that you can build a pneumatic gun with just a 2 way valve

You're just cheating by changing the port function between each phase. Is it still a 2 way valve ?? Well technically it isn't

If you'd like to automate that you'd have to add another valve