Marker Efficiency

[Skeet]

Tolerence and fine tuning..for example
Take a stock Calibra 2L 16V engine..output is around the 150BHP mark.

Now...this engine has specifies tolerences, to which its components will have been built..ie, piston size will be between 112 and 113.5mm...if you make sure that the engine, is made to maximum sizes and refine the tolerences, where applicable, it will develop more power and tourque, but still be within the manufacturers specs, hence..not modified...this is called Blueprinting and takes time, effort and money.

Flowing a cylinder head for example..will produce better performance etc (if done properly, not just hogging teh ports out!)

 

[AUPaintSoc]

Hmmm....

 

[John C]

Both paintguns are doing the same job, accelerating a paintball to 300fps.
Einstein proved that energy cannot be created or destroyed so we have to find out where our paintgun is wasting energy.

Lets assume our guns dont leak and they are properly timed, so we do not lose any air up the feedtube.



1 Moving mass. The hammer and bolt in the Impulse is much heavier than the viking, meaning more energy is used to move it, so for a given shot more energy is used in the Imp than the Vike.

2 Cycle time. The longer it takes for the gun to make a full cycle, the less efficient it is. From the moment we energise the solenoid there are a multitude of places energy can be lost. The vike has a lower cycle time, so less air is wasted.

3 Regs and valves. If a valve just connects one air chamber to the next then how can we lose energy?
A valve that is 'slow' to close for example, will leak air after the paintball has left the barrel. The impulse valve is huge, its like something from chitty chitty bang bang. Where as AKA are more inclined to work out the optimum size of their valve using mathematics.

Really good regs coupled with really good valves make an improvement too. There is an optimum pressure required to accelerate a paintball to a given velocity. (despite popular paintball opinion, this does not change from gun to gun). So if at any time during the cycle the reg or valve cannot maintain this pressure, then we are venting useless gas, wasting energy again.
Again AKA famously have stupidly high flowing regs, valves and interconnecting gas galeries. So starvation is less likely.

4 Orings. When you apply pressure to an oring it takes a while before it 'pops out' and makes a seal. Before this air can escape past it.
This is the reason DMs are so inefficient. More orings = more wasted energy.
I dont know if this explains any differences between the two guns mentioned but you cant have a discussion about efficiency without mentioning orings.

 

[dr.strangelove]

The Viking isn't designed much at all like an Impulse, really, aside from being a bolt-over-valve poppit design. The closest design to it is the new Angel 1, with the newly expanded gas galleries and moving the LPR to the back. The Viking's three tubes, great regs (LPR and HPR) and great valving all contribute to it's efficiency. AKA has got this knack for building regs with insane recharge rates and valves that are efficient and high flowing. R&D, FTW!

 

[John C]

I dunno. The viking is more similar to an impulse than say a shocker, or an airstar nova, or a mag, or an electro spyder or a traccer pump(one of the most efficient guns around).

Functionally the Impulse is a viking without an LPR.




Anyway the point I was making (and I think what mr AUpaintsoc is getting at) is that its not good enough just to say 'its better quality so its more efficient', or 'its got better regs so its more efficient'. Thats just simplifying a situation until its understandable. Really we need to increase our understanding to match the situation.

There has to be a reason why one gun is more efficient than another.
A certain amount of energy is used to make the paintball fly at 300fps, science dicatates this should be the same for the same mass of paintball.
So if some guns are more efficient than others, we need to identify places that the less efficient guns are wasting energy.


For example, the Angel one from your example is one of the least efficient Angels. The Ir3 on the other hand doesnt share any of the refinements in layout that the angel one has, yet it is far more efficient.