A couple of points:
1. If you shoot fast (above 12 bps), then you should always make sure you have fresh batteries...basically this means that you should probably change your hopper batteries every day of practice...especially if you're shooting more than 10 pods in a game. This is why I use good (10v) NiMH rechargeable batteries and I keep several backups, all fully charged a few days before I need them (the charge tends to drop if you store them too long). Think about how much money you spend on paint, and how useless you are if you break a ball because you went cheap on batteries.
2. If you can, test hoppers when you're buying one. The factory will tell you that there's no difference, but there really is. Just put batteries in and listen, and make sure the batteries are fresh. Some techs at a tournament thought they were doing me a favor by replacing my servo and paddle for free, but it ran slower than my old, and beatup setup so I re-inserted my old stuff.
3. You can upgrade and modify your hopper to make it fuction better...there are some Rev. modifications in a sticky at the top of the tech forum. Some stuff I normally do to my Rev. are: Make sure I have a fast solenoid. Replace the solid metal bushing with an R/C car bearing. X-board. Soft paddle of some kind, not the stock ones. Fully charged batteries.
Ray
1. If you shoot fast (above 12 bps), then you should always make sure you have fresh batteries...basically this means that you should probably change your hopper batteries every day of practice...especially if you're shooting more than 10 pods in a game. This is why I use good (10v) NiMH rechargeable batteries and I keep several backups, all fully charged a few days before I need them (the charge tends to drop if you store them too long). Think about how much money you spend on paint, and how useless you are if you break a ball because you went cheap on batteries.
2. If you can, test hoppers when you're buying one. The factory will tell you that there's no difference, but there really is. Just put batteries in and listen, and make sure the batteries are fresh. Some techs at a tournament thought they were doing me a favor by replacing my servo and paddle for free, but it ran slower than my old, and beatup setup so I re-inserted my old stuff.
3. You can upgrade and modify your hopper to make it fuction better...there are some Rev. modifications in a sticky at the top of the tech forum. Some stuff I normally do to my Rev. are: Make sure I have a fast solenoid. Replace the solid metal bushing with an R/C car bearing. X-board. Soft paddle of some kind, not the stock ones. Fully charged batteries.
Ray
