Gearbox teching, r-hops, sniper tech, etc.
What are some best practices for teching airsoft guns? How do you distinguish between a "good" tech and a "bad" tech? What weird stuff have you see inside gearboxes? What sort of unusual problems have you seen with guns brought in for work? Should we give up on NiHM batteries and all just go to LiPos? Are fuses even necessary and is AoE adjustment even needed? What are some of the online resources you guys use for doing tech work?
Well when it comes to teching guns in my head I still just think fixing, back in the day I never heard it called "teching" or mechanics like it is now. But I don't believe either term is incorrect, just haven't adapted to it.
My own experiences started over ten years ago, reading and being in an area with little to no airsoft available. As a result I didn't have anyone to learn from other than online, this was pre Youtube as well. So text based guides, and lots of incorrect information. Today allot of things are better vetted but there is still incorrect information being passed around and I've found testing really is the way to weed out allot of that. On forums there are people who pass on info they haven't tried, and that's fine so long as you clarify that, but sometimes that info is incorrect.
I don't really have much to say a good tech from a bad tech, no one local to me does work;) Well other than a few guys like myself that fix their own guns and other players. But none of us makes a business of it, just needs to be done and no one else available to do it. I'd say it's all about knowledge though, airsoft like fixing allot of things is about knowing how to apply principles and understanding how mechanical systems work. Generally you can take care of allot of things just following those basics, but having specific knowledge of gun platforms helps allot. If I had to have someone work on my gun, I'd want to see their personal guns. Particularly if they had a platform IE M4 that matched what I wanted them to work on. I'd want to see FPS consistency as well as how well the gun runs and sounds. Not a perfect test but it would tell me a fair amount of how they work on things. That same thing though could tell someone who doesn't know much about AEG's allot less info;)
Weird stuff, well back in the day I saw what I felt was inconsistency when it came to internals etc. Now that I'm working on some modern guns, I look back at some of the things I saw and wish I had that level of consistency back;) IE Some of the less expensive brands like CYMA can be a heck of a deal, but they require tuning to be worth anything most times. Back when brands like CA were looked down on because they didn't stand up to TM in terms of consistency but I'll tell ya an old stock CA is miles from a stock CYMA or honestly most of the other brands I've handled lately including some more expensive brands. But back on track I've seen trigger trolley's fail, I've had gearboxes that the shimming was so bad I have no idea how they were functional. A completely dry gearbox stock, must have missed the grease gun all together. One of the strangest guns I've run into is my build I've been working on just all sorts of problems end to end. Each time I find one another one pops up, but that happens sometimes. This gun just seems to be having every problem I've seen and some I haven't:)
Lipo's they didn't exist when I was involved in airsoft before so this was a new thing to me. I've known of them and used them in other application but not airsoft until recently. I've been working with 7.4v lipo's, and I've replaced everything with them. Cheaper than NIMH/NICAD, smaller and better power delivery. Overall there is only one thing they aren't as good at. They are sensitive to shock/impact, as well as proper charging, and if those things are done incorrectly things can get hot and interesting quickly. But those issues aside they are in my opinion the best power source right now available.
Fuses, I've almost entirely left them intact up until recently I started swapping guns over to deans and limiting resistance in my builds. In airsoft as a whole I've killed like 2 fuses out of all of the guns I've owned and they were stupid mistakes like grounding a wire I didn't cover. So I've gotten to the point that I'm not worried enough to use them. I will use mosfets if needed for some guns in place so to speak of a fuse, but more for the protection to the trigger contacts.
AOE is another new thing, haven't done a ton with it. I have researched it, but most of my builds haven't included sorbo or anything to throw off stock AOE. I will be messing with it more soon when I get time to work on the M16 build again. Overall makes sense to me from a mechanical standpoint what the reason is for it, less binding etc. So I'd say while hard to wrap my head around I think it's a valid issue.
Take care!
Luke
