The Earthglider

I have had an idea for a unique strategy for a Nerf war for quite some time, and that idea is a remote-controlled car. I just did a unit conversion of its top speed, and it can reach up to 35 ft/second. That's as fast as the entire Elite lineup shoots darts. The Earthglider is also more agile than a person, which is insanely good. It simply is a remote control car with a shortened nerf sword on the front.

An overview of the Earthglider, showing its overall shape.

The Earthglider's ribbed front tires are critical to its agility.

 This is a 1/10th scale remote-controlled car that is stronger than both of my arms put together. It is entirely electric-powered, but I don't have a battery for it at the moment. It has a 50-gram steering servo, which gives it most of its agility. The car doesn't even have brakes, but it has about 10 square inches of tire in contact with the ground, giving it a huge amount of rolling friction. From top speed, it still stops in about 50 feet on a smooth surface. I am looking forward to next spring, when I can actually start using this. :)

It's hard to see, but if you look closely, you can see the steering system inside that little cove in the front.

The Earthglider actually is as fast as a dart fired from a stock blaster. I was actually quite surprised when I discovered this. On my front lawn, it rides the bumps like a speedboat, since it just rides on the top of each bump and then hops over to the next one. Its suspension is actually extremely well-tuned, allowing it to chase down a person on most types of ground.

This picture shows the Earthglder's motor and knobbed rear tread.

Questions and comments will be warmly welcomed! :)

~N-Strike Epic

Rapidstrike Review!

This is going to be an official review of the Rapidstrike. I will be including a general review, some reverse engineering, tactical advice and modding advice.



General Review

The Rapidstrike is an automatic flywheel-type blaster. The flywheels have ben optimized for maximum performance and minimum damage to the darts, making power mods pointless. It is already rather powerful, anyway. It has an accuracy of about a 6 foot radius at 30 feet in stock form, giving it a substantial, but not very useful, range. At 15 feet it gets about a 2 foot radius.
Unmodified, this blaster is most useful as a dogfight/swarm blaster, but its weight and bulkiness make the Rampage significantly better for this task. Even for $40 at Target, this blaster is not quite worth the money.

The best advice I can give is that it's best if you use the jam door to stop the flywheels instead of letting them just coast. Holding down the acceleration trigger with the jam door open will create a closed circuit between the motor terminals, which quickly and forcefully stops the flywheels.



Reverse Engineering

This is a photo of the internals of the Rapidstrike from Coop772:

Safety Switches and Lockouts:

1. Forward Clip Sensor: No power flows when this is released.

2. Rear Clip Sensor: This is a mechanical lockout that keeps the launch trigger from being pulled.

3. Jam Door Switch: This switch is depressed when the jam door is open or partially open. It cuts off power to the flywheels, and also stops them when the door is opened.

4: Trigger-to-Trigger lockout: This is a mechanical lockout that keeps the launch trigger from being pulled when the acceleration trigger is not pressed.

Triggers:

1. Acceleration trigger: This cuts off all electrical connection from the flywheels when it is not pressed.

2. Launch trigger: Gives the dart advance system the command to cycle continuously. 

More on the dart advance system:

The dart advance system is comprised of a motor, a gearbox, a crank, a shaft, and a switch. The switch is depressed once each cycle when the shaft is fully retracted, cutting power to the motor. The switch is wired in parallel with the launch trigger, so when the launch trigger is pulled, the recetion switch does not stop the cycle of the shaft. If the clip is removed mid-cycle, the forward clip sensor cuts all power and the cycle remains uncompleted until the forward clip sensor is depressed.

Modding Advice

The rapidstrike uses C-type batteries for a reason. It has the rating stated on the side of the blaster as 6V DC, 30W. The C batteries have lower internal resistance, and can uphold the high current demand of the blaster without too much voltage sag. I used a 9V rectangular battery for a while, but it made the blaster significantly less powerful. The only significant battery upgrade would be to install a large 2-cell lithium polymer battery (7.4V) with equivalent capacity, but this would be expensive and would only make the blaster lighter.

As I said earlier, the Rapidstrike does not get any benefit from power upgrades. This is because it has already been optimized in the tradeoff between lack of power and dart damage.

So, the only mod I did was an accuracy upgrade, which involved moving the rifled barrel section forward so it could do its job. The rifling actually does work, but only when the dart comes in contact with the side of the barrel. I moved the barrel forward, leaving an open space for the dart to traverse unsupported. The darts would occasionally prematurely veer off-course, resulting in a massive pileup where the barrel used to be. To remedy this, I added about 3 inches of barrel tubing from my old Recon, and that solved the problem. Since the barrel is now farther forward, the darts come in contact with its inside surface, doubling the blaster's accuracy.

Also, I have a personal preference to have an open area of casing instead of a closable jam door, so I removed the jam door.

I added the handle from my Retaliator to the lower rail to help support the hulking mass of plastic and metal that the Rapidstrike is, and I also added my 9-LED floodlight on the left side rail. It seems to be quite effective in blinding an opponent in low-light conditions.

I plan to make a custom high-capacity clip for the Rapidstrike, since it empties its current one so quickly. I have encountered some problems, but I hope I can solve them.

Feel free to comment any questions you may have, and I will reply as soon as I can.

Thank you! ~N-Strike Epic

Epic New Blasters and Breaking the Flywheel Barrier

So, all along, my mission has ben to make blasters that outperform all current stock Nerf blasters. I have succeeded in that quite effectively, and my Firestrike (which I'll probably end up calling "Île de France") is the start of a new mission for me. Now, I am working to get every ounce of performance possible out of dart blasters. One rule: they can't be capable of injury.

So, I have decided to make an arsenal of blasters with muzzle velocities upward of 85 ft/second.
So far, it's just the Firestrike, Pinpoint, and, surprisingly, the Blowsword.

Firestrike

Pinpoint

Blowsword

Also, one project that has been waiting for a long time, since its a bit pricey, is the Earthglider. I built a remote control car that has the agility of a human. it doesn't even get to 22 mph, but it can get up to 15 mph in under 2 seconds. So I put a shortened nerf sword on it, and thats pretty much it. One problem: I need a new battery, since my current one didn't last all that long doing those repeated power surges that are required during acceleration. It's a 500 watt system, and that battery just didn't quite hold out. Some ozone formed inside its cells, and that raised its internal resistance, which lowers its performance even further. I'll probably jack it up to an 800 watt system when I get a new battery for it. This is not a cheep thing to do, the right battery is around $60.

Also, I got myself a Retaliator and a Rapidstrike. The Retaliator has the AR removed and a heavier spring, as well as a different barrel extension. I really got it for the stock barrel, which I put on the Pinpoint. That really pays off.

My rapidstrike.

The Rapidstrike has a 9V upgrade already, and that really didn't do all that much. Eventually, I'm thinking of adding a secondary flywheel set that re-accelerates the darts. I'm not 100% sure if it would work, but I'd say it's worth a shot, at least 90% sure. This would probably just involve getting another Stryfe and extracting the flywheels. Since I want to double the kinetic energy of the dart, that requires some physics calculations.
Let:
S = Speed
Ke =  Kinetic Energy
V = Voltage to Motor
I = Current
P = Power
R = Resistance

First, the two statements that are always true in an electric circuit:
P=VI
V=IR
From these,
P=VV/R
And Newton's Second Law:
Ke=0.5SS
An approximation about the motor:
S is proportional to R

So, we can say:
P is proportional to VV/S

Wait... oh yeah, this one makes it all really quick:
The square of the speed is proportional to the voltage.

(That one I came up with while working on the Earthglider.)

So, adding Newton's second law of motion back in, we can say that:
The voltage is proportional to the square of the speed, which is proportional to the kinetic energy present.
So, since V is proportional to Ke, if I want to double Ke, I should double V.

For those who skipped all that, the second flywheels run on 18 volts.

I just published my response to the technical problems (namely, friction heat melting dart foam) that are the reason that flywheel blasters are so limited in performance.
This is a pretty big breakthrough. The NIC needs to start developing this technology of multiple flywheel sets. It really is going to pay off... seriously, people, get on this. Flywheel blasters and their semi-auto/automatic abilities just need a performance boost. So who's with me?

Pistol Mania!

I haven't had as much time on my hands these days, with school and all that going on. But i still have weekends mostly free, and so I ride bikes and do Nerf mods. At least I have that much of a life.

On to today's topic: Pistol Mania! From left to right: RADS12, Vortex Proton, Firestrike, and Hunter.

And I didn't even get the Kabam in the picture. But that one is basically small. Like as small as physics would allow. It really isn't much more than a Jolt on steroids.

Well, on to the RADS12: It has 12 shots on the front, as you can see, and 4 sets of 3 barrels. It has a lot of things just for show when it comes to reloading, but it can still reload faster than the flywheel blasters. Who cares about automatic and semi-auto? I can reload my own blaster, thank you. It usually works better, too.

On to the Proton... I have been using it to test out the Vortex discs, and I have come to the conclusion that the XLRs are actually worse. Longer range, maybe, but they fly a lot like frisbee golf drivers. The standard discs fly much straighter. Discs in general are a real pain in the first place, since they're very sensitive to wind.

I'll go with the Hunter first: It is extremely accurate, and more powerful than a stock Firestrike, and it also holds more ammo. It is slightly bigger, however, but that really isn't a problem. In fact, the Hunter has space for two hands and a padded mini-stock on the back.

My Firestrike, however, sends the dart flying at 90 feet per second, and classifies itself with the high-power Nerf blasters. But, of course, I have already modified it heavily. It is not quite as accurate as the Hunter, but the Hunter clocks around 30 feet/second.

Who doesn't love a good Firestrike?

The Hunter, having fallen behind my other blasters, might be for sale sometime. But not yet. 

And to answer that pressing question about why the Firestrike was so good, in stock form it really isn't that good. The two darts on the front are very nice, and it is very fruitful to modify because of its massive cylinder and simple power transfer.

Vivé la Nerf!

The Firestrike: How in the world is it so amazing?

So, the Firestrike. What makes it different from all the other blasters in the Elite lineup? It has the same firing section, and no barrel extension, yet it is still very accurate and powerful.

Theory 1: Compact size due to a direct-plunger system.
The direct plunger of the Firestrike is by far the largest of its kind in the Elite lineup. The firing cylinder is far larger than that of the Jolt or Triad. It makes a very good pistol for situations that do not require much stealth, and it is in fact unique among the Elite lineup in this way.

Theory 2: Accuracy... How does it do that? Perhaps it has something to do with the longer pin inside the dart. I have noticed that this device keeps the dart straighter prior to firing. A slightly curved dart actually makes a huge difference when you don't have an extended barrel. This actually makes a lot of sense, since the Jolt and Triad lack this feature. I have found in my experiments, however, that a simple 1/2 inch diameter barrel long enough to hold the entire dart without anything sticking out the front is much more efficient in accomplishing this task.

So, the Firestrike is actually pretty good. Plenty of power, and extra accuracy makes it many Nerfer's favorite blaster.

Since my goal is to outdo all the Nerf blasters on the market, I had to make some sort of a response to this. And I will say that this blaster one-up has been by far the most difficult. I started by taking out my most similar blaster to the Firestrike, and giving it the feature that it lacked before: extra ammo.

So now I present the latest edition of the Hunter pistol.

As I said, outdoing the Firestrike was not easy at all. But, it happens that I had done most of it already.

Still, the Firestrike is unbelievable in performance. Seriously, the engineers over at Nerf really tried hard on that one. I want to meet those guys some day. But for now, I'm stuck where I am, trying to do better than them with the tiniest budget ever. Wow, I feel small...

Last Post of the Summer

Sorry I haven't posted in awhile, I was putting some time into other hobbies and getting some hard work done finishing some projects. Here are the results of this past delay:

I did some work with 3D art, and this is how far I've gotten with this project.

This is the Pinpoint Mk II Blackjacket. It can be used as both a sniper rifle and a shotgun. It has a tactical rail on the top, and a new compact tailstock on the pump handle. It has a shorter firing section, but it is far lighter, and I was actually thinking of making it a pistol, but then I decided I had enough of those.

This is the near-finished Kabam. I basically took a Jolt and made it even smaller and even more powerful.

I did film some review videos, but I have had many troubles uploading them. I am open to suggestions:)

Lazer Tag in the Rockies

So, the reason I haven't made a post in the last week was because I was attending a family reunion in Colorado. However, I made sure I would have a nice, long article to write when I got back... so here it is!

I took along 4 Phoenix LTX's, two gold and two blue. They were a huge hit at the reunion. The playing fields went like this: Outside the two reunion cabins, inside a cabin, the dead forest (which is literally a bunch of white tree trunks that provide cover, but no shade) and the best one, outside the cabins... at night. I mean, have you seen the stars from the mountains? it is AMAZING.
So, the first thing I realized is how much more awesome laser tag is in the mountains of Colorado than the flatlands of Nebraska. I mean, rocks the size of minivans, and dirt that can maintain impossibly steep slopes. and that's just added on to all the regular features of Nebraska: trees, grass (well, in Colorado, it's all stiff shrubs) and paths. Now, on to the photos...

I-80 through Nebraska is so flat that you can always see at least one cell phone tower,  and at one point I counted 4 of them.

I did some mods and repairs while I was there, and I now have a newfound respect for what Mike Lovejoy does over at Tactical Tag. I have to ask him how he keeps all those hairsprings in line when he does his mods. The only mod I've ever done with one of these is adding a scope. The first try didn't turn out too good, that was about a year ago. But this time, I used an Orion UltraWide 15mm eyepiece, and this time it didn't look like looking through a cardboard tube, it used my entire field of view.

My cousin Ryan and second cousin Joey discuss team tactics in front of Centennial Reunion Cabin, while my cousin Mark runs off to find a hiding spot behind a small pine tree on top of the ridge behind the cabin. Such games simply don't happen in Nebraska.

My brother Dennis takes aim down a hallway during an indoor game. The LTX's could shoot al the way from one end of the cabin to the other, and my brother was taking advantage of that quite diligently.

Although we didn't play in this exact gorge, we played in similar landforms. Again, such landforms are seldom found in Nebraska.

Now this is never found in Nebraska.

One thing about mountain terrain is that everything is steep and big. For instance, the top of that mountain is half a mile away. Things are big in Nebraska too, but not in the same way as Colorado.

Enough with the pics, and on to the battle descriptions. The best tactic used, in my opinion, was in the night game. My teammate sniped from a second-story window, deliberately drawing attention to himself, while I used the gun with a scope and a sticky trigger, taking shots one at a time from behind a car. When my teammate left the window, I stayed behind the car and kept shooting, and I had hit:miss ratio of about 3:1. And all this time, I wasn't even noticed. I finally revealed myself when my teammate
did a dogfighting rampage from the porch of the cabin, and then retreated back to the window to conserve his health-- that's when I revealed myself. I held down the shield as I left my cover and retreated in order to conserve my health and get a better idea of my opponents' accuracy. After that, I did a long-range engagement, while drawing attention away from my opponent in the window. We won that round, despite the fact that one of our opponents was on 25 health and everyone else was on 10.

I learned this past week that LTX's have a mechanical design problem: the reload trigger sometimes fails to release the ammo core, thus making it much harder to dogfight. I fixed that problem with a small Swiss Army knife, which I am rather proud of.

Anyway, Tactical tag should definitely take a trip to Colorado. Snow Mountain Ranch / YMCA of the Rockies was where I stayed, but I'm sure there are better places to go for a game.