Post by aCe on Feb 20, 2008 23:18:35 GMT -5
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I UPGRADE MY …
SPRINGS
Stronger springs make the piston compress faster, which in turn pushes the air out faster. This results in higher FPS. However, what people tend to forget to mention, stronger springs mean more work for the rest of the gun's parts--from the gears, bushings, motor, battery, etc.
SPRING GUIDE
Stronger springs have a tendency to trying and dissipate their energy in any direction possible, which includes sideways. To keep the spring straight, we often change to metal spring guides for stronger springs.
Spring guides with bearings are metal spring guides with additional platform with ball bearings to allow the spring to twist while it compresses and decompresses. This does two things, first it lengthens the service life of your spring by reducing the amount of stress it takes (from the resistance of not twisting) when being compressed/decompressed and second, it acts like a spacer, by pre-tensioning the spring.
BUSHINGS
Bushings fix the pivot points or sockets of the gears. With the added pressure of stronger springs, the tendency of the gears is to try to move out of their sockets. This causes deformation of the bushings, if plastic. Deformed bushing will mean that the gears will misalign, increasing the possibility of wrecking the gears. This is why metal bushings is one of the key upgrades to be done when your upgrade the spring.
SHIMS
Shimming is not an upgrade, per se, as it is an adjustment of the fit or alignment of the gears. In a car, it is like aligning and balancing your wheels, which gives your better mileage and traction on the road. If your gears are misaligned, the minimum damage it will cause is added friction which will drain your battery quicker (the amps) and slow down your rate of fire. Worse, you can wreck your gears.
BATTERY
More mAh means the battery has more amps or more power. Meaning, your battery pack has more battery life, which translates into more play time!
Higher voltage means the motor is driven faster, meaning the AEG shoots faster, which translates to a higher rate of fire = more bbs fired per minute!
MOTOR
There are motors that are stronger (in torque) which means it can drive stronger springs. Then there are motors that have lower torque but higher speed. These motors are used for higher rates of fire. A motor that will have both higher rate of fire and more torque is the Holy Grail of motors. Unfortunately, such a motor would most likely be either too large for the AEG or too expensive to make.
BARREL
There are upgrades to lengthen the barrel. This has a slight increase in FPS, (assuming there is no vacuum effect) but more importantly, it increases the guns accuracy. However, lengthening of the barrel affects the ratio of air in the cylinder to the amount of air in the barrel.
Tight fit barrels do four things: First, it makes your bbs fly much more accurately. Second, since the volume of air in the barrel is lessened, it will increase your fps by decreasing the vacuum effect. Third, it allows you to have a longer barrel than your cylinder can normally handle (due to the reduction of the barrel's air volume versus that of the air volume in the cylinder). Fourth, it increases the chances of bbs getting stuck in the barrel, as the tolerances are much less. To solve this last problem, you will have to use higher quality (and possibly more expensive) bbs.
PISTON HEAD
Porting the piston helps reduce the friction of the driving the piston back and forth in the cylinder. This results in lower power drain (due to less friction) and increase the rate of fire slightly.
Piston heads with double O-rings are supposed to improve compression in the cyclinder.
Silent piston heads are piston heads with added padding to reduce the sound from the piston head striking the cylinder head.
PISTON
One set of the gears are located on the piston. When using stronger springs (above M130/PDI210%/SP130), there is a tendency for the gears to start cutting into the piston teeth, particularly the second and third teeth. Stock gears are often plastic (as in most of the cheaper ACM guns), so when getting stronger springs, it is often wise to switch to polycarbonate (still looks like plastic, but stronger) pistons. At a certain point (sometimes a matter of opinion between different gunsmiths), aluminum pistons are suggested, particularly for ratrat players using springs above M150 or equivalent.
CYLINDER
(To follow)
WIRING
Bigger wires mean more current can pass through the wire (ugh, electrical guys, please help me with this--mahina ako sa electricals) with less heat. More heat means more drain on the batteries and results in less play time and shortens the useful life of the battery.
GEARS
Gears can be upgraded in two directions--high torque (more power/lower speed) and high speed (less power/higher speed).
Higher torque gears makes it easier for the motor to drive the gears or allow the motor to compress stronger springs. This will lessen the need for a stronger motor, lessen the need to get high mAh batteries, and result in less stress on the motor/batteries. Unfortunately, the rate of fire will go down.
High speed gears are the complete opposite of high torque gears. More difficult to compress springs, more drain on batteries and more stress on the motor/batteries. However, your rate of fire will be much higher.
GEAR BOX
The gear box contains most of the key moving parts of an AEG and is important to the whole system. A metal gear box can take more stress OR last longer (not necessarily both) than a plastic gear box, and a reinforced gear box can take more stress OR last longer (again not necessarily both) than a plain metal gear box.
