OtterSC notes: I have been sort of interested in doing a SpyderCocker conversion. Much inspiration came from the Spydercocker X. The only problem was that there was not much documentation. Plenty of pictures to reference off of. Deadly Wind had made a drop in kit that is yet to be released. The Beta was around $150. Not sure if that was a good price or not. I thought it could be done at home cheaper than that. I had planned on doing a step by step walk through on how to do this. But upgrading my website and working on markers sent to me for repair/upgrades had placed this project on the back burner. Then came Mr. Evan Dudzik. He was going to do one. I encouraged him to document his conversion. I did not immediately know he was going to do an electro SpyderCocker. It is similar to the the Spydercocker X. If that link doesn't work, try this one. He has taken time to whip up a page on his progress with some pictures. As of the time of this writing (December 4, 2002), he is working out some bugs. But is a working model. When he is satisfied with it, he is planning on sending it to me for review and to add my comments. The following are Mr. Dudzik's opinion and property and not of OtterSC or OtterSC Customs.

Foreward

I understand that this sounds appealing, and that many of you will want to attempt it. However I do not recommend that ANYONE that is not extremely mechanically inclined try this mod. For that matter I don't recommend anyone who is not extremely electronically inclined attempt this either. My belief is that if you can't figure out how to do something on your own, then you shouldn't do it until you can. I have designed all my own circuitry, custom made some of my own parts, come up with detailed plans for parts to be machined by someone with the right equipment. And do not try to do this mod half-a**ed or you will be disappointed. The reason that I mention all this is that almost every newbie that I have told about this project has gotten the idea into their head that they're going to build their own. Then they say "teach me everything". They don't know what closed bolt is, they don't know what pneumatics are, they don't know how a regulator works, they've never heard of going low pressure with a marker. For that reason I have made this a project overview, rather than a step by step tutorial, because I SERIOUSLY do not recommend that ANYONE attempts this mod, unless they are extremely qualified, I cannot stress this enough. If you do wish to make a closed bolt spyder such as mine, you should read this page as inspiration. Do yourself a favor and do NOT return to this page when you run into design problems, or construction problems. If you do you will rely on my experience to build it and not on your own ingenuity. You will not develop a true understanding for how the marker works, and that will make it very hard to get the marker working and then maintain it. If you only want to do this because of the performance, BUY AN AUTOCOCKER. Seriously. It will probably work better, and if you get a good deal it could be less than half the cost, and won't require a couple hundred hours of your time.

Background

A while back I saw the Deadlywind R.A.I.L. kit. It makes a spyder into a closed-bolt marker. Warpig did a test to debunk the myth that closed bolt markers are inherently more accurate... Anyway, they aren't. But that's not the only factor involved in a closed-bolt marker. They are quieter, have less recoil, have little or no blowback up the feed neck, and are almost incapable of chopping paint. You can usually stick your finger in the feed neck and shoot the marker and the bolt will just stop when it hits your finger; when a paintball is halfway into the chamber when the bolt comes forward, the bolt just stops rather than chopping it in half. It makes a distinctive [i]*KAK*[/i] sound. Also, with little or no blowback up the feed neck, the marker will feed faster and more reliably.

Anyway, after I saw the R.A.I.L. kit, I moved on with life, and forgot all about it. Then, when I remembered it and had enough money to buy it, I went back and they were done with beta testing. [i]GRR[/i] So, being the inventive person that I am, I decided to build my own. I finally found that someone else had done it before: the Spydercocker X.. This was a HUGE help to me. So, I have set off on my own design, one that takes elements from the R.A.I.L. kit as well as from the Spydercocker X, with the balance being my own design.

Starting off

So, I had this great plan in my head. But, I wanted to do this right. For some idiot reason, I always do things half-@$$ed and of course I am never satisfied with how they turn out. So, I browsed through my bookmarks, and I visited the BR Machine Co. Webpage. After a long series of emails detailing what I needed by way of custom parts, he made them up for me. First off, let me say that this guy is amazing. His work is excellent, and he was extremely helpful, and I ended up getting exactly what I wanted for a very reasonable price. What I got was this: a custom valve, like the one on his page, but modified so there is no blowback; a stainless steel hammer, with a groove all the way around, and no top hole for the connecting pin, threaded to accept an AutoCocker cocking rod; and a bolt, which has a nylon front, like the other bolts on his page, but with an aluminum back that makes it rear-cocking to go into a cocking block. I won't mention what I paid, because if he ever gets swamped with orders for these parts, I'm sure he'd like to charge more for them; all I will say is that the prices were in the ballpark of the prices he charges for his regular parts.

As for the other parts: the AutoCocker pneumatics I bought off of ebay. I still need to buy an autococker back block, as well as (most importantly) the spyder compact deluxe i'm supposed to be modding in the first place...

A bunch of the AutoCocker parts

my checklist of parts

key: first column indicates whether I have each part yet. Where the price is it means that it was included with the above part.

total money invested thus far: $577.00

*Note that this does not include any of the shipping costs, or the various runs to home depot for a tool or part.

I would place the real total at almost $700.00 right now. For those of you who will say "Hey why not just buy a Cocker", first of all, I don't think I could get an electronic cocker for $700.00. Second of all... that same thing occurred to me when I first made the pricelist. Then I put a little note at the bottom to remind myself of the validity of my goal:

• Various parts, pieces, tools: about $577.00
• Hours invested: countless
• Scaring noobs and impressing pros: priceless.

So, with that, we shall begin:

Construction

Ram Mount

The first thing I needed to do was build the bases for which the pneumatics will mount. The ram is to be mounted in much the same way that the Spydercocker X ram was mounted, on the side. I started off with my dremel on the autococker front block.

The first cut, circled in red; the blue line indicates where the second cut will be.

Unfortunately, I got caught up in the heat of the moment, and didn't' take any pics of the part I cut out before final shaping, smoothing, sanding, and polishing. The difference is stunning. Take a look at what the edges of the block look like in the below pic... (scarred and sliced) and compare it to the nice smooth faces of the new part.

And the part with ram mounted, positioned on side of my friend's spyder:

As far as actually making this part goes, it was a real pain. Cutting through a 1/2" or so thick block of solid aluminum with a dremel can be veerryy tedious, to say the least. Just BE PATIENT, don't do too much at once, because the dremel will heat up a LOT during cutting, so you should allow time for it to cool. ONLY attempt this with the (expensive, 6 bucks for 5) fiber reinforced cutoff wheels or better. Even these tough wheels will only make it through about half a cut each (it will lose a good deal of diameter, over 1/4", in just half a cut)

For a good finish, which is really not necessary but again, I want to do this right, do the following: start with a drum-sander bit for the dremel. You'll need a couple extra sanding drum sleeves. These things take a real beating from grinding the aluminum, but they do it fast, and they don't get clogged like the grinding stones do. Just smooth as best you can with these. Then take regular sandpaper, and rub the part against it on a table. Go through progressively finer grits of sandpaper, and when you're at the finest grit, then put a polishing wheel on your dremel, and grab a can of rubbing compound, and go at it. All of this will result in a great finish, if you really take your time; it took me over an hour to do just this one part, so be patient if you want a good result.

All in all, i'm very happy with the way the ram mount looks. Trust me; take your time, do a good job, and you'll be satisfied with the result.

3-Way Valve Mount

My original idea was to mount the 3 way valve the same as on the SpyderCocker X. However, like I said, I want to do this right, so I scrapped that idea entirely. Now on to its replacement.

News Flash: At this point in construction I finally got my Spyder Compact Deluxe, Check-It 15 degree assault block VA, Palmer Male Stabilizer, and gauge. I have ordered a Sprint frame.

News Flash: A Picture!

Solenoid valve

I swear, finding and purchasing a proper solenoid valve must be harder than buying nuclear weapons. It took me probably a good 8 hours searching through manufacturer data sheets, and then when I found a valve, I couldn't find anywhere to buy it. So, I got a replacement solenoid from a Brass Eagle Rainmaker; the valve is manufactured by MAC valves. Not entirely sure how i'm going to mount this valve, but most likely i'm going to modify the ball detent cover and use the back screw from it to mount the valve onto.

Pneumatics regulator

My original plan was to mount the pneumatics regulator into the end of the low pressure chamber, like on the R.A.I.L. kit. This would require me to drill and tap the hole for it, and it is rather ugly in my opinion. Then, upon examining my palmer stabilizer, I realized I could mount the regulator in the gauge output port, which was facing forwards, and it would be parallel to and below the LPC. However, because of the 15 degree angled VA that I paid 40 bucks for, I couldn't do this, because the reg wouldn't fit past the LPC. I was NOT about to give up my cool VA either. So, I sat down and looked at it for a while, and then I popped a 90 degree 1/8" elbow into the output port. This allowed me to put the pneumatics reg parallel to the palmer. However, there is little to no clearance, so I had to twist the elbow out to the side, screw in the reg, and then twist it back into place. It JUST BARELY fits. If you can get a 90 degree elbow that has a longer threaded neck, that would help. As it is, the regulators wedge together a LITTLE bit, just enough to keep them from rotating out of place too easily. Because the elbow I used had such a short neck, I had to only thread it in a couple of turns, so I made up for it with heaping gobs of teflon thread tape.

One cool thing is that I can now run the pneumatics hose from the reg in the groove formed by the two regulators, keeping it safe from tearing off; this is good because the other two hoses will be on the side of the gun, whereas the regulator output hose would be winding up from the bottom, more prone to tearing off.

Anyway, since the pneumatics regulator outputs such a small pressure, I was able to check for leaks by holding my thumb over the output nipple and gassing up the marker. I heard a leak, but it was just a bad macroline fitting. The regulator mounts had no leaks.

Electronics

Here's where things get interesting. Because of the closed bolt system, there are two timing intervals required when shooting:

1) The marker must wait to activate the solenoid valve, starting the cocking cycle, until the striker has had time to hit the valve and fire the paintball currently chambered, and

2) the marker must keep the solenoid energized long enough to allow the ram to extend fully, cocking the gun and opening the breech, and allow time for the paintball to fall into the chamber before closing the bolt again. To do this, I plan to use 555 timer IC circuits. I won't get into the technical aspects of it, but each circuit, when triggered, will turn ON for a certain amount of time... the first circuit will turn on, and do nothing but delay long enough for #1 above to occur, and then it will trigger the second circuit, which will turn on the solenoid for the right amount of time as indicated in #2 above. This should be easy to implement with the sprint electronic trigger frame.

As far as power goes, I have two problems: The first one is that I need space to mount a power regulator to regulate the power from the 9 volts the sprint frame uses to the 6 volts the solenoid needs. The second problem is WEIGHT. Between the 2 batteries in the 12v revvy, and the battery in the grip frame, this gun could be quite heavy. Also, having to keep 3 batteries charged would be a pain. The solution I have come up with is to consolidate my power requirements, by using the hopper batteries to power everything. Since the revvy has two 9v batteries in it, it has the highest voltage. When you regulate the voltage of electricity, like regulating air, you cannot go UP, you must go down, so all the voltages must be regulated DOWN from the 18v. The revvy has built in 12v regulation. I will need to install two regulators: a 9v regulator for the frame, and a 6v regulator for my custom electronics and for power to the solenoid. Theoretically, I should be able to fit the timing circuitry as well as the two regulation circuits in the space where the 9v battery would be in the sprint frame.

Alright, now I've got a 4xAAA battery box with integral on/off switch mounted on my revvy. This will hold the regulators and connect to the grip with a 3-conductor audio cable. Because of the way the box is mounted, the switch is on the back side of the box that protrudes over the edge of the revvy. Because of this, the switch won't get shut off accidentally, and the box is easy to open. The box's two wires are soldered onto the pads on the x-board. This is a pain in the *** to do, because you have to work around the stupid plastic holder for the board.

Timing circuitry

The timing circuitry is two separate timing circuits, one for each part of the cycle. They are freeform soldered together, with two pots in the middle for adjustment. The output will drive the solenoid drive transistor.

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