There have been many that were racing to get a replacement board with an eye setup to the Spyder crowd. Damon Williams of Scenario Dreams was the first to release a board with an Eye feature.

To expand my site in hopes to educate the many E-Spyder owners, I purchased a board from Mr. Williams for this review. I hope to share my trial and errors with this board in this review.

• Ordering
• Installation
• Testing without Eye
• Adjusting the Parameters
• Final Thoughts without Eye
• Eye Installation
• Testing with the Eye
• Final Thoughts of the T-Board
• Update - Upgrade Chip

Ordering

I contacted Scenario Dreams to get information on purchasing this board for my review. When purchasing, you have the choice of the type of eyes that you can have for the T-Board. One is a break beam setup, or a bounce beam. You need to decide which one that you want since there is minor programming on the board that is dependent on this.

A bounce beam eye is just like the eye on my Eclipse E-Blade on my Turtle Cocker. Basically, this eye is both an emitter and a receiver in one unit. The eye will emit a beam of light that is to bounce off the paintball shell. The receiver will receive this light when it is bounced off the paintball. This then signals the board that it can fire the marker. All this happens with every trigger pull. This will work great. However, I am not sure how sensitive this eye is. The E-Blade has the capability to adjust the sensitivity of the eye for different colored paints. Though, I am sure this is programmed in with the T-Board to be optimal. The plus side is that this only needs one hole drilled in the body.

The break beam setup has two eye components that need to be mounted across from each other. One is the emitter, the other a receiver. When a paintball drops into the breech, this will break the light beam that the emitter is sending to the receiver. When this happens, this allows the marker to fire. The down side of this setup is that you must drill two holes into the marker, one on each side of the breech. This will allow the eyes to "see" each other when the paintball is not in the way. The board does come with an alignment tool that I will get into later. The plus side of this setup is that it is faster firing because of the breaking of the beam.

As you can see, both types of eyes have their individual pros and cons. I decided to go with the break beam. It will be faster firing. The only hard part is that of mounting the eyes.

Mr. Williams has a paypal account and so I wired him the correct amount. Within a week, I had received the board. The board came in a bubble envelope. And, the board itself was inside a static resistant bag. As all electronics should be in.

A quick note, about one week after I had received this new board, I had gotten an updated chip. This suprised me. Yet, it is part of the warranty. I had tested both chips and both worked.

The T-Board is limited to 36bps. A typical blowback can have a cycle of 40bps. However, many hoppers will have a hard time keeping up with this. This board is also semi-auto only. The T-Board has a 30-day money back guarantee and a 120-day warranty against defects.

One other note that I like to address, and maybe put the rumors down. When the T-Board was first released, there were errors found. Many of the first generation boards did not work. This has been fixed. And should not really be an issue if considering this board. There are errors on pretty much anything you get. And with the 30-day money back guarantee and the 4-month warranty, this should show that Mr. Williams stands behind his product. Just because something had errors when it first came out doesn't mean it is poor quality.

Installation

The installation was very easy. If you can use a screwdriver, you can install the board. The eye will be a different story that I will get into later. There are instructions that came with the board. I have made a PDF of the instructions. This includes a supplemental information of the upgrade chip. These instructions are good as of March 10, 2004 and are subject to change without notice.

To install the board, one simply needs to remove two philips head screws. This will let you remove the board from the frame. The next thing to do is remove the wires. There is no need to worry about how these wires will need to be attached to the new board. The plug will show that. There are only one way to plug them in.

Carefully pull from the plug socket. Do not pull the wires. You can very easily pull the wires out of the socket.

After the board is removed from the frame and wires off, set the Kingman board aside. Remove the T-board. I am not going to install the eyes yet at this moment. I just wanted to install the board and test it out.

I placed the T-Board into the frame and secured it with the stock screws. I then proceeded to plug the board with the wires. There is no lettering by the plugs to tell you what plugs into what. The plug points are the same as the stock Kingman board. The battery plugs in above the recharger pin. The solenoid plugs into the next plug going counter clockwise. And finally, the switch wires are plugged in. The bottom is reserved for the eye wires.

That is all that needs to be done to install the board. The picture above shows a setscrew. Make sure the wires in the frame are on the side closest the trigger. This simply keeps the wires away from the actuating sear/solenoid assembly.

Testing

I installed a fully charged battery and turned on the frame. The red LED came on, signaling that the frame is ready to go.

Since I had received an updated chip, I installed that one after making sure that the board works. The new chip also operated without any problems.

The Parameters

The T-Board has several features that can be adjusted via the trigger and LED. There are no plans for an LCD, according to Mr. Williams. Or really any need for one. Changing modes is done by pulling on the trigger and watching the LED flash on and off. The different adjustments are as follows: Dwell, Eye Delay, Debounce, and Eye Disable Delay. For those that have the break beam eye, then there is a break beam alignment tool. To enter the setup modes, you need to pull back and hold the trigger, then turn on the frame. When the LED blinks once, you are set to change the defaults. If you turn off the marker, all parameters that you have saved will be the same when you turn your marker on.

When you are using the eyes, the marker may not fire unless there is something over the eye. But what if you want to dry fire the marker? You can disable the eyes by pulling on the trigger and holding it back for about 2-seconds. When the LED comes on with the trigger pulled back, the eye sensors have been deactivated. To activate the eyes once again, you need to turn off the frame for at least 10-seconds. Turning on the frame after this time period will activate the eye sensors.

Dwell: The first mode that you can change is the Dwell. The default Dwell time is 4ms. "MS" stands for milli-seconds. With each pull of the trigger, this will increase this setting by one. Let's say you want the dwell set to 6ms. You simply need to pull and release the trigger 2 times (4 is the default, +1 trigger pull, +1 trigger pull = 6ms).

What is dwell and why change it? Dwell is the time in milliseconds that the sear is disengaged and how long the solenoid is energized. So, the higher the time is, the more the sear is lowered and kept on the lowered position.

Let's say for instance that you won a bid for an ESP frame. When you received it, you did not get the e-Spyder striker that has a slightly small flat on the back side. This flat helps release the striker consecutively with each trigger pull. Because you are forced to use the stock striker with the e-frame, the sear may not release it to fire the marker. So, increasing the dwell is recommended in this case. You are programming the board to activate the sear longer to let the striker go.

However, too long of a dwell time may cause the marker to double fire. As mentioned in the last paragraph, the higher the dwell time, the longer the sear is activated and in the "down" position. When the striker is pushed back from the valve, there is nothing to catch it in the cocked position.

Another note on dwell, the higher the number, the longer the sear is tripped. And the more battery is used. Set the dwell just long enough to release the striker with each shot. No more! You see the blue cylinder at the top of the board? That is the capacitor. This is what sends energy to the solenoid to fire the marker. After each shot, it needs time to recharge to send another charge to the solenoid. If the solenoid is still being energized, this means less recharge time for the capacitor. And it may not be able to fire the marker on the next pull.

After you get the desired parameter, pull and hold the trigger back. When the LED turns off, release the trigger. You are in the next parameter of the Setup Mode.

Eye Delay: The second parameter that you can change is the eye delay. The factory setting is 20ms. However, each time you enter Setup Mode, this is reset to 0ms. Unlike the dwell, each trigger pull adds 5ms, not 1ms.

What is and why change it? This setting basically activates the eye sensor after the trigger pull. When activated, the sensor will "scan" for the paintball to drop in the breech. It makes sure that the paintball has dropped into the breech before firing.

As Mr. Williams explained to me, if the eye was installed high, and there is no eye delay, this can result in a ball chop as soon as the ball activates the sensor. So, depending on how you installed the eye, it is a good idea to set at least 10ms before firing.

After you get the desired parameter for the eye delay, pull and hold the trigger back. When the LED turns off, release the trigger. You are in the next parameter of the Setup Mode.

Debounce: The third parameter that is changeable is the debounce. The factory setting of this parameter is 4ms. However, entering the setup mode will reduce this to 2ms. With each pull of the trigger, this will increase by 1.

What is and why change it? Debounce is basically the measured time that the trigger switch must be in the up position before checking for another trigger pull. Having a debounce that is too low can and will cause double firing. However, if you have this parameter too high, this will slow your ROF down.

In a sense, even though the board is semi-auto, having a low debounce will "trick" the switch that you are pulling on the trigger really fast. The reason is because in a mechanical switch, the contacts actually bounce, making contact. Increasing this parameter will result in a more controllable firing of the marker. So, a 100ms debounce parameter will result in 10bps since 100-miliseconds need to pass before firing the marker.

Eye Disable Delay: The fourth parameter that is changeable is the Eye Disable Delay.

What is and why change it? Some players will run with the trigger pulled when they go to the next bunker. Normally, you can pull the trigger for 2-seconds to disable the eye. However, if it takes you more than 2-seconds to get to the next bunker, you have disabled your eye. This parameter increases the time needed to pull on the trigger to disable the eyes. When setting up the eye disable for turning off the eye, each pull of the trigger is 1/2 second, starting at 0ms.

Eye Alignment Tool: This is not a physical tool as one may think by its name. It is a program built into the board that is not accessible through the normal Setup Mode routine. This is for those that have the break beam setup. This is used to make sure that the eyes are properly aligned with each other to allow for correct operation. The LED will light up when the eyes are properly aligned.

The above picture are the eyes for the T-Board.

Final thoughts without the Eye

All in all, the board performed well without the eye. With the debounce set low, and the trigger set close to activating the switch, lends itself a fast firing marker that is controllable. A very well thought out board. I have not had any trouble with it.

I am not yet able to test out it's full potential. I am working on the installation of the eyes and will add to this review when I have the chance. Check back soon. Although, if you set the parameters just right, there is no need for the eyes.

Eye Installation: Since there are 3 different boards available at this time of writing, I decided to combine all of the steps I had taken to install the eye into one article. To see how I did this, follow this link. I have made available a template that you can cut out and have proper drill holes for the eyes. However, since this writing, Kingman has produced their bodies with more or less material. Because of this, the template may not fit your particular marker. A rule of thumb is to drill a small hole from one side to the other that is between the top and bottom tube. Becareful not to breech into these areas. Also, it is possible to warp the metal and keep the tubes round. Aluminum is not tolerant of heat. Especially with heating due to drilling.

Testing with the Eye

Not much that I can say about my test. The board functioned very well. Absolutely no chops! My marker setup was not with a Revy. Rather, I use a VL 200 hopper that doesn't have any type of agitation short of shaking the marker. I used this with the thought of the feed rate will be erratic, as many of you have found out with ball breaks.

I started off slow. I was not sure if the parameters that I had discussed earlier were correct. I did experience a ball break about the 15th ball. So I increased the Eye Delay to 15ms. Proceeded to fire once more.

That seemed to have fixed the chop problem. I could recognize slightly slower firing. But was expected due to the type of hopper I was using and the eyes sensing a paintball. I increased to as fast as I could. About a half of a case later, absolutely no chops! The erratic feeding of the VL really did test out the eyes.

With the confidence of the eyes, I tried the setup with an agitating hopper. I also reduced the Eye Delay to 10ms. Once again, and an empty paintball case later, no chops of any kind.

Final Thoughts

One thing I would like to see in a future update is to know what version software the board is. Since there are no LCD on this board, possibly a simple flash of the LED to show the version when the frame is first turned on. However, if this is to be the final version with no more future updates, this is not needed.

Other than that, a great and simple board for those that wish to increase their ROF and reduce ball chops with the use of the eyes. Though, with tweaking of the board, you could setup the parameters of the board to not chop without the use of the eyes. Essentially, set up the board for the feed rate of your hopper. You can also set up the board to use the bounce of the switch and basically fire at full auto.

Another note is depending on your marker. Power feed will only be able to use the bouncebeam. It will be very hard to mount a breakbeam. Though, a way around this is to mount a Polecat Paintball Straight Feed. This essentially will replace the powerfeed with a direct feed, making room for an eye sensor on the other side. Those with a vertical feed markers will have no trouble mounting either eyes. At the time of this article, there are no other boards that offer either types of eye installation.

Scenario Dreams also offers on his site a troubleshooting page for his board.

I do hope that this review provides you with information in your decision for purchasing an e-board with an eye setup.

Update - Upgrade Chip

For those that had gotten the first generation boards, there is now an upgrade chip available to you. This upgrade chip adds a few firing features to the T-Board. Those features are:

• Semi auto
• Reactive trigger
• 3-shot burst
• Full auto

To enter and change these modes, you must be in the setup mode. To enter the setup mode, turn on the marker while pulling the trigger. The LED should not light up as you continue to pull on the trigger. When the LED blinks once, release the trigger. This is the setup mode for the fire modes.

If you continue to pull the trigger for about 4-seconds, the LED should blink twice. This enters the setup mode for dwell, eye delay, debounce, eye disable, and ROF. Except for the setup for the fire modes, refer above for a description of each parameter for this portion and after.

Continuing the trigger pull from when you first turned on the frame, the LED should blink 3 times after about 6-seconds. This restores the settings to default. See above for the default settings. The default fire mode is semi-auto.

The eye alignment tool is 8-seconds from when the trigger is held and the frame is turned on. The LED should remain on. To get out of the eye alignment tool, the frame must be turned off for at least 10-seconds.

Fire Modes: The first set of parameters on the setup is fire modes.

What is and why change it? Some players just want to have a variety of fire modes available to them. When you have entered into the fire mode setup routine, you can change to the different fire modes by pulling on the trigger. One pull will switch the mode to reactive trigger. Another trigger pull will set the frame to 3-shot burst. Another pull will set to full auto. Pulling the trigger once again will change to semi-auto and start over.

Semi auto. With each pull and release of the trigger, one shot is fired. For tournament mode that locks in semi-auto, you still need to remove the jumper.

Reactive trigger. When a trigger is pulled, a shot is fired. When the trigger is released, one shot is fired. So, a complete pull and release of a trigger, 2 shots are fired.

3-Shot burst. With a pull of the trigger, the marker will fire 3 shots and stop.

To set the fire mode to what you want, pull the trigger until the LED turns off. The marker is now ready for play in that mode that you had set.

Rate Of Fire: This sets the rate of fire of the board. This is in the second set of setup parameters. Remember to write down on a piece of paper all of your settings. When you go into this setup mode, your parameters are reset to default (dwell 2ms, eye delay 0ms, debounce 2ms, eye disable is deactivated).

What is and why change it? After the eye disable, you are in the ROF. This changes the ROF for all firing modes. With each pull of the trigger, it increments the ROF value by 1. You can have a value between 1 and 20. *This is not the BPS. It is a value. A value of 1 is the fastest rate of fire. While a value of 20 is the slowest. This is nice so that you can set the ROF so it doesn't go faster that what your hopper can feed if you decide not to install the eyes.

Right now, there is no absolute definition of value pertaining to what BPS is. Right now, it is trial and error. Mr. Williams should be developing a graph of some sort as to these values.

Remember to set your parameters, hold the trigger until the LED turns off. Also, Mr. Williams has changed the factory settings. This adjustment should reflect in the many that are installing the new 50g switches. These adjustments are the dwell and debounce along with the addition of the ROF.

Shot Queuing: This is a little hard to explain in my own words. So, I will let the instruction sheet speak for itself what this is. This is a "command" for the firing sequence that operates in conjunction of the ROF setting.

"Shot Q'ing mean that if you pull the trigger faster than your ROF, the board will remember that you have pulled the trigger and fire the marker as soon as a ball in the breach. But, if a ball doesn't break the eye beam within the set period of time, the marker will wait for the next trigger pull. Shot Q'ing is only active if you pull your trigger faster than your ROF. Shot Q'ing is disabled if your tournament lock is enabled".

So, this would mean that if you pull the trigger faster than your ROF, AND if the ball has not broken the beam, the marker will not fire. Basically, a safe way to help keep paint from being chopped.