New custom 5way Solenoid Valve for Cockers

[pumzele]

1. SMC is rated for millions of cycles
2. ? why would you want high pressure on a 3way, less efficient and paint chop
3. ? eblades will cycle at an insane fire rates with the current flow.
4. SMC is rebuildable if you know how

5 - 6 -7 & "I just wanted something smaller and lighter." these make sense - I would get one

FLE version is better - a quick release mounting point would be nice. plug and slot could work.

1. Yes, but MAC is more reliable than SMC read up on the Bullet Valve.
2. The reason for higher pressure is solely that if a regulator should have creep it wont destroy the solenoid.
Normally SMC solenoids fail when for some reason you get the reg creep and end up with 400 psi on your solenoid instead of 150psi. It has more to do with safety factors than actually running it at higher pressures.
3. That is true but the response time is slower compare to the MAC Bullet Valve. Having said that I still need to do tests to confirm that my solenoid is indeed faster as the Bullet Valve is only acting as the pilot.
4. Yes SMC is rebuildable but you need special seals and gaskets, which you won't need with my solenoid. My solenoid uses easily available orings and only consists of 3 parts(Excluding barbs and o-rings).

[latches109]

no way not in paintball, MAC solenoids failed a lot! ego 7/8 for example. In the decade running the shop we rarely changed an SMC solenoid. The DM3/4/pm5 SMCs were rock solid. Gaskets, yes we changed because of pinching but they are easy and cheap to get. I don't associate MAC as reliable, but maybe the Bullet Valve is 🤷♂️. Anyway, it's pretty hard to overpressure an eblade solenoid, the hose blows off the LPR first. Most solenoid failure is due to improper lubrication or power related. Solenoid response time is not a bottleneck in the shot cycle - I wouldn't waste time testing, most fields cap at 10.2 bps these days.

1. Yes, but MAC is more reliable than SMC read up on the Bullet Valve.
2. The reason for higher pressure is solely that if a regulator should have creep it wont destroy the solenoid.
Normally SMC solenoids fail when for some reason you get the reg creep and end up with 400 psi on your solenoid instead of 150psi. It has more to do with safety factors than actually running it at higher pressures.
3. That is true but the response time is slower compare to the MAC Bullet Valve. Having said that I still need to do tests to confirm that my solenoid is indeed faster as the Bullet Valve is only acting as the pilot.
4. Yes SMC is rebuildable but you need special seals and gaskets, which you won't need with my solenoid. My solenoid uses easily available orings and only consists of 3 parts(Excluding barbs and o-rings).

[jerryjjackson69]

I agree with SMC being preferrable to MAC in general. That may vary model to model, but as a general statement it holds true. Eclipse has switched to SMC pilots on that last few generations of products from custom MAC valves. I do think I recall MAC typically being faster.

[pumzele]

I agree with SMC being preferrable to MAC in general. That may vary model to model, but as a general statement it holds true. Eclipse has switched to SMC pilots on that last few generations of products from custom MAC valves. I do think I recall MAC typically being faster.

I am pretty sure it was a cost thing as to why Eclipse changed over from SMC to MAC. Right at the beginning eclipse was using SMC.
Then to get faster cycle times they switched to MAC. Then for some reason they switched back. I actually didn't they they switched back to SMC, but havent been following Eclipses newest markers. I know MAC has a lot of guns use their solenoids. MAC has really good direct acting solenoids and they normally will help you design your own solenoid but it is rather expensive.
I had a meeting with MAC at the beginning of the year and they were keen to design an Autococker front solenoid, as in the whole thing, including mouting housing, it would have bolted directly to the front block, but when they mentioned how expensive it was going to be, I decided to just use a standard bullet valve as a pilot and then design my on 5/2 Way.

SMC would definitely be cheaper but I am already using a MAC solenoid for my Valve so using a similar one for the front solenoid.

[jerryjjackson69]

I think they switched to MAC for performance reasons early on when high-end markers were expected to crank out 25 BPS. They switched to SMC in the more recent years because MAC was providing too many faulty units. SMC is cheaper, but cost wasn't the deciding factor.