Original Etha velocity issues.

[William the Third]

Cross posting this here, as the Eclipse sub-forum doesn't get much traffic.

So a week ago a guy came out to the field with his old Etha that had been sitting for a number of years. The eyes weren't working, and it took the reg basically maxed out to get to ~275 fps, and the solenoid started to leak a bit after shots, likely being .overpressurized. He played with it some till the leak got really bad. Turns out the reg seat decided to fail, blowing reg seat bits all through the marker. He left it with us to fix, and I decided to take it on, as I've never worked on an Etha before, so I was curious.

Went through the whole marker and removed the reg seat bits, new reg seat, cleaned and greased everything up, and installed new eyes (the IR LED had died). Haven't replaced any o-rings yet, as they all appear to still be ok, but who knows? Anyway, still having the same problem as before to get to velocity basically requires turning the reg almost all of the way up. it gets to 270's with the reg only one full turn in from full max. Go any further, and velocity doesn't really increase that much, and the solenoid starts leaking from the vent port.

I don't have the stock barrel, but I've tested using a .689 Shaft 4 barrel from my Geo 2.1 and a Freak barrel with various inserts from .687 to .679 and GI 3-star. Dropping the bore didn't really help gain any velocity, but did get the shot to shot velocity more consistent. I've also installed a new battery, and reset the board to factory. Didn't make any difference. Even maxed out the dwell, no real difference. I was shooting without a hopper, so loading just two balls at a time. I noticed something curious, but maybe nothing. The first shot is always higher than the immediate second shot. Almost like it's being starved for air, but maybe something with the solenoid? Probably need to test with a hopper next time so there is less time between followup shots. The solenoid was at least spared from the reg seat bits getting into it since PE installed a filter to protect it (just for testing, I did test without the filter, no difference).

So any idea guys?

[Jonnydread]

Sounds like a gunky noid to me. I would replace any remaining o-rings and take a careful peep at the noid.

[Magmoormaster]

Does it have an aftermarket bolt, like a TechT bolt or something? Those will often cause velocity issues. If not, yeah all the orings and make sure the dwell setting on the board is correct.

[William the Third]

I'm really curious if something is up with the solenoid. Dwell set to minimum (8), .689 shaft 4 barrel, GI 3-star, reg 1 full turn in from max output, shoots pretty consistently in the 270's. Same setup but Dwell set to maximum (15), first shot 290's, follow-up shots in the 270's or lower. Wait a bit, first shot 290's, then 270's or lower for follow-up shots.

All 100% stock. Sadly the original Etha solenoids aren't rebuildable (at least not easily it seems).

[William the Third]

Screwed with o-ring, no changes. Even tried some cheap Harbor Freight o-rings, which I knew tend to have thinner cross sections, and would offer less stiction (if they seal). They actually leaked on airing up, but sealed after the first shot. It may have helped gain 2~3 FPS on average, so basically no change. I'm strongly suspecting the solenoid is the problem. I wish they were rebuildable, or at least readily available for a good price.

[Magmoormaster]

If you're getting lower velocity after a few shots and it goes back up by waiting, your reg is sticky and needs to be rebuilt.

[William the Third]

If you're getting lower velocity after a few shots and it goes back up by waiting, your reg is sticky and needs to be rebuilt.

Reg, and quite literally everything else, was rebuilt (remember, reg seat failed at the start), and if you'll check in post #4 the drop-off only happened when dwell was maxed out. I'm not shooting it quickly, maybe 1 bps max, but likely even less, so plenty of time for even a slow reg to recharge.

It's looking more and more like a solenoid issue, which this exact issue I'm having here has been encountered before, and it's the solenoid failing. Apparently this one is just starting to fail, as they'll keep getting worse to the point you can't reach velocity even with the reg maxed out. When the reg gets maxed out, it over-pressurizes the solenoid, and the relief valve opens.

[Magmoormaster]

Sorry I missed that. My bad

[William the Third]

Sorry I missed that. My bad

No worries dude, and hopefully that didn't come off as rude to you as it did to me upon rereading it. Trust me, for a while I was thinking it was a reg issue, and was chasing that before realizing it was almost definitely the solenoid failing. I really wish I had a way to test the reg output on this generation of PE guns/regs, as that would have saved me a lot of time.

The solenoid failing makes a lot of sense really once one looks at the firing animation (note this animation shows a coil spring behind the "poppet" (it's really more a "spoppet"), which also shows up in some early PE drawings, but is absent in the final product, replaced by an air spring). Once the solenoid starts to get weak, it's not able to stay in the "firing" position as long. This means that the dump chamber is open for less duration, so pressure has to be increased to compensate and reach velocity. Eventually even that won't be enough. PE states that 2.5 turns in from full max is a good starting point, but at 2.5 turns in with a weak solenoid, you're lucky to get it to shoot even 100 FPS.

[Toestr]

I fail to see how this is a poppet. All sealing surfaces in the animation appear to be sliding, not lifting.

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[Jordan]

I fail to see how this is a poppet. All sealing surfaces in the animation appear to be sliding, not lifting.

Sent from my Pixel 4a using Tapatalk

Same way a Mini is considered a poppet, I guess.

[William the Third]

Just wanted to update this. The solenoid fixed the problem. Reg still seems higher than I'd like, but I really don't known since I don't have a way to test the output pressure.

[Magmoormaster]

Those etha regs max out at like 200-250, so it's probably lower than you think.

[superman]

tank out put pressure?
fresh good brand battery?
factory reset the board?