Engineers in paintball

[The Hobbit]

So I know there are some here that have been behind the curtain. I’m curious who were the engineering minds behind each company/gun?

Was bob long actually designing the intimidator or just a financial backer/company face?

Who was the guy at smart parts when they were doing more then rehashing old designs/“borrowing” other designs?

just how many markers and equipment did Simon have involvement with?

Please share any and every design and engineering story that the brain trust knows.

[Frmrspec]

https://Www.zdspb.com

[Daltech]

The WDP Angel LED, Smart Parts Shocker, and Brass Eagle Rainmaker were all very, very similar from what I have learned.

[Ecapnation]

Only similarities are they were offered in black Anno and had triggers

[Daltech]

They all used a micro switch to activate the process, they all used electrically controlled solenoids, they all used batteries, they all used unique new body frames, they were all controlled and adjusted by a microprocessor, I would place them all as the first generation of single trigger electro markers. A great place to start learning about the engineering side of design in paintball. With those primary components, all the other details are bells and whistles. Barrel thread, color of Anno, orientation of tubes in the body, single trigger or double doesn’t matter. It was groundbreaking for the era. It’s not like mass produced quality electro pneumatic markers were common or even popular. They were cost prohibitive and rare which led to their slow development. 1996-2000.

Also, fun fact…
Brass Eagle was gonna release the WDP Angel but the deal fell through. Smart parts and WDP made some lawyers kids very happy with a 3rd vacation house and college tuition.

[Trbo323]

The WDP Angel LED, Smart Parts Shocker, and Brass Eagle Rainmaker were all very, very similar from what I have learned.

Um, no?
Angels are triple tubes
The original shoebox shocker is a poppet but everything following is a spool
The rainmaker, well it's just unique. Closer to an automated pump than anything else really

Basically the originals of each are all poppets but that's pretty much all they have in common. Hell all 3 of those use different barrel threads even.

They are similar in the same way a Honda Civic, Toyota Corolla and Chevy cobalt all have 4 cylinder engines, 4 tires and 2 headlights

Sent from my motorola edge 2024 using Tapatalk

[Cyberpyr8]

https://www.pbnation.com/showthread.php?t=6050647&page=315

This is the thread for you. It's probably the only live thread still on PBN. It has John formerly of Dye and now with Method (IronyUSA) and Jack Wood posting in there pretty regularly. There's also others that have contributed. Lurker and several others have chime in from time to time. If you just go check it once a day, it's always interesting what this group talks about.

[The Hobbit]

https://www.pbnation.com/showthread....50647&page=315

This is the thread for you. It's probably the only live thread still on PBN. It has John formerly of Dye and now with Method (IronyUSA) and Jack Wood posting in there pretty regularly. There's also others that have contributed. Lurker and several others have chime in from time to time. If you just go check it once a day, it's always interesting what this group talks about.

Yep I’m over in there and enjoy the discussion when John, jack , and the others get to talking.

[cockerpunk]

some of these questions, i think it depends on the era. early on? i think bob was a lot of the energy ... later on ... a lot less. i think thats generally true of most paintball companies. simon was the engineer behind a lot of stuff, jack, tom, dave, etc. all started with ideas, and later handed off the actual engineering.

im still surprised by some of the ideas not yet implemented. like when we were looking at "barrel breaks" and realized they had nothing at all to do with the barrel, and instead were due to the loading sequence, it became obvious as an engineer that the loader, and the gun being separate parts, either mechanically or functionally, was an arbitrary, legacy, and bad idea. having full control over the loading sequence would insure much much much better handling of paint.

still dont see a ton of that out there. and what you do is basically just like an integrated mechanically, but totally separate functional integrated loaders. in some ways paintball is stuck in a paradigm it cant escape from.

[Daltech]

This guy gets it.