I recently went down a rabbit hole of trying to find a suitable replacement for the solenoid in an ego 7. Long story short, after cannibalizing a working solenoid from a donor marker, I was left with a nice ego and no solenoid to drive it.
Ego 7/8 solenoids have been NLA for a while, and used working ones are ~$180 if you can find one to buy (good luck). Full working markers in nice shape seem to run $300 - so a broken solenoid is a big hit.
After some great discussions with rawbutter and trying out a solenoid that was not quite right I intensified my search for something usable.
The Ego 7 and 8 use the MAC 43A-ADA-RDUJ-OBA solenoid. It is essentially a custom version of the 43A series MAC 5V solenoid with a cut down body and a specific configuration of its porting that can mate with a custom air manifold.
At its core though its a 5 way solenoid - it can direct an air input one of 2 ways based on it's solenoid being on/off. Additionally when air is not being fed to one of those two directions, the off side is vented off to atmosphere.
Enter the 43A-AAA-RFEJ-OBL
This is essentially the same solenoid, also at 5Vdc, but with M3 Threading for all 5 of its ports. The air ports are also only on the top or bottom of the solenoid (unlike the original where the "vents" were on both the bottom and top giving the manifold access to all 5 ports on one side). Airsoldier used to have these for cheap but no longer has them
, I snagged this one on Ebay 
.
No need (or room) for the manifold with the M3 ports.
So, If I could make it fit, It should work.
Note in this pic that I actually used the old solenoid "cap" off the old solenoid and mounted it on the spool block from the new solenoid. It just unscrews easily on and off. Probably not necessary, but this ensures I am using the original 4.0 watt 5vdc solenoid (versus 4.7), and also saves some space with the wires pointing down.
Of course that would not have worked if the actual solenoid (and not the spool) was blown.
Additionally, this swap of the solenoid "cap" its self would be an easy way to use a MAC 43A solenoid from this series that was otherwise correct but the wrong voltage (like say 12V or 24V)
Bit of a snug fit to get it all in, but it fits!
Air comes in from the LPR to one port, and leaves the solenoid through 2 lines to either the QEV and rammer forward, or the rammer reverse barb.
To make it all fit I had to remove the microswitch from the board and thus only use the optical trigger switch.
Marker fires great, chronos great and my testing at home shows solid potential - its ready for a field test!
I had to up the dwell from 12.5ms to 15ms for consistency. Might be due to the ego 8 board I am using in this ego 7, with the 7 having 1 less QEV, or perhaps the slightly longer LP hose length.
Quite encouraging - Ill report back when it gets a field test, though it may be some time
One final thought - There's no reason that I can see which would prevent this solenoid from being cut down into the shape of the originals - A skilled machinist I imagine could shave off the extra meat and witha better selection of hose babrbs perhaps make enough room for the microswitch to come back.
Ego 7/8 solenoids have been NLA for a while, and used working ones are ~$180 if you can find one to buy (good luck). Full working markers in nice shape seem to run $300 - so a broken solenoid is a big hit.
After some great discussions with rawbutter and trying out a solenoid that was not quite right I intensified my search for something usable.
The Ego 7 and 8 use the MAC 43A-ADA-RDUJ-OBA solenoid. It is essentially a custom version of the 43A series MAC 5V solenoid with a cut down body and a specific configuration of its porting that can mate with a custom air manifold.
At its core though its a 5 way solenoid - it can direct an air input one of 2 ways based on it's solenoid being on/off. Additionally when air is not being fed to one of those two directions, the off side is vented off to atmosphere.
Enter the 43A-AAA-RFEJ-OBL
This is essentially the same solenoid, also at 5Vdc, but with M3 Threading for all 5 of its ports. The air ports are also only on the top or bottom of the solenoid (unlike the original where the "vents" were on both the bottom and top giving the manifold access to all 5 ports on one side). Airsoldier used to have these for cheap but no longer has them
, I snagged this one on Ebay .No need (or room) for the manifold with the M3 ports.
So, If I could make it fit, It should work.
Note in this pic that I actually used the old solenoid "cap" off the old solenoid and mounted it on the spool block from the new solenoid. It just unscrews easily on and off. Probably not necessary, but this ensures I am using the original 4.0 watt 5vdc solenoid (versus 4.7), and also saves some space with the wires pointing down.
Of course that would not have worked if the actual solenoid (and not the spool) was blown.
Additionally, this swap of the solenoid "cap" its self would be an easy way to use a MAC 43A solenoid from this series that was otherwise correct but the wrong voltage (like say 12V or 24V)
Bit of a snug fit to get it all in, but it fits!
Air comes in from the LPR to one port, and leaves the solenoid through 2 lines to either the QEV and rammer forward, or the rammer reverse barb.
To make it all fit I had to remove the microswitch from the board and thus only use the optical trigger switch.
Marker fires great, chronos great and my testing at home shows solid potential - its ready for a field test!
I had to up the dwell from 12.5ms to 15ms for consistency. Might be due to the ego 8 board I am using in this ego 7, with the 7 having 1 less QEV, or perhaps the slightly longer LP hose length.
Quite encouraging - Ill report back when it gets a field test, though it may be some time
One final thought - There's no reason that I can see which would prevent this solenoid from being cut down into the shape of the originals - A skilled machinist I imagine could shave off the extra meat and witha better selection of hose babrbs perhaps make enough room for the microswitch to come back.
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