PTW clones( DTW A&K etc)

[Marco-White]

Thanks Vortix.

Which kind of restrictions are in placet?

 

Inviato dal mio GT-I9070 con Tapatalk 2

[Vortix]

The country's laws forbids mailing/shipping replicas. ie, every replica sold in Belgium is sold in a brick and mortar shop. You could mail them and see if there are workarounds but I don't know if that would succeed. 

[DipTwit]

This is sort-of on topic here -- when you order a PTW cylinder, does it usually come greased and ready to use?

 

I ordered a King Arms one from ehobby and it didn't even work - turns out every single part on it was totallly dry. After greasing all the different parts up it now shoots, but still lower velocity than expected. I swapped the cylinder head+nozzle for the stock A&K one and now it's fine. So, not sure if that's the way they usually come... but also this one's head seems messed up, which sucks

 

How typical is this?

[The Insider]

Complete cylinders should have a minimal of oil coating within, but being minimal, it can dry with time,
Although could also be overlooked and a production line issue that no one would notice until it reaches end user.

Also there can be some nozzle compatibility issues as there are now PTW, DTW, CTW, ATW, and A&KTW??  ...and they are not all the same.
So the symptoms of these issues are air loss or worst case... crewing bb's.
 

[DipTwit]

I didn't get any bb's chewed up, just a serious fps loss. I did notice there's a lot of 'wiggle room / play' between the cylinder and piston heads. On my other cylinders there's none, the two heads are kept touching each other by the nozzle spring. On this recently bought one, there's a few mm gap.

 

Worst case though, I buy another nozzle or whole head. Just wondered if the Systema cylinders are maybe worth the money after all

[The Insider]

yes.. air lose... cylinder or nozzle is to short.......   crewing bb's.. nozzle to long... smashes in to bb.

 

but not that i'm a smith... just have good smith friends.
 

but I'm looking for MK18 mod1 replica with 9,5" RIS,

 

 

Good luck with that...
That well run dry early this year we are awaiting a new production run.
You might be able to find one in some obscure store if your very very lucky, but it is a in high demand model,
So you may have to wait like every one else for the next production run.

http://www.hobbyairsoft.ie
has had them in the past also, but they now waiting too...

At least the silver lining to having to wait for a new production runs, is once the model arrives, it will be the latest version with all the new upgrades and greatest compatibility yet to the PTW.

[DipTwit]

I just added a Mk18 rail to my A&K and wow it's a thing of beauty.

 

The newer DTWs though look like a nice model, they aren't for sale in Canada that I can tell though. And my A&K has turned out to be surprisingly good - I'm loving it so far.

[The Insider]

found it finally... 

http://www.rsov.com/product.php?langId=1&currencyId=2&manufacturerId=10&prodId=19667&cateId=777

should be in a few other retailers shortly for a little variety in pricing.
 

[DipTwit]

Well, I found my first real "flaw" in my A&K PTW... but it's an easy fix.

 

I had the chance to pull my inner barrel / hopup out of my gun, and while it looked all good externally, for some reason I decided to look down the length of it, i.e. through the hopup chamber and through the barrel. I've done this on AEGs in the past just to see that the nub is moving up & down like it should.

 

I was pretty surprised to see that the roller packing was sitting at about a 15-20 degree angle! It turns out the hole in the chamber base, for the barrel key to sit in, was not perfectly positioned at the exact top of the chamber base. Also turns out, it only needs to be off by a teeny bit, and the angle gets bad pretty quickly. I carefully filed that slot a little wider, cleaned & reassembled, and now I could turn the chamber base just a bit until I saw the packing sit nice and horizontal.

 

A teeny bit of silicone, wax, hot glue, or whatever floats your boat would lock the base in place, now that the key can't hold it perfectly, but now my hopup is straight. Funny how I feel better knowing that, even though I suppose I could have been tilting the gun a bit to compensate without caring (I generally tilt into the wind just a bit, to keep my flight path straight)

 

Next I couldn't help but pull out the barrel of my backup A&K.... guess what? Same exact thing. Slightly different angle but same problem. Just something to watch for, on any of the clones I suppose, as it's a tiny manufacturing weakness that you wouldn't want to throw you off. All the effort we go to, just to get the best consistency out of our hopups, hey!?

[Capere]

It generally is worth changing the inner barrel and hop on these clones.

[The Insider]

agreed...

but i generally do that to all my aeg's and gbb's anyways... lol.

[DipTwit]

Yeah I've heard that too, but it's been educational seeing just what you're getting "out of the box" with these clones...

 

2nd minor 'failure' found... the rubber pad on the back of the included stock is *not* glued on worth a bean- lost one, re-glued the other once I realized how easy they come off.

 

Update on upgrading the hopup adjusters..... MAG adjuster the jury is out since I will have to add more adjuster cushioning, with the stock cushions my MAG adjuster can't lift a .25g bb properly. Will report back.

 

Orga flat-hop adjuster: wow! Really nice so far, no problems lifting (over lifting in fact) a .25g bb using just the stock cushions. My M110 cylinder with Orga has better range than my M130 with the MAG adjuster (for now, until I can get more lift from it as I mentioned above) Consistency seems good so far, but will have to field it more to get a better idea.

 

Cheers...

[deadwood83]

So I got my A&K on Monday.  Out of the box the gearbox sounds like a bag of cats being twirled overhead in a 30cm-wide alley.  The barrel was craaaazy dirty, but my hop unit and roller packing are perfectly flat and very, very effective.  Feels really nice in the hands

 

In other news, the electronics blew using a 11.1v 25c lipo after ~150 rounds and one side of the board already had LED leads soldered over the traces to reinforce it.  I used the same method to fix the ground side leads until my etiny mosfet arrives. The fuse place on the board is labeled for 35A but the fuse itself is 25A.  The plastic posts on the motor broke off inside the motor about 10 rounds after I fixed the ECU which let the springs touch the motor housing so it shorted and the fuse blew.  I have a JG/Golden Eagle motor on the way to replace it.

 

EDIT:

 

Oh right and the lube they use is black and nasty.  I re-lubed the cylinder and gearbox with a light film of PTFE/silicon grease.  My gun came with the gold (M130) cylinder and it chronos at 460fps.

 

When I was in the gearbox I found that the sun gear is scraping hard enough against the shell to cut a groove on the bottom half of its rotation.  I may just replace the gearbox with an FCC or Systema part.

Edited June 26, 2014 by deadwood83

[DipTwit]

Wow you got a lemon dude, sorry to hear. I had a look at my motor when I first got it, and had one plastic post leaning a bit but not too far. I think I'll replace it just to be sure.

 

Weird about the gearbox, though it might be repairable, no?

[deadwood83]

The sun gear (since it is two piece) appears to be jointed incorrectly.  The center gear section is not perpendicular to the outer helical section, so when looking at it spinning the large section has a visible wobble. At its worst, the wobble still has 50% tooth contact with the bevel so power transfer should be fine.  Hopefully the gearbox will quiet itself down once the sun gear has eaten away some more material from the gearbox.

[DipTwit]

Wow yeah I was thinking of just replacing the sun gear ... Although it's a few bucks on its own I guess.

[The Insider]

The 9558S and 9559S have returned to stock... and couple of MP versions of 9541S and 9542S have also been spotted.

Note the "S" models refer to the latest version with near 100% PTW compatibility.
These new production runs are the latest upgraded model includes a Super ECU, PTW compatible receiver, barrel, Hop-up unit and a Mini Mosfet

Super ECU is programable 2 to 30rd burst.
Mini Mosfet only 35mm in length.

 

 

And a new G&D DTW with 10" key-mod model....  9560S

 

in stock at the wholesalers now... Should be hitting the retail selves over the next few days / week
https://www.facebook.com/pages/18-Airsoft/463847467033336
 

Edited June 27, 2014 by The Insider

[Isamu]

That keymod look gorgeous @_@ any idea of an estimated price? if it keeps the price of the DD version... it is going to be toooooooo tempting

[DipTwit]

Looks awesome, love the idea of having burst-mode easily accessible / configurable. Not a huge keymod fan but I like some of the other models!

[Isamu]

Not a fan of keymod myself too, remembers me to the gun haging wall I have at home, but the shorter versions look quite OK for me, I have to admit G&D is upping their game with every gen they release. Glad to see clones improving like in the old times

[DipTwit]

Yeah now we just need the retailers to stock them... all in good time of course!

 

Looks like Global has the keymod one, but they're still showing "Pre-order" for several of the older (non-"S" with newer electronics) models. Also, do these guys get the manufacturer's cast-offs to sell? Makes you wonder when they put this in their listing:

 

 

 we do not guarantee the quality of the outer surface of the airsoft gun. The quality of finishing may be imperfect and may have slight flaws

 

The truth is, my A&Ks have some (very minor) surface marks but it's odd for a retailer to point it out, maybe they're just tired of whiners  just curious.

[deadwood83]

Yeah now we just need the retailers to stock them... all in good time of course!

 

Looks like Global has the keymod one, but they're still showing "Pre-order" for several of the older (non-"S" with newer electronics) models. Also, do these guys get the manufacturer's cast-offs to sell? Makes you wonder when they put this in their listing:

 

The truth is, my A&Ks have some (very minor) surface marks but it's odd for a retailer to point it out, maybe they're just tired of whiners  just curious.

 

It's a very common disclaimer for all china made guns (and even in some cases Taiwan guns too).  EhobbyAsia and WGCShop have that displaimer on pretty much everything by CYMA and DBoysas an example.  Heck, even my VFC pistol had that disclaimer lol.

 

 

So an update on my A&K.  I thought I had fixed stuff, but I was wrong.  The gun will work for a few shots then refuse to fire for a while then randomly work again.  I have ordered an etiny mosfet and trigger switch group.  Hopefully that will return it to functioning.  I've also ordered a JG PTW motor (since I heard PTW motors have nearly a 100% chance of failure) but have not heard anything from that retailer regarding shipping in the past 3 days (which is odd because it's a USA retailer).

 

A closer examination of my barrel did indeed show thatt he hop roller is tilted about 20* clockwise.  That's fine since I'm replacing it with an FCC gen 2 hop system and a vanaras inner barrel.

 

Outer finish on my rifle was pretty decent.  It was dirty as hell (everything in and out was covered in black dust) but that seems to be sort of common.  The paint is crazy weak though.  Might hit it with some duracoat or cerakote.

 

 

@The Insider, are those "MP models" with Smith and Wesson M&P trades? 

 

EDIT: On ASGlobal im also seeing silver colored DTW barrels.  Are they real stainless steel or chrome plated brass? Straightness?  Anybody want to try one?

Edited June 27, 2014 by deadwood83

[DipTwit]

I've noticed my A&K motors both had a healthy dose of epoxy holding the windings in place, and also holding the ends where they crimp onto the commutator. This is not as good a solution as having them soldered etc. but should help them last much longer. We'll have to see on that one.

 

As for firing only a few rounds and stopping - mine does exactly that when the battery is getting low. Long shot but check if that's happening to you - I was very surprised to see how quickly the battery drains if you don't unplug it when you put your gun away for a couple of days. 

[deadwood83]

Roger that.  My motor has much epoxy holding the windings.  When and if the JG motor comes in I'll take it apart and do the 'Tack' mod which is soldering the comm and wires as well as removing the shims from the 490 type motor so that it is height adjustable.  Our A&Ks have the center grip plate screw which, if replaced with a longer piece and a ball from a bearing placed on top, can adjust armature height for a perfect bevel:pinion mesh.  One thing that carries over from AEGs is motor height.  Proper motor height will do wonders for long term reliability and reducing stress on the motor itself.

 

I cant believe I never thought of replacing just the sun gear.  Though quick searches on ehobby shows that a systema sun gear alone is $34 USD before shipping!

 

When it showed the intermittent firing yesterday it was with a fully charged 11.1v 25C (constant discharge, 50C burst) turnigy nano-tech 1200mAh battery that was only plugged in ~2 minutes before firing.  One thing I'm wondering about is the motor bruhes.  I have a feeling that the motor and mosfet in my gun may have been pulled from used/discarded guns since the mosfet had some incredibly bad/sloppy solder reinforcement and the motor itself was covered in black dust (brush dust?)  The motor tab connectors on the ECU side were also pretty torn up out of the box (I have since removed them and soldered the wires directly to the motor contact tabs).

 

Do you have a picture of your motor brush depths?  I'm curious if my motor IS actually a used unit and the brushes have enough wear that they are not making proper contact.  Usually one shot before it would stop firing it would make an add motor noise like it was running out of power.  This could, of course, just be symptomatic of damaged electronics on the power board and the initial firing just being a result of the power board capacitors charging and discharging but the main driving FET being toast.

[DipTwit]

Hahaha yeah there's a reason we buy the clones  but I suppose if your gear is that bad, it's a cheaper fix than, say, replacing ECU or mosfet.

 

I went through all the unboxing pics I took but didn't get one of the motor. I could snap a couple tonight or tomorrow, unless someone beats me to it. Theoretically though, you should be able to remove and visually inspect the brushes pretty easily, and make sure there's slack and spring tension enough to make contact. One of the reasons I bought a second one is that I can swap parts to diagnose if I ever need to. Not really helpful I know, sorry!