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PTW clones( DTW A&K etc)


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I'm not going to strip the cylinder and hop yet (later tonight). This is just a quick look at the cylinder, hop and barrel and the externals of the gearbox.   The Cylinder is blue anodised and well

It always amazes me the way people think that because the Systema is $1500 it's actually worth $1500. Do you really think it costs Systema more than a couple of hundred dollars to make? Do you think

ok on with the rest of part 2.   I had a look at the gearbox and electrics today. Some good news and some bad news but to keep you in suspense I'll put the bad news nearer the bottom. No sneak peeki

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Ive had about 5 a&k ptw apart the last short time, 3 with broken gears and two with broken electronics.

All ive seen have had extremely much resistance in the gearbox so its deffenently an issue.

Problem is sungear as earlyer stated and it could be fixed to run more free

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Up to my knowledge, there are some options in your chamber:

 

* Find a fatter nub, for example, from a silicone wire AWG16 or 14, and add a drop of glue to it, so it wont move when appling backspin to the BB. EDIT: use the red one, everybody knows "da red wunz go fasta!"

* MAG concave nub, again, apply a drop of glue for better performance

* Orga Flat hop, pricey, but IIRC, a user on this thread already said they worked very well

 

Of course there are more options like sugru mods and blah blah blah, but these are the easiest to perform, although not the cheapest, except the first one

 

Just dont forget to comment on your experiences =)

Edited by Isamu
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IIRC the FCC hopup has a spring instead of silicone cushions- you could switch for cushions, but for sure carefully glue the roller packing so it doesn't spin too.

 

My MAG adjuster still doesn't get enough pull and probably needs gluing as well, which I wasn't expecting. When I glue it I'll let you know how much better it is.

 

I tried an experiment where I shoved a third cushion under the adjuster cage, and although it gave more spin, it was crazy inconsistent- sometimes too much, other times not enough. There just isn't enough room for them without squishing up the sides, which is probably what's giving me wild differences.

 

By far the nicest adjuster has been the orga flat. Enough spin for 0.25g bb's and consistency is good. I'm at the point where I'd buy a better barrel, or even try the orga barrel, if I wanted to improve any further. $55 wasn't cheap but I don't regret it one bit.

 

The orga comes with a spare rubber, and I'm gonna mod my original cage to have a flat bar instead of the round pin, and put the second rubber to use. I'll post pics and my results so you can see.

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The popular consensus seems to be that the best mod for stock hop rollers seems to be gluing the stock roller then gluing a piece of Dubro RC Helicopter Fuel Line over it to make the nub fatter.  There are DIY mods for flat nubs as well.

 

I;m thinking that for cushions do you think that 16AWG silicone insulation from turnigy batteries would work?  I tend to get pieces of the perfect size to go between the ring and barrel when installing deans connectors, but my condo isn't big enough to do any real testing.

 

Oh and a warning regarding mixing and matching etiny electronics.  If your A&K is the blue PCB version you will need to switch the MOSFET before switching trigger boards, or it will run the motor at 100% while on safe.  Also the A&K PTW has a trigger depth similar to the CTW so CTW edition trigger boards are required since the CTW and Systema 2007 triggers were a bit shorter.

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Im pretty surpriced that people have to mod the MAG adjuster to get it to work, i'm overhopping .43's easy with my pdi 6.05 barrel and m130 cyl, even on my 90 cyl its easy to overhop .43's.

I agree that the orga adjuster is awsome but it needs "heavy" bb's vs fps to work the best, ie 90 cyl /.28 bb. 110 cyl/.30 bb. 130 cyl/.32bb's

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I was surprised about the MAG as well, after hearing everyone rave about it, but if a spot of glue makes all the difference I'm fine with that.

 

The orga so far works the best, if it gets even better with heavier bb's then all the better, right now I'm happy with it even on .25s

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Ah, roger that.  I love the S&W trades a lot; probably because my daily carry pistol is an S&W M&P9 Pro Series.

 

Placed an order for the G&D 10" keymod from ASGlobal.  Well, my younger brother did since he loved the idea, function, and feel of my A&K rifle but didn't want all the problems.  The G&D gearboxes seem to consistently show less wear inside when opened in every review I've seen.  Some people have had problems with poorly dimensioned planetary and sector gears, but on my A&K those gears were fine so between his rifle and my spare parts, a truly good clone should be able to emerge.

 

My A&K is no longer an A&K.  Sadly there were too many problems with it.  I wonder if the A&Ks are so hard to find due to these quality issues?  On ASGlobal where I ordered my rifle the listing was, and still is, marked with "(Last One)."  The final straw of parts to get replacements was the upper receiver.  The barrel threading (as mentioned in some other review) is not threaded straight so when a rail is attached, it goes all cockeyed.  G&P makes a replacement receiver set for ~ $180 USD (upper AND lower!) that are drop forged instead of CNC processed which should still be substantially stronger than factory Systema receivers.  At the end of the day, even though I get the feeling that A&K tried fairly hard with their PTW to move away from their bad reputation it's still an A&K.  So the current setup as per parts ordered is:

 

-A&K 14.5" Steel barrel (factory! Yay! XD)

-FCC CNC Ambidexterous Torque Gearbox set (en route)

-Etiny MOSFET and trigger block switch (en route)

-A&K Selector Board (semi has completely stopped working, but I think that's because of the stock MOSFET/trigger since switch boards are pretty hard to kill)

-G&P SR-16 M5 drop forged receiver set (en route)

-Modified Colt 6-position buffer tube (DIY)

-Modified G27 grip (DIY)

-FCC Noveske URX4 10" hand guard (en route)

-Troy FDE BUIS set (stolen from one of my real rifles)

-Aimpoint Comp M2 (stolen from another of my rifles)

-JG/Golden Eagle Motor (en route)

-Magpul CTR Mil-Spec Tube Stock (also stolen from my real parts collection)

-FCC Gen 2 Hop (need to find a good wire to use the insulation for packing instead of the bad FCC spring, anybody know the size of the packings? Mine got lost in grey carpet) (en route)

-MAG concave roller (en route, will be glued)

-Vanaras 384mm inner barrel (en route)

-Spare MC-51 flash hider that doesn't require an allen key to remove

-A&K M130 cylinder and King Arms M90 cylinder (be careful! the King Arms cylinders DO NOT come lubed!)

 

I'm not a huge fan of the KeyMod system in terms of looks, but the comfort and stability of the smaller and un-railed handguard is too much to pass up.  Weight savings over rails are very real and you get the solidness of a free float handguard.  Plus the larger portion of the keyhole is dimensioned perfectly for a QD sling swivel.  I do have one picture of my rifle before everything started breaking.  The day after receiving it.

 

iCsgmc6uskgBT.jpg

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SO a little update.  The blue board A&Ks are NOT CTW clone electronics as suggested here: http://www.airsoftcanada.com/showpost.php?p=1810670&postcount=22  I tried to fit my CTW-compatible etiny trigger board and the button was too low for the trigger to push.

 

It was an easy fix (desolder big button from A&K board and replace small button on etiny with larger a&k) but just a heads up.

 

Hoping to get my other stuff all installed today.  Took apart the A&K motor yesterday and my goodness it was poorly assembled.  One of the four screws on the pinion end was cross threaded at the factory and wouldn't secure one corner of that magnet... so they ground it off.  The brushes don't match the comms at all (but at least everything should b easy to solder!), and there was what appears to be chunks of blue enamel on all the bearing faces.  I hit it with motor cleaner and I'm ready to rebuild it but the broken ends of the plastic screws are still stuck in the endbell.  I have no idea how to remove those.

Edited by deadwood83
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Wow! I think I might have lucked out getting a decent A&K... But we will see how long my motor lasts ????

 

You can get screw extractors that are pretty small - the kind with reverse threads so you can unscrew things like that.

 

I'm curious about your comment about brushes not matching the comms- did you snap a pic so I can see what you mean?

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Most definitely.  I think some of the poor motor performance is related to the whole brush/comm problem.  Even cleaning brushes and comms in a normal AEG motor (spinning 19k rpm) can net you a gain of 60 rounds/min.  I would think then that the effect would be greater for higher RPM motors (such as PTW motors).

 

The problem is that these clone motors rarely have the brushes in the proper shape.  This can, of course, be remedied a bit by proper low-voltage no-load break-in then a cleaning, but that will cause brush wear on brushes that may already have a short life.  But brushes are cheap.

 

Improper shape, as we know, causes arcing on the motor which results in a ton of oxidation and non-conductive carbon crud, such as in this picture of my A&K motor comm:

 

irbJVlEaQF75U.jpg

 

Of course, this wouldn't be a problem if the brushes were held/manufactured vertically and made good contact without warping the edges and generally falling apart:

 

iGofdY3eTgNdx.jpg

 

What isn't shown that I should have snapped a pic of is the other side of the large epoxy gloop at the base.  It is wide and sloppy enough that there is a dark black line where it has been rubbing against the endbell/housing.

 

Oh and here's where they ground off a screw that was cross-threaded instead of actually securing that side of the magnet...

 

ib224dpGA7cCDb.jpg

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Very tempted to buy one of those 2014 G&D's but next question is magazines - not sure if I will be in uncharted territory given they have changed the hop.

 

Reading back I see some problems with the G&D mags but are they generally the best for a G&D? A&K come out a little cheaper, vandas are tight fit and what about MAG's? Anything else I should be looking at?

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I've had zero issues with mag compatibility, and if the hopup in the G&D is Systema compatible, you shouldn't either.

 

I've tried real PMAGs with Varanas internals, some with cheapo internals, and the very affordable plastic Saber ones (I got them from UNCompany 5 for $64 before discounts) No problems at all, except one PMAG I got well-used and was worn in several places, so I replaced the internals.

 

I'm curious to know as well about cylinders, as the ones A&K include don't take well to being taken apart - the threads at the ends must be soft, and will eventually not hold together. I also had one rack gear snap on me. The King Arms one I ordered has given me troubles too, so I want to know what the best affordable ones are.

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I'm curious about this as well.  My KingArms cylinder has a locking ball too small to properly hold tension against the buffer tube cap in the receiver as well as fitting loosely.  But my A&K cylinder has already ripped the rack on a piston.

 

Now, if your KA cylinder fits your buffer tube hole (should need to compress the ball spring to make it sit flat) and it doesn't wobble in your receiver then all it needs is a good lubing and red loctite on everything.  The individual components seem to be well made and quite strong.

 

I'm curious about Celcius and PPS/Super Shooter cylinders though.  Maybe they're better?  I think Celcius has a bearing on the spring guide which I definitely like the idea of.  It's hard to swallow the thought of needing to run $200 Systema cylinders in a $300 gun... though my rifle is definitely closer to $850 now.  But when it cycles there's zero whine, just a loud pop so I'm very content.

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