The "joys" (aka. trials) of being a gun doctor!

[pestobanana]

Originally Posted by lurkingknight

building a new mp5... spent 3 hours building a spare vfc gearbox with a spectre fet... perfectly shimmed 16:1 gears... put it into the ics mp5 lower... perfectly shimmed... sounded so good, very efficient power draw.

Went to mate the lower into the upper... and the gearbox wouldn't clear the parts on the upper and got stuck.


how stuck?

the vfc gearbox is apparently .5mm wider on the bottom and almost 1mm TALLER on the front part than the stock ics gearbox. Filing wasn't an option with that much material.

Stripped it all apart and had to do it all over in the original gearbox.

And that's why I refuse to do mechbox shell swaps for customers. One guy had me fit an APS gearbox into an ACM lower wit ha G&G crap machine upper. Hop up didn't align, receivers didn't align, gearbox pins didn't align...

[lurkingknight]

yeah that's why I try to advise that unless something is really malformed or actually broken, not to change gearbox shells or hopup units.. sometimes even nozzles if they're really weird lengths.

CYMA AKs for example don't like lonex nozzles... they're just a bit too long for feeding.

[lurkingknight]

so at the end of the game today, I did as I always do... dump mags down range. I had 3 mags left when my g36 started smoking at the front. Panicked I thought the worst case was happening... lipo fire.

Got my handguard off to see that the lipo was not imminently about to bust into flames.

However, I saw this:




I'm not sure if the solder to the solid copper wire going into the terminal broke or if it melted and detached from the arc. the whole terminal almost melted itself out of the terminal enclosure. It melted the solder on the board and started pulling out of the pc board.

But that's some serious melt going on. lol.

guess I'll have to send it in for service now.

[Drakker]

Good thing these things have lifetime warranty. :)

[lurkingknight]

yeah terry is so awesome, words can't even explain. Sad thing is the shipping involved takes so long.

Luckily I have 2 fets for 2 guns... and the other gun isn't functional right now.

[ScooterVauto]

OMG that's a whole lotta hot to cause that much damage.
ive owned Cheetah 2n, is it newer product or older?
also what functions are in the tm50?

[lurkingknight]

it's a newer 2n with the beefed up heat capacity. I'm pretty sure it just arced randomly from the main wire that's soldered to the solid wire I used to get into the terminal. I was doing mag dumps at the time. It wasnt' the first time I've done mag dumps so either there was something in there or the wire was being mushed up a different way than normal.

Terry says he doesn't charge for repairs... think I need to give him more business lol.

the triggermaster has more features than the base 2n. the software was created by don? he's posted on asc but stopped making airsoft stuff. There's a couple features on top of the standard 2n software but I can't remember off the top of my head. You can read the instructions for the tm on extreme-fire and compare to the base software of the 2n.


honestly I think he fixes them for free cause he's interested in seeing how users end up breaking them. There are so few hardware failures on these things.

[Spike]

Originally Posted by pestobanana

And that's why I refuse to do mechbox shell swaps for customers. One guy had me fit an APS gearbox into an ACM lower wit ha G&G crap machine upper. Hop up didn't align, receivers didn't align, gearbox pins didn't align...

And when you finally get this frankenpieceofshit together, firing 300fps with an m110 because nothing lines up and there's leaks everywhere, they always go "yeah but can you make it shoot harder? Can you just put a stronger spring in?"

[lurkingknight]

I only recommend mechbox shell swapping as an absolute last resort like if you're cracked the front off. However... I found recently that lonex boxes fit fine in g&g combat machines and vfc guns... probably g&p as well.

[Stealth]

Lonex shells do work in those bodies, tight in KA bodies but do work.

[pestobanana]

Originally Posted by Spike

And when you finally get this frankenpieceofshit together, firing 300fps with an m110 because nothing lines up and there's leaks everywhere, they always go "yeah but can you make it shoot harder? Can you just put a stronger spring in?"

I had to modify both receivers, the gearbox, as well as the hop up unit. I ended up getting everything to work properly though.

When it was time to charge him for it, I told him that it's generally a bad idea to mix and match gearboxes and receivers, even though I got everything to work 100%. He didn't like what I said and asked me if I could put the original stuff back in. I just flat out said no.

[ScooterVauto]

Originally Posted by pestobanana

He didn't like what I said and asked me if I could put the original stuff back in.

LOL That's when he tripped down the stairs your Honor LOL.

I have sooo been there,
"please make this 15.00 component work in my gun cause I read it works
in this other m4 in some random forum, so it should work in my Can tire special."

4 hours, a pile of my hair on the ground, a fully functional gun and a reasonable bill to be followed by
"I don't want to pay that price, pull it back out"
my reply "that will raise the invoice"
"ok leave it in" followed by payment


My 2n has the Don P programming as well, Terry is quite ez going,
just ask when ordering and he loads the DonP peramters no charge

[ThunderCactus]

I can also relate

"I want my gun Rhopped"
"Okay, well we need to make sure you've got compression first, and you should get a new barrel, too. If not, just get a PDI rubber for now"
"But I heard Rhop was a huge upgrade, even for a stock barrel"
"Yeah but it's non transferrable. So you'll spend $45 on this stock barrel that's probably no good anyway, buy another $100 barrel and spend another $45 on it to get Rhopped. Or spend $10 on this barrel, buy a new Rhopped barrel for $145, and save the PDI rubber for something else"
"Yeah but, other gunsmiths say the Rhop is the best, even on stock barrels"

The problem with dealing with 16yr olds. They get all this info from the ASC's, but fail to realize I'm the one who wrote most of it -_-

[Darklen]

Had a lady come into the store last week. Brought an AEG someone was trying to sell her for her son. Have no idea what it started out as but it had a cracked JG gearbox, warped SRC upper very poorly grafted onto what looked like a G&P lower, which was also broken (broken front pivot and cracked at the buffer tube). Has a stripped ARES lower in the box that she was told would fit the damaged lower. She at least asked if it was worth repairing and how much it would be. We asked what the seller wanted for it, she said $300. We told her not to bother. It'll cost a minimum of another $300 to "make everything fit" never mind work. At least she listened. The POS that was in that box wasn't even worth scrap value. like pot metal has scrap value.

~edit~ Forgot, there was no buffer tube or stock in the deal either. She'd have to replace those as well.

[lurkingknight]

I have a preferred parts list I work with. They have a really good chance of working from experience with them, so I will always say if something goes wrong with my parts list, I don't charge the full hours it takes to get it to work. It's my education that I'm paying for there.

If you bring me a part that I have no experience with that may require special fitting, the sky is the limit on hours if it doesn't work.

Usually the client will go with the preferred list at that point. :P

Also I present the most reliable upgrade path to people who want upgrades and try to educate them. Sometimes they choose to go their own way anyways or the cheap option and they end up coming back after it breaks.

Luckily most of the guys who have come to me for gun work trust my judgement cause they're all tired of being shot by my guns. :P