Modding for reliability and durability?

[Floperator]

I've not taken an AEG apart before but I'm used to working on airguns and I'm a locksmith by trade, so I'm pretty confident I'll be able to handle it once I've been through a few idiots guides.

So I'm not asking so much How To for now, just curious as to what sort of mods I should be looking at if I'm after durability and reliability. Not bothered about super-duper ROF or FPS, or even accuracy (it's already fairly accurate for an airsoft gun), just want to make it as dependable as possible.

BTW I have a Lancer gen2 M4, is this worth modding at all if I'm thinking in these terms, or should I wait until I have a better-than-entry-level AEG?

[Skara]

Check shimming, check for any snagging of moving parts (nozzle, piston, tappet plate), good neo magnets motor or brushless.

Check and fix air leaks.

Replace the piston if needed and every worn part.

 

Done, really.

[Adolf Hamster]

for the most pews i'd say that the overwhelming proportion of reliability issues stem from 2 primary causes:

 

1. mistakes in assembly, most often caused by the person doing it being inexperienced (been there, done that, still have my collection of stripped pistons)

 

2. attempting to push unrealistic performance, most commonly trying to push the rate of fire too hard (also been there, done that, it's about half my collection of stripped pistons)

 

the easiest way to avoid both of these issues is simply don't fuck with a working gun.

 

there is one exception to this rule and that's mosfets, without any kind of mosfet on an aeg over time the contacts will either carbon up, or with a powerful enough battery burn out. a simple basic mosfet (i generally use the nanoasr for this purpose, other mosfets are available) will remedy this for the long term.

 

now granted certain guns can have very specific points of failure, notably weak parts or bad design choices etc, but it's still easier to wait until it breaks for sure before messing with it.

 

one thing to bear in mind is that strengthened parts (eg: steel rack pistons) can have indirect consequences, where a plastic piston might wear-into it's preferred aoe or strip when overloaded a stronger part can push that elsewhere so instead of a stripped piston you might find the bevel eats itself instead.

 

[Rogerborg]

True to the above, although I'd note that if the goal of "durability and reliability" is to reduce costs, that there's little point in replacing a part that isn't already worn or broken.

 

The very cheapest mosfets cost more than multiple sets of trigger contacts.  Unless you're running 11.1V (and even if you are) you're likely to relegate a starter AEG to a backup role before you burn out the contacts.

 

And CYMA put plastic racked pistons into toys putting out 1.5J as stock.  They won't strip straight away on stock gears and motors.

 

So there's no need to really do anything other than sort the factory shimming and snot-grease lube.  And even then, I've yet to buy an AEG with bad shimming, even the cheapest CYMA or Galaxy.  Those Chinese child labourers know their business (if they want to eat).

[Floperator]

Thanks guys. So the standard kind of things I'd do to a spring piston airgun; deburring, relubing etc. Point taken about more robust parts transferring wear to other components.

Re: the Mosfet, am I right in thinking that fitting one of these will get rid of the long delay in locktime i.e the time from trigger pull to firing? This is really the only 'performance' related mod that interests me.

 

The Lancer - and me - has only been through one skirmish so far (2nd one this Sunday!) so I'll follow your advice and only open it up if something goes wrong.

 

[Adolf Hamster]

20 minutes ago, Rogerborg said:

And even then, I've yet to buy an AEG with bad shimming, even the cheapest CYMA or Galaxy.  Those Chinese child labourers know their business (if they want to eat).

 

agree, there seems to be this mythos that bad shimming=anything other than absolutely zero ability for any gear to move sideways ever not even 0.000000000000001nm

 

but the reality is that as long as the gears can't move to a position where they interfere with themselves/other components and the bevel is in about the right place for the pinion then that's good enough.

 

and you're right that whilst the people who build our toys might not put the care and attention into it that we do, but doing nothing but assemble gearboxes every single day they are at least pretty proficient, and they have to do at least an acceptable job to avoid returns.

 

7 minutes ago, Floperator said:

Re: the Mosfet, am I right in thinking that fitting one of these will get rid of the long delay in locktime i.e the time from trigger pull to firing? This is really the only 'performance' related mod that interests me.

 

a basic mosfet won't, but the more advanced ones (gate warfet, perun ab++, gate aster/titan and perun optical) can do precocking, which does exactly that.

[Skara]

MOSFETs, depending on which flavour you buy, do all sorts of different things:

 

Mainly they delay the inevitable trigger contact wear and tear by bypassing the contact partially or entirely and relying on said contact just to give an input signal.

 

As you go up in prices they start to have more and more features, like battery overdischarge protection, active brake, precocking, cycle detection all the way to integrated coffee machine and portable sofa.

 

The higher priced ones come with magnetic/optical sensors that read the selector plate, sector gear and trigger to determine where they are, they can limit the cycles to a definite number or can reduce the ROF by certain percentages..

 

I would argue they fall under the "reliability" side of mods but they can also be thunder cunts and stop working without any particular reason.

[Rogerborg]

Stock motors tend to be a bit meh for semi-auto response, I've upgraded all mine.  SHS Hi Torque are popular, but I'm a cheapskate so use Big Dragon M140s (and M160 in a 1.8J DMR) from AliExpress.

 

Even the most basic mosfet will allow more current flow to the motor, they are worth throwing in for that. For reliability though, it's another thing to mess up or go wrong, and new trigger contacts are £5 delivered for V2 / V3 gearboxen.

[Adolf Hamster]

37 minutes ago, Skara said:

I would argue they fall under the "reliability" side of mods but they can also be thunder cunts and stop working without any particular reason.

 

it's a tricky one, generally i agree however one thing that can almost reliably fuck up a gun is having active brake on a gun that doesn't need it (ties into my point 1 about lack of experience).

 

ak's are the worst offenders but it can happen on any platform. was one of the first mistakes i made with the f2000 and it led to a lot of headscratching about why semi auto no work.

 

hence when suggesting mosfets i see little practical use for the middle ground between your basic no-frills contact protectors, and mosfets with actual precocking.

 

42 minutes ago, Skara said:

all the way to integrated coffee machine and portable sofa.

 

is that what you get with the expert version titans? i thought it was only access to the gate rankings where one presumes you compete to be the biggest arsehole without an airline

[Lozart]

6 hours ago, Floperator said:

BTW I have a Lancer gen2 M4, is this worth modding at all if I'm thinking in these terms, or should I wait until I have a better-than-entry-level AEG?

 

Given that it's a REALLY cheap gun I'd suggest you leave it alone unless it breaks. Personally, I'd wait to get a better gun for actually using and THEN take the Lancer apart and fuck about with it to learn what you're doing to be able to fix the better one come the day that IT needs upgrading/fixing.

 

That said, yes you can improve the longevity of a gun by improving the shimming, you can improve the performance by upgrading the air seal parts or the motor/spring but you can also fuck it completely and end up with no working gun at all.

[Floperator]

All very helpful, thanks guys.