Specs for a good, "typical" water blaster

Water blaster concepts and dream designs for water guns and related equipment.
HBWW
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Re: Specs for a good, "typical" water blaster

Post by HBWW » Tue Jul 09, 2013 5:03 pm

I agree with Duxburian on the marketing. TV commercials are a terrible idea in this day and age when you have YouTube, Facebook, mobile apps/sites, and limited resources of your own. I think trying to build up appeal to older audiences is the right way to go. I've seen some steps in this direction, particularly with some dart blaster products they've been releasing. These blasters seem to be the kind that the NIC wants; that they want to grab a hold of and tear apart to throw on hoppers and custom barrels.

However, they still don't have that product image IMO. If you completely ignore their obviously superior water blasters, they look like "just another toy brand"; there's bright colors and patterns, but there's no completely distinctive appeal to the branding style IMO. Nerf has that look and style down, and IMO Hasbro's branding is more distinct and appealing. Maybe it's just a target audience issue, I don't know. That said, there's no doubt that they could definitely engage the community a lot more and reach out to those who want better products. (Which is most certainly not limited to our community by any means.)

I don't think the community is hung up on BBT at all, only on blasters that are effective in wars, because well, that's what we do. Stream Machines are too specialized to become a staple, but they have their place that hasn't been explored very far yet. That said, at any given water war you only really see CPS's around anyway, because almost nothing else is out there. Usability is a great thing in water blasters, but Hasbro has completely turned it into a gimmick of its own. It's a gimmick because it comes at the expense of, you know, actually being able to blast water. That said, it looks like the most commercially successful gimmick we've seen to this date for any water blaster. There is no reason to waste time sitting around and seeing if they make better water blasters. However, they are doing more than sitting on the CPS patent: they are obviously using it as an anti-competitive measure to prevent alternative business models from gathering enough momentum to threaten them, and are ready to use it against anyone who makes a CPS-based high performance blaster.

I still think there's potential for air pressure, but it does cost more and have its usage limitations. I always get air mixed into Colossus shots, though that may also be due to bad intake tube positioning; it isn't at the bottom of the PC. However, the improved lamination and any-angle characteristics of CPS, as well as the fewer limitations to blasters' form factors, make it well worth it IMO, if it weren't for Hasbro's exploits of our broken patent system.
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Re: Specs for a good, "typical" water blaster

Post by marauder » Wed Jul 10, 2013 8:39 am

Ok, so here's my first ever concept. I tried to make it according to current market constraints and then used calipers, some formulas, and comparisons to other stock blasters to come up with stats.

Water Warriors Storm Surge
Tech: Air Pressure, HP version released as "Storm Surge Elite" when CPS patent expires.
Retail: $17.99
Dimensions: ~23" x 3.8" x 9.8" Basically between an XP 110, SC 600, and Colossus 2
Nozzle Selection: 1x, 3x, 5x, quad burst on pump. Turn ball valve on pump to turn Storm Surge into piston pumper. I feel like this would be something you could market. "Double Trouble" "Double the Power" "Double the Output," and whatever about the ability to fire streams or shoot every time you pump.
Reservoir: 48 - 54 oz the handle is part of the reservoir in order to maximize reservoir size. If possible I would make the trigger guard part of the reservoir in order to add even more capacity.
PC: 15-17 oz
Pump: 1.9-2 oz

Some internals with the outer shell that I sketched at the library.
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Now, the different possible color variations. Detailing would be more ornate, but I just threw this together.

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Re: Specs for a good, "typical" water blaster

Post by isoaker » Wed Jul 10, 2013 8:50 am

If there's anyone here who should be promoting BBT, that would be me, but I still try to ensure that we, as a community, don't end up too caught up on any particular manufacturer. Then again, heck, many other communities out there have a definite primary focus on single brands so it is not necessarily a bad thing, either.

Back to topic; at least for the near-term, let's restrict the size of our desired "typical" water blaster to that of a WW Gorgon, WW Colossus 2, or Nerf Super Soaker Switch Shot (with a normal clip, not the banana clip since that makes it too tall) in terms of fixed dimensions. As such, we're talking about the following stats:
- max. length: ~61-65cm (~24"-25")
- max. width: ~8cm-11cm (~3"-4.5")
- max. height: ~30cm-32cm (~11.5"-12.5")

With those size constraints, trying to fix in all the parts one wants gets much challenging, but then the resulting specs become much more realistic as well.

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Re: Specs for a good, "typical" water blaster

Post by isoaker » Wed Jul 10, 2013 8:56 am

marauder wrote:Ok, so here's my first ever concept. I tried to make it according to current market constraints and then used calipers, some formulas, and comparisons to other stock blasters to come up with stats.

Water Warriors Storm Surge
Tech: Air Pressure, HP version released as "Storm Surge Elite" when CPS patent expires.
Retail: $17.99
Dimensions: ~23" x 3.8" x 9.8" Basically between an XP 110, SC 600, and Colossus 2
Nozzle Selection: 1x, 3x, 5x, quad burst on pump. Turn ball valve on pump to turn Storm Surge into piston pumper. I feel like this would be something you could market. "Double Trouble" "Double the Power" "Double the Output," and whatever about the ability to fire streams or shoot every time you pump.
Reservoir: 48 - 54 oz the handle is part of the reservoir in order to maximize reservoir size. If possible I would make the trigger guard part of the reservoir in order to add even more capacity.
PC: 15-17 oz
Pump: 1.9-2 oz
Nice! (and you posted just as I was posting) :goofy:

The pump being able to be used for pump-action was done on one of the Storm Guns.
The biggest problem I see with this design is the reservoir extending into the grip. As the grip is usually made from the two halves of the blaster being molded separately and joined by screws, if the handle needed to be water tight, it would either require gluing the seams (more prone to leaks) or having an internal single piece that is water tight, but not easily created to that shape). With CPS tech, the stats look reasonable.

:cool:
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the oncoming storm
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Re: Specs for a good, "typical" water blaster

Post by the oncoming storm » Wed Jul 10, 2013 9:45 am

Yeah I ripped off the XP 150, But I re-sized it to give us what we wanted

WW Swordfish

Range 42'
Nozzles 3x, 5x, 10x, XP shower nozzle (It's got a larger spread than quad burst)
Capacity 100oz (I did the math I think that should be right)
PC volume 25oz pressurized
Pump volume 2oz per stroke

Dimensions should fit as well,
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Re: Specs for a good, "typical" water blaster

Post by marauder » Wed Jul 10, 2013 9:59 am

isoaker wrote: Nice! (and you posted just as I was posting) :goofy:

The pump being able to be used for pump-action was done on one of the Storm Guns.
The biggest problem I see with this design is the reservoir extending into the grip. As the grip is usually made from the two halves of the blaster being molded separately and joined by screws, if the handle needed to be water tight, it would either require gluing the seams (more prone to leaks) or having an internal single piece that is water tight, but not easily created to that shape). With CPS tech, the stats look reasonable.

:cool:
I was going with the idea that the entire rear shell of the gun would be just 1 piece, the reservoir. I got the idea from the Scatter Blast that I had. I'm not sure how feasible that would be on a larger blaster, but I thought it was worth looking into. Just have one big plastic reservoir and then have a shell for the front half of the gun to hold the internals and PC on. I thought the ball valve piston nozzle on the pump would be a good option for some buyers who like that sort of thing or complain that you have to pump up the pressure chamber. Personally I would go with that quad burst nozzle just to spice it up. It's much cooler to have a riot blast or shotgun blast or something secret nozzle
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isoaker
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Re: Specs for a good, "typical" water blaster

Post by isoaker » Wed Jul 10, 2013 10:51 am

the oncoming storm wrote:Yeah I ripped off the XP 150, But I re-sized it to give us what we wanted

WW Swordfish

Range 42'
Nozzles 3x, 5x, 10x, XP shower nozzle (It's got a larger spread than quad burst)
Capacity 100oz (I did the math I think that should be right)
PC volume 25oz pressurized
Pump volume 2oz per stroke

Dimensions should fit as well,
The original XP150 held ~500mL (16.7oz) pressurized and 1500mL (50oz) in its reservoir at a size that is almost already at the max. dimensions specified. Trying to increase the PC by 50% and the reservoir by 100% is not possible to fit even if the overall size were increased from original (22.8"x3.5"x11.8") to recommended max. size for this thread (25"x4.5"x12.5").
Its power would be possible with a CPS set-up, but there are currently no stock air pressure-based water blasters made that can produce a 10x stream (best true stream would be for the SS300 rated ~6-7x).

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Re: Specs for a good, "typical" water blaster

Post by the oncoming storm » Wed Jul 10, 2013 11:08 am

No one told me and DX that when we added 10x settings to our gorgons, and got high 30's out of them. just cause it doesn't have a setting doesn't mean it can't support it (CPS 1500 20x mods comes to mind).

and you forgot something about geometry, volume increases 8 times for every doubling of the external diminutions. So yeah it can hold 100oz. I upscaled the 150 tank diminutions 25% and doubled capacity, then I upscaled the PC diminutions 8% boasting PC capacity 32% vs the 150, And elongated the blaster to look normal.
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Re: Specs for a good, "typical" water blaster

Post by isoaker » Wed Jul 10, 2013 12:19 pm

scaled_xp150.jpg
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Laying out the blaster and doing the scaling, I'll admit I'm surprised it does fit, but its definitely at the max size.

As for the 10x capability of a drilled Gorgon, is this 10x based on measuring the actual output or simply based on how large a nozzle you drilled? Besides range, what was its useful firing time like? While a 10x might be possible, due to the way air pressure drops during stream creation, I'm not convinced how well it will work during a full shot.

Edit: also forgot that the Gorgon already holds close to 3L... I really need more sleep. :goofy:

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the oncoming storm
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Re: Specs for a good, "typical" water blaster

Post by the oncoming storm » Wed Jul 10, 2013 12:54 pm

I don't have my 2500 yet so I'm not sure how it compares to a super soaker 10x setting, but my stats are

Range 39' (DX's hit 37') Output 10.3oz/s (On mine) and one second shot time
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On a side note it took me quite a while to determine if a 100oz XP 150 could fit those dimensions.
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Re: Specs for a good, "typical" water blaster

Post by marauder » Wed Jul 10, 2013 12:55 pm

That's a good question. I'm not sure why we call it 10x. I was the first (I think) to drill a 10x nozzle and I think I measured the output as somewhere in the 10 to 12 oz/sec range. Or maybe it was that I used calipers to compare the nozzle size to other nozzles and found that it (which was the maximum nozzle size the Gorgon could support) was the same size as the 2500's 10x. Not sure.

I got 36 feet when I range tested it. Duxburian measured 37. We were both equally surprised at how powerful the nozzle was and used it against each other when dueling. It's true, the shot time was low, about a second, so we waited to use it at closer than maximum ranges, but it was still very impressive for a stock gun. I would really like to see your Gorgon shoot 39 ft on 10x Storm, cuz that's insane for an AP gun with PCs that size. I guess I didn't try that nozzle out on you when we fought back in April did I? :goofy: Maybe I should have.
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Re: Specs for a good, "typical" water blaster

Post by the oncoming storm » Wed Jul 10, 2013 1:47 pm

You would have gotten a riot blast out of the 10x setting if you had tried it on me back in April M4, I hadn't taken sandpaper to it yet. I liked riot blast a lot and just may drill the quad burst into one (It stays together like a 3x stream but doesn't go as far so it's useless and riot blast is better.)
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Edit (M4 I beat you to nozzle drilling a gorgon by a few months)
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Re: Specs for a good, "typical" water blaster

Post by DX » Wed Jul 10, 2013 1:48 pm

In my ideal set up of a Gorgon-sized design space and a light primary-sized design space, the light blaster would not achieve 10x. 5x is sufficient as in Ben's design, because it won't have enough rez capacity to support a 10x.

However, it is most certainly possible in the Gorgon-sized space, see the new topic that I am about to post.
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