CPS 1500 - defect or normal behaviour?

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Wasser
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CPS 1500 - defect or normal behaviour?

Post by Wasser » Wed Jun 04, 2014 5:33 pm

Hi,

I got a question about my CPS 1500. After each shot there's water dripping from that little hole on the bottom of the nozzle cap (see attachment).

It has been that way since I bought this gun and it seems that this hole is designed to drain off water. However I was always wondering if this is a flaw of my gun or if it affects all CPS 1500. It's not that much water, but after a while my hand gets pretty wet. I never read in reviews about this.
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CPS1500.jpg
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martianshark
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Re: CPS 1500 - defect or normal behaviour?

Post by martianshark » Thu Jun 05, 2014 12:08 am

Dunno, but you could probably just tape or glue over it.
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DukeSoakem
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Re: CPS 1500 - defect or normal behaviour?

Post by DukeSoakem » Thu Jun 05, 2014 9:25 am

This is normal, as you mentioned it is for excess drainage of water after each shot. I would advise against sealing it, I did that once a long time ago when I was new to the 1500 and it was not a good idea, the water instead builds up and drains out elsewhere, around the trigger which just gets you wet.
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SEAL
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Re: CPS 1500 - defect or normal behaviour?

Post by SEAL » Thu Jun 05, 2014 3:13 pm

It's normal? Hmm, as far as I know mine doesn't do that.
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Re: CPS 1500 - defect or normal behaviour?

Post by HBWW » Thu Jun 05, 2014 4:12 pm

Does this hole lead directly to past the pull valve? If so, that's normal. Otherwise, it could be a leak. (If the water dripping goes away after sometime, it's normal.)
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soakinader
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Re: CPS 1500 - defect or normal behaviour?

Post by soakinader » Fri Jun 06, 2014 12:11 am

Hey now, don't panic, this can be caused by two things. One, it could be a pressure leak (not likely). Two, the most likely cause, could be that water is not leaving the nozzle properly. This is somewhat normal, it varies from gun to gun, but if it is bad enough it could be caused by the selector being loose or the O ring being damaged.
I would recommend removing the nozzle cap if it is easy to do, and taking a look. One time the leak on my CPS 2500 was so bad that I thought it was broken, but all I had to do was tighten one screw.

If you want to look at removing the nozzle cap, it can either be popped off, or unscrewed.
CPS 1500 Repair Guide Type 2 cover
Removing a CPS 1500 Nozzle Cover Type 1 cover
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Wasser
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Re: CPS 1500 - defect or normal behaviour?

Post by Wasser » Fri Jun 06, 2014 7:31 pm

Hmm... ok! Seems it's not that uncommon. I measured the amount of water drained from the nozzle today and it's about 0.85 fl.oz. (25 ml) per charge. Not much, but more than a few droplets.
soakinader wrote:If you want to look at removing the nozzle cap, it can either be popped off, or unscrewed.
CPS 1500 Repair Guide Type 2 cover
Removing a CPS 1500 Nozzle Cover Type 1 cover
It was very interesting to see the internals! To me the design of the nozzle switcher seems to be prone to leakage. The stream directly pushes the nozzle switcher (which is only secured by a single screw) away from the sealing o-ring. We know this soaker has a lot of punch, I doubt that any CPS 1500 is 100% leakproof at that point. I used your picture to illustrate what I mean:
cps1500.png
cps1500.png (204.2 KiB) Viewed 5069 times
I really would like to open the cap to see if there's a defect with my gun but I still hestiate to do. My cap is glued, which makes me think it's a bit difficult. Moreover the soaker is in absolutely mint condition, I could buy it in a small toy store in 2007 - new! I knew it was discontinued long ago and much sought-after, so I always treated it with respect. It doesn't have marks, scratches nor is it yellowed or bleached. I think it might be a pity to violently open it for a minor flaw that is potentially caused by design. :(

soakinader
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Re: CPS 1500 - defect or normal behaviour?

Post by soakinader » Sat Jun 07, 2014 6:05 pm

Wow Wasser. Nice illustration! It's great to see someone put so much effort into a diagram like that. Welcome to the forum!

Chances are, if there isn't rust or if the selector isn't too stiif/too loose to turn, there isn't a problem with the gun. And if yours is mint like you say, then you are right- you should leave it alone!
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Re: CPS 1500 - defect or normal behaviour?

Post by Andrew » Sun Jun 08, 2014 7:05 pm

I'm pretty sure mine does that too. Some water will inevitably get caught in the large casing around the selector, either during firing (as per your diagram) or even after firing as there will be some water left in the section of the barrel in front of the valve. After you close the valve it will just drain out slowly under it's own weight (and probably trickle down between the rotating selector and the selector casing since there is a gap between them, also shown on your diagram). If it was a pressure leak it's unlikely to come out there anyway. Only sections of the blaster behind the pull valve hold any real pressure and any leaks from there will come out through the blaster casing itself (since those components are all internal).

Unless it's a really bad leak, and/or it happens when you first pressurise the blaster but before you fire any water through the nozzle, I wouldn't worry about it.

Wasser
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Re: CPS 1500 - defect or normal behaviour?

Post by Wasser » Mon Jun 09, 2014 5:51 pm

Andrew wrote:Some water will inevitably get caught in the large casing around the selector, either during firing (as per your diagram) or even after firing as there will be some water left in the section of the barrel in front of the valve.
Yap, I also think so. Especially because it's worse when I completely empty the pressure chamber. The pressure suddenly drops and the last water will remain in front of the valve, like you said.
I'm not worrying about anymore, I think pointing the drainage to the pump handle is just a flaw in design more or less.
soakinader wrote:Wow Wasser. Nice illustration! It's great to see someone put so much effort into a diagram like that. Welcome to the forum!

Chances are, if there isn't rust or if the selector isn't too stiif/too loose to turn, there isn't a problem with the gun. And if yours is mint like you say, then you are right- you should leave it alone!
Thanks! :D
Although I think the minor leaking is usual by now, when I took a closer look, I found out that the mesh behind the nozzle is loose... Is that normal? There wasn't a close up of that part in your repair threads and I couldn't find anywhere else. Can you tell me anything about it? It remains in place, as it seems to be trapped between the cap an another part, but it's wobbly. This goes with a little variation of the lamination during a shot.

soakinader
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Re: CPS 1500 - defect or normal behaviour?

Post by soakinader » Tue Jun 10, 2014 4:49 pm

The mesh should just sit there between the straws and the nozzle exit... I've had the inner mesh blow out on my CPS 2500 but the outer mesh should be fine. There's almost no way it could shoot out.
Some information on my CPS 2500:
http://www.waterwar.net/site_wwn/board/topic6248.html

Although I do not have any great pictures or illustrations of the nozzle laminator section:
http://www.waynesthisandthat.com/cp2000.htm
He does. Check out just over half-way down this page in the section "Nozzle Experiments" for a similar laminator on a CPS 2000.
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Andrew
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Re: CPS 1500 - defect or normal behaviour?

Post by Andrew » Tue Jun 10, 2014 5:50 pm

Wasser wrote:Although I think the minor leaking is usual by now, when I took a closer look, I found out that the mesh behind the nozzle is loose... Is that normal? There wasn't a close up of that part in your repair threads and I couldn't find anywhere else. Can you tell me anything about it? It remains in place, as it seems to be trapped between the cap an another part, but it's wobbly. This goes with a little variation of the lamination during a shot.
I had a variation of that where the laminator components were so loose the shifted enough to shoot the stream out at an angle occasionally. I say stream, it was only just coherent really. Unlike the 2k, the 1500 has a pair of sort of disc things (one at each end) with holes in them instead of straws. These fit onto little shelves and direct the water but if they come loose they can really mess up the stream.

Depending on how bad it is you may want to cut the laminator section open and replace the disc things with straws (more like a 2k or the "standard" homemeade laminator) and/or a more sturdy mesh. It should increase output too since those disc things have relatively few holes in them and there is a fair bit of plastic between those holes compared to straws. The discs don't necessarily line up either and since there isn't any form of pipe between the holes you get a double whammy of entry/exit losses.

I thought I had a photo of just the discs, but this photo through the valve sort of shows them:
Image

soakinader
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Re: CPS 1500 - defect or normal behaviour?

Post by soakinader » Wed Jun 11, 2014 12:15 am

Seeing as I happen to have a CPS 1500 lying around...
Image
Image
Image
I tried to show the mesh screen, as well as the two discs with holes. The mesh in my gun seems to be pretty solid. There is a fairly large space between the mesh and the outer nozzle.
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Wasser
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Re: CPS 1500 - defect or normal behaviour?

Post by Wasser » Wed Jun 11, 2014 5:27 pm

Great! Thanks to the two of you for the pictures and infos! :D
The lamination of a stream seems more complex than I thought, when I look at the experiments from Wayne Schmidt.

However, I guess the loose screen is definetly a defect of my CPS. Still I'm not sure if it's really worth to fix it at the moment. Lamination and range seem pretty ok to me. I wouldn't have recognized, if I hadn't looked a little closer during the last days. Probably this problem solves itself while shooting, cause the stream will press the mesh into its correct position.

Nevertheless I had an idea of a minimal invasive repair yesterday. Squeezing an o-ring in front of the mesh would fix it... but the mesh might be just too close to the hole system behind it, making it worse.

Hmm, I'll have to think if I open my CPS or just leave it the way it is.

soakinader
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Re: CPS 1500 - defect or normal behaviour?

Post by soakinader » Thu Jun 12, 2014 12:23 pm

How far in is your mesh? On my CPS 1500... the way it is currently in the pics, it's about 3/8" from the outside and doesn't move much at all.
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Wasser
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Re: CPS 1500 - defect or normal behaviour?

Post by Wasser » Sun Jun 15, 2014 5:52 pm

It's 1 3/8" from the outside of the cap to the mesh. With the cap on, it's not quite easy to determine the distance you've measured. But it's about 3/8" too. However, since mine is loose and slanted it varies and can be actually 1/16" - 1/8" more. The part seems broken to me. I guess this is how it looks in cross-sectional view:
cps1500.png
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soakinader
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Re: CPS 1500 - defect or normal behaviour?

Post by soakinader » Sun Jun 15, 2014 7:30 pm

So from what I can see in my CPS 1500, it should be more like this:
Image
Man I suck with Paint. What software are you using?
My friends call me Nader. My foes just run.
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Wasser
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Re: CPS 1500 - defect or normal behaviour?

Post by Wasser » Mon Jun 16, 2014 5:23 pm

Yeah, that's what I was afraid it should look like normally. Still thinking about squeezing an o-ring in front of the mesh, though it could make things worse:
cps1500.png
cps1500.png (15.96 KiB) Viewed 4987 times
It's painted with CorelDRAW. But unlike Paint it's a vector based software and sadly it's not freeware. Inkscape would be a free alternative, but I guess it will take some time to get used to it, dunno if it's worth it. I can easily catch the mesh in your drawing. ;)

Can you tell me the diameter of the hole in the inner cap? It's also difficult to measure it exactly, as the nozzle in front is smaller.

soakinader
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Re: CPS 1500 - defect or normal behaviour?

Post by soakinader » Mon Jun 16, 2014 6:53 pm

It's about 7mm or 17/64 (a little more than 1/4")
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Wasser
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Re: CPS 1500 - defect or normal behaviour?

Post by Wasser » Tue Jun 17, 2014 4:11 pm

Thx, I'll try to find a convenient o-ring. If I insert it, I'll tell how it works.

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