WW Orca Review

[isoaker]

So the Orca could use a "blowhole"?

Is there no way to reduce the vibration/whale sound made by the cap's valve? I would expect more of a bubbling sound of air entering as opposed to whale noises on a bottom-mounted air valve. Whale noises suggest the valve closure it too tight that air must squeeze through it, resulting in the wheezing sound. Due to the surface tension of water, the cap valve might be pryable or even drilled with a small hole to allow air to enter more freely without worrying about water leaking out. I'd lean more towards drilling the cap as opposed to the reservoir tank, personally.

[Rook]

Maybe you could simply attach a piece of foam (similar to memory foam, but less dense). This would reduce the noise without restricting air flow.

Take your time with those pics. I'm just kidding.

[DX]

It's not like I've got pics of the Orca, the reservoir, trigger area, pump, nozzles, and pcs or anything like that...I wouldn't happen to have stream shots at cool angles either... :p

Well, I do have all of the above. However, I haven't got time to compress and upload until Friday afternoon. Huge math test tomorrow , 10 page paper on Plato's Republic due on Friday [haven't started yet], and to top it all off, the most brutal Latin test since the 600 words test last year [straight translation of ~16 poems]. I'm currently losing the battle with Senioritis, especially with those quintuple and sextuple sleep-ins I had last week. Now I've been sleeping through first periods because the combination of regular days and daylight saving time made me really tired. Senioritis can sense that I'm getting worn down and is trying to exploit the situation. I could use a nice Iron Defense here, but Senioritis is using the Iron Offense and it never runs out of energy. Score is still 2-0 me though, got into college plus finished scholarship applications. :p

You'll get some good pics on Friday's SM update.

[HBWW]

I forgot my camera when I went out today, but turns out I couldn't find an orca. However, I did take a look at the packaging for the Hornet (I think it was), and saw a "thumbnail" of the orca on the back. It seems to have 1 PC (I remember seeing only one bulb), though I forgot most of the colors for it. Lots of random colors everywhere, it looked quite nice. I also saw the sneak attacks, secret strikes (which seem to be larger than the overloads as a whole), and arctic blast (doesn't come with an ice core apparently, which is just plain stupid, all it is is another flash flood, the flash flood already accepted ice cubes), and no hydroblitz. Saw some Max-D 3000 twin packs (wanted to get but couldn't) from last year, as well as some other BBT guns, and stuff like blastmaster 660's.

[Dacca]

The orca has 2 pc's just like the blazer. the second one is diagonally down from the first and in the grey by the nozzle.... its there, trust us. as for the whale sound, you got it right isoaker. it is a bubbling sound but due to the fact that its only small bubbles it creates a higher pitch. makeing the seal looser may quiet the whale noise but it wont stop the loud bubbleing. i think that BBT tried to try something diffrent with their possitioning of the cap, but in the end its still more of a hassle then it is cool.

[dragonclass]

Stand-by, I've got several phone pics of the new water warriors at Kmart submitted. They only had the Tigershark for now. That's the latest, Brad



Edited By dragonclass on 1174157813

[isoaker]

dragonclass/Brad's pics:









Thank you so much for sharing the images! Funky soakers! *add on another shade of envy green!*

[isoaker]

Looking more at the pics, I'm very happy about the choice by BBT to move the electronic pressure gauge activating button to the side of the soaker. I also really like the general colour scheme of the larger soakers. I suppose I'm a sucker for soakers that have nice shades of grey base layers.

[SilentGuy]

Wow. Thanks for the pictures! I also was not aware how much camera phone picture quality had improved recently.

The Tiger Shark looks like an awesome gun. 3 nozzles (which is plenty), a round pump grip since the gun is too short to have a tracked pump or because of the design, a cap on the top, a something-gauge (hopefully this is CPS, which means it's not a pressure gauge), probably has power resembling the Orca, looks decent, etc.

My only concerns are that the pump is short and that not all the water can be pulled out of the reservoir if angled upwards. That round white thing at the bottom front of the reservoir seems like it collects all the water and moves it to the pump.

Looks like there's some kind of gauge in that round white part, right next to the pump. Is this thing electronic?

Just checking--the Orca is CPS, right? Just making sure, maybe somebody said so but I've forgotten.

The only design change I would have made to this would have been to move the grip all the way to the back and made the pump longer and tracked. But this thing looks very well designed, the pump grip isn't sticking out too much and the gun looks sick.

Great pics!

[DX]

The Orca has dual HydroPower pcs, so yes it is CPS.

[SilentGuy]

Oh, thanks.

Didn't see iSoaker's post, guess that explains the gauge and buttons. Does the Orca also have an electronic gauge?

[DX]

The gauge is indeed electronic, but it only works when you press and hold a button. You can ignore it completely, unless you're not a tap/pumper. For some reason, the green light for full is way weaker than the yellow and red for needs more pressure.

[isoaker]

Well, I couldn't help myself and decided to open up the Orca today, take some pics, and test it out (no stats yet, though). I'm really not sure about what others had previously reported regarding the Orca making whale noises; it definitely sounds more like a dolphin to me as opposed to a whale. I still think something can be done to reduce the noise, but I'll have to do some experimenting later when I've got more time.

Powerwise, as others have reported before, the WW Orca is a blast! Good power; good selection of nozzles. I did notice, though, that at least on the Orca I have, the nozzle selector was a little finicky and did not have the same feedback when the selector was properly aligned compared to other models. Thus, for one of my shots, I had the selector partially misaligned causing a less controlled spray and water coming out from between the nozzle selector and the blaster. When properly aligned, things work well, but the aligning mechanism on the one I'm testing isn't functioning as well as I think it should.

More to come later... plus I do need to write up the Tiger Shark review first!

[mr. dude]

What soaker would you compare its power to? Is it like a CPS1200, or more like a Blazer?

[isoaker]

Going from pure feel, I'd lean towards the WW Orca feeling more like a CPS1200 on its largest nozzle setting. Also like the CPS1200s I've used, the stream is a little coarser, not quite as laminar as streams from the other nozzles. Then again, I was having some nozzle selector alignment issues when testing so I'd want to do a little more testing before giving a final report. I also prefer measured stats so I hold judgment until I get a change to measure output.

[SilentGuy]

Nice teaser! If you can't help reviewing this first, then it's gotta be good. Right? :laugh:

The gun sounds impressive. I wouldn't expect a laminated stream when it's so big anyway though, as the ratio of volume to surface area is reduced.

[DX]

I'd personally say that the Orca has a bit less stream speed than mid-size CPS guns, but the overall power is still close. Lamination is bad on the large nozzle, but that's nothing compared to the lamination of an Orca riot blast [drilled fan blast]. The water goes everywhere at will.

Is it just me, or is Hydro Power really not constant like it should be? The drop-off on my Orca's middle nozzles is significant, more-so than my homemades.

[SilentGuy]

Perhaps the dropoff is significant. Haven't really thought about that before.

This is the way I've interpreted it: with cylindrical tubing, the surface area of the rubber increases as the pressure applied decreases in such a way that the force is constant. Might be wrong though, as it claims to be constant pressure and Larami had given 22 PSI as the pressure for the CPS 2000.

But if that theory's right, then maybe the surface area of a Hydro Power PC doesn't change inversely proportionally to the pressure. Sounds weird though, probably is wrong...

[scorpion]

I just got an orca and a tigershark and the orca is a blazer except for the fact that the cap is on the bottom of the tank. Big problem.
it not only makes annoying noises but air bubbles come in through the bottom when pumping meaning that you get alot of air when pumping and it takes much longer to pump. So im kinda annoyed. The tigershark is not as good as a lightning. the only difference is that it looks different and replacement of the lite activation location.

[HBWW]

I just got an Orca yesterday and just got back from some test firing. The fan blast is virtually useless IMO and won't saturate anything. The large nozzle seems to be fairly turbulent and pushing the power of the PC's. Range overall wasn't that great, but I can't get anything reliable right now due to the wind. Judging by the nozzle design and how clean most of the streams are, they should go fairly far. For some reason, they used an intake tube instead of a direct hole to the PC's, meaning you have to tilt the gun back to maximize use. (unlike CPS 1000's and 1200's) The tube lies just above the cap screw-off, so extra water pools around the cap, perhaps done to keep the noise running. However, this does no good to maximize use of course, and the intake tube can easily move around. (the Flash Flood had the best placed intake tube IMO, though direct holes are always better when the design allows for it, in which this gun's design did, but wasn't used anyway) I did also get a lot of air when pumping, but thought it was more because I never found the intake tube in the first place rather than it's placement near the cap. I kind of don't like the pump, it gets uncomfortable, and must be rotated properly when you return it in after pulling out, though you can use 90 degree angles if that's better. The pressure gauge isn't too useful (the non-battery ones on the XP's and CPS's were much better and fairly percise, the BBT ones only tell 3 states of pressure which are obvious), but at least the button for activation doesn't interfere with the hand. The strap works fairly well, no real problems with it so far.

I may be able to get some stats on capacity and output later. I have no problems with the nozzle selector and it works fairly well. Just have to be careful, and guns like the 2700 had better selectors, but at least this one's better than the XP310's.

Edit: Also saw a HydroBlitz, Arctic Blast, Tiger Shark, some last year guns, etc. The HB is huge and has quite a tall, thick, and fat design. As said earlier, you can operate the trigger with 3 fingers. (generally speaking of course) The AB was $20 along with the Orca, just to give an idea.

Edit: Got 2625mL on the reservoir (not terribly accurate though, should be a little higher than this, and with no regard to dead volume), and 700mL on the PC. Shoots about 5 seconds on the largest nozzle and 46-50 seconds on the smallest. (all shot time estimates were counted manually, while I used a container for the volumes, while filling the reservoir mostly all the way and pumping until the PRV stops it, though some air might have gotten into the PC's when pumping)

The pump cap noise honestly isn't that bad, only issue is that if you pump too fast the air tends to get in. Otherwise, pumping already makes enough noise on it's own anyway. The placement does make refilling on the run harder and prevents pumping when filling (the intake tube is to blame for this too), and doesn't help that much when filling from sinks, regardless of which gun you fill, almost no bathroom sink will fill it up fully.



Edited By C-A_99 on 1175545022