Soaking through the Years @ iSoaker.com

[isoaker]

Soaking through the Years article just posted on iSoaker.com. 'tis an interesting look at how water blaster size and performance has changed over time. It's one thing to say one feels like the current direction is X; it's another to have the statistics to actually back up the claim. No major surprises in terms of overall trends, but there are some interesting findings in the numbers nevertheless.

Enjoy!

[thelaminator]

good lord, look at those stats! if i ever do a reasearch paper for school that's not about town hall or cabbage, i'll make sure to stop here first

oh, and welcome back, self, it's been awhile!

[Fishfan]

So the hydro cannon is more powerful than the all other water guns except the 2000 and 2500? (Not counting homemades and firehoses) I never knew that.

[SEAL]

The range charts puzzled me. It claims that only one blaster from the CPS series (which I presume to be the 2000) can outshoot Water Warriors blasters. What? How? I thought the farthest-shooting WW blasters can only make it to around 40, while most CPS blasters can shoot much farther.

List (going by roughly average range, in feet):
CPS 2000: ~50
CPS 2500: ~47.5
CPS 1500/1700: ~45
CPS 3000/3200: ~45
CPS 2700: ~42.5

I'm not sure about the 4100. If there is a WW blaster that can outperform all of those except the "king", please tell me which one it is!

Fishfan: That makes sense when you consider that 45+ feet can be achieved by giving the HC a regular nozzle. It's why I wanted one (but I never got the chance to pick one up).

[marauder]

This was a great article. Perhaps in the future you can do your charts more like chart #9 on http://blog.okcupid.com . I, personally, do not know how to make interactive charts like that. Just a warning to everyone out there, the link goes to a dating site, so if reading about romance or more adult related subjects grosses you out, don't go there.

SEAL, one thing we have learned about gun performance, recently, is that there is still a lot of variation, even amongst CPS blasters. Ranges observed are more like the following:

CPS 2000: 47 to 53 feet, a great majority of guns tested shot 50 ft or somewhere between 49 and 51.
CPS 2500: ~45 feet. I have tested 3 so far and all had a maximum range of 45 feet. Duke Soak Em has a 2500 that shoots 47 feet, which is rather impressive. This is definitely a stronger than average model. iSoaker reports a max range of 40 feet, which I consider a lower powered model. So, you should expect a good working CPS 2500 to shoot 40 to 47 feet, with a strong majority shooting ~45 feet. I have observed two CPS 2500s shooting around 37 feet, however the streams were not well laminated and there were other problems with the nozzles. I expect the laminators or valves needed to be repaired.
CPS 1500/1700: ~45 feet, I have tested 4 1500s and 2 1700s. All ranges fell between 44 and 46 feet. DX and others have attested to range around this level. Duke Soak 'Em's 1700 shoots 42 feet and iSoaker reports 40 feet for his 1500.
CPS 2700: 42 feet. I have tested 2 2700s and SEAL also tested his, all coming in at 42 feet.
CPS 4100: 42 feet. I have tested 4 4100s, all shot 42 feet
CPS 3000/3200: ???? I tested 2 3200s which shot 45 feet. The 20x streams were the juiciest I've ever seen. DX and other board members attest that 3000s/3200s they've observed shot around 40 feet. iSoaker's guns were tested at 33.
guests are here, will have to finish this post later.

I need to retest my Gorgon. I hope that it comes out at over 40 feet, like iSoaker's. I did a brief test while I was home on leave, I think it shot 40 feet, but it was a very hasty test and I didn't get the tape measure out. If I remember right my Vindicator shoots 40 or just over 40 feet.

[isoaker]

The range charts puzzled me. It claims that only one blaster from the CPS series (which I presume to be the 2000) can outshoot Water Warriors blasters. What? How? I thought the farthest-shooting WW blasters can only make it to around 40, while most CPS blasters can shoot much farther.

List (going by roughly average range, in feet):
CPS 2000: ~50
CPS 2500: ~47.5
CPS 1500/1700: ~45
CPS 3000/3200: ~45
CPS 2700: ~42.5

This is one of the times where the measurements I've recorded for my blasters seems to be falling on the lower side compared to what others have seen. There may be a number of explanations for this from age of the water blaster when tested (older bladders seem to be a little stiffer and may provide a little more power), item-to-item variation, range estimation (I don't measure to the very farthest drop, rather the approx. bulk distance hit), etc. That said, my Water Warriors Gorgon (the air pressure version) is one I consistently found pushing streams easily beyond the 40' mark, with most water getting at least to ~43' on its largest setting. This was, of course, with the blaster being properly primed, but the range on that blaster was quite impressive. I'd say even based on your range estimates, it'd probably be able to match ranges with the CPS 1500/CPS 3000s, but fall short of the CPS 2500 and CPS 2000.

The biggest limitation with the stats on iSoaker.com is that they are typically only from a single tested item. Would be good to test more blasters of the same model from different lots, but I typically don't have that luxury. As for taking averages from other people's reported ranges, I'd want to be very sure that the other range measurements are done in a similar manner, otherwise numbers could be skewed undesirably. Introducing more variables into reported stats does not make the end statistic necessarily more accurate.

@marauder: that interactive chart is neat; I'll have to look into whether there's a good script for converting Excel files into such charts.

[soakinader]

Wow. That is some real solid stuff. But you know what I get by the end of the article? There is hope for the future, and we are making a difference. Good job on this one.

[DX]

My CPS 2700 shot 42.43ft on 2x, 39.08ft on 5x, and 44.67ft on 10x. Don't ask why 5x sucked, I don't know either. However, that test was based on single shots and was taken in 2007? My 2500 from the same period shot 41ft on 10x, but that was also a single test not measured as accurately.

I now empty the reservoir on each nozzle setting and average the results of all those shots to get the range for each nozzle. Don't forget that some smaller CPS are capable of clearing 40ft as well - the 2100 MK1 can do it, the 1200 MK1 and 3 can shoot 42', and there's a version of the 1000 that can shoot 42'. Note that at the low end, a bad 2100 MK2 can go as low as 28', so these models on average shoot in the mid or high 30s.

[SEAL]

(older bladders seem to be a little stiffer and may provide a little more power)

Wow. I never would have thought of that, but it does make sense to me. Maybe we should all "age" our CPS blasters so they'll get better range (although most old ones are already at that point, and new CPS blasters are far and few between).

Now I really want a Gorgon. I wonder if Walmart still has them. I would guess not; hopefully BBT will re-release it (or make a better dual-PC blaster) next year.

[isoaker]

(older bladders seem to be a little stiffer and may provide a little more power)

Wow. I never would have thought of that, but it does make sense to me. Maybe we should all "age" our CPS blasters so they'll get better range (although most old ones are already at that point, and new CPS blasters are far and few between).

The problem with aging CPS bladders, though, is that while they seem stiffer, this increased stiffness also means parts are more brittle and more prone to tearing. I've done some looking around for anything that can help prevent natural rubber from degrading over time, but alas, while there are some fairly nasty chemicals that may help to prolong the life of rubber, the protective effect doesn't seem to extend the life that significantly and the stuff is pretty toxic; not the sort of things that you'd want in a water blaster that may end up being blasted out at another person.

[soakinader]

I want to make a quick note that it disturbs me that the Hydro Cannon has such a high Power rating. I wouldn't care if a blaster can shoot 50 oz/second if it only has enough water to shoot for 0.1 seconds. Extreme example of unlikeliness, go!

[isoaker]

I want to make a quick note that it disturbs me that the Hydro Cannon has such a high Power rating. I wouldn't care if a blaster can shoot 50 oz/second if it only has enough water to shoot for 0.1 seconds. Extreme example of unlikeliness, go!

You bring up a valid point (one that also bugs me). As noted, the problem with the Hydro Cannon's power stat is that, while the power is high, its duration is remarkably short. Thus, it may be better to also factor in total shot time into the power rating. The problem is, while I'm inclined to do so, for blasters with high power but rather short shot times, variation in the recorded shot time would sway the resulting number by a significant amount. For other blasters with longer shot times, but tend to lose power as the shot continues, deciding on when the shot should be considered over becomes a problem. Furthermore, as power is dropping while the shot is continuing, this means output and range are also likely changing during the shot, making it much more difficult to calculate the average power for the duration of the shot.

Thus, until I figure out a better way to accurately measure things like the changing power and output over time, I'll be sticking with just reporting the initial measured output and range of water streams and shot times separately. While shot time is being defined as the shot performing at least ~80% of maximum, it is still measured a little subjectively. Together with the fact that different blasters exhibit different rates of losing output/power during that time, I'm opting not to just combine those two measured numbers.

Sometimes, something that seems like it should be simple to do ends up being a much more complex problem once you start taking other things into consideration.

[SEAL]

^This is why I prefer cold hard stats as opposed to number ratings. Power ratings are nice and all, but like you said, there's a lot to take into account.

[isoaker]

^This is why I prefer cold hard stats as opposed to number ratings. Power ratings are nice and all, but like you said, there's a lot to take into account.

Power ratings could be a cold, hard stat, but it'd require much better equipment to do the measuring accurately.