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[jt526]

Note: This is really long, and has errors obviously. I will be re-checking after a while and updating. Mods feel free to change title if the one I came up with isn't very descriptive.

This is in response to a thread that people expressed interest in using the Scenario Dreams Universal Board and the new MQ2. I mentioned I was going to be doing exactly that, and someone requested a how to. Total time: By hand tools 4 hours. Mill would shave off 2 hours. but still have to solder everything up.

If anyone has to ask why, the real answer is to be able to pump faster in consistently long strings. Loaders weren't fast enough to keep up without godawful chopping when I was in my auto-triggering prime in the late 89-90 or so. I've got to rely on technology to make up for the steps I lost since then.

These two parts worked fine for me out of the box, without using any additional capacitors. I have not seen any any drop off even on a used battery. This may not be the case for you, so I would TEST your board+MQ2 combo PRIOR TO MODDING THE GRIP. I have no reason to suspect that using this to run both the MQ2 and a cocking solenoid wouldn't work, but your mileage may vary, and I would test TEST PRIOR TO MODDING THE GRIP. Sorry for shouting, but don't blame me. It will be very apparent that even if your setup isn't stable, etc., all of the parts can be removed, and no indication that the frame has been modified is visible from the exterior of the gun with the grips on.

On a side note, I have spent the last 15 years of my adult life trying to avoid owning a mill and a lathe, despite having the need and the talent. Once you have either one, then you need bench grinders, a TIG welder, etc.etc.etc. This is the last dremel hack job I will ever do, I promise. I bought a little dremel drill press thing, I knew it would suck, but damn did it suck bad. So please no comments on the install. This was proof of concept, and as it turns out, I am probably never going to bother smoothing out the interior, as it works just fine without worrying about it, and no one will ever be able to tell until I sell it, which is why I bought a spare frame.

That being said, here is what you need:

MQ2 with valve body appropriate for use (Mine is in a CCM SS-25 so I used the 11/16th valve body, If your's uses a standard cocker valve = Cocker Valve Body, Trilogy = 11/16th, Autococker SR = 11/16th etc. Check before ordering): http://www.mqvalve.com

Mini-Review: This thing is amazing, the MQ2 is simple, efficient, and elegant. I can't tell you how impressed I am with these guys. I had never seen one before, since I don't shoot e-cockers. Simply a brilliant balanced valve design. I hope to see a valve similar to this used in other guns sometime soon. It feels as if it fires before you pull the trigger. Efficient, quiet, can't say enough good things about the feel of the gun with this valve.

Scenario Dreams Universal T Board

Scenario Dreams, LLC

Mini-Review: It is a board. Its dwell goes to 4ms, and mine happens to fire an MQ2 no problems, no capacitor, your results may differ. It also has all the modes you would want on a pump gun (semi) and then some. It is very very very tiny. It does it's job, at what in my opinion is an extremely low cost. Can't really say more. This isn't a high speed high demand application, it is a pump gun, so I can't speak as to how it performs on a semi (yet, it may have a shot at my ego 7, just for fun). I can say that Damon at Scenariodreams is a nice guy. The closed bolt board is currently not available as far as I am aware. The Bouncebeam eye logic, as far as I know, does not work, as of right now. Replacing the E2 on your cocker is not an option. This only works for one solenoid. But Damon will reflash (I assume) when the new code is ready.

You are also going to need these from scenario dreams:

Switch-50g (Wrath/ION type) $5.95
Connector for Spyder/Wrath solenoid/trigger

(This connector SHOULD be the one you need to connect the MQ2 fitting to the Wiring harness. I say should because I actually used leftover connectors from fitting relays into Angel 1's to fire off the Pulse RF Chip. You should email Damon at scenario dreams and ask if this is the right part. You need a female connector to wire into the circuit. Alternately, you can use parts from a virtue pulse harness, or the leftovers from a Magna RF Chip kit. You just need the female part for the MQ2 to plug into). It is the same connector used by WDP, Dye, Eclipse, and the list goes on and on.


9 Volt Battery

Heatshrink tubing

Double sided foam tape

Sharpie

CCM 86 Degree Single Trigger Cocker frame.
Frame CCM New 86* - Dust Black - eBay (item 150228720119 end time Apr-21-08 17:51:07 PDT)

CZ-75 Hogue Wrap-Around Grips (THE FLAT DELRIN ONES WILL NOT WORK)
CZ-75/85 9mm WrapAround Rubber Grips New Hogue

Some cajones and some basic tools: Dremel (seriously, you can easily do it with a dremel, or find someone here to do it. On a mill, you are looking at maybe 5 minutes of time. Probably more time to chuck the bit, and set the speed), Carbide bit for said dremel, metal file (if no dremel, you could do it with just a big coarse metal file and some time, there isn't anything fancy), soldering iron, 3/16th drill bit, and some scissors. Probably a lighter to strip wires, and do the heatshrink. You also need the necessary skills to use such tools. Have someone else do it if this would be your first soldering iron purchase.

That is it. Total cost would be somewhere around $300 final cost for a new frame (not that you need one if you already have one) and the entire MQ2 setup.


BEFORE STARTING GO HERE AND PRINT THESE OUT:

Scenario Dreams, LLC

Scenario Dreams, LLC


Step - MQ2 Install:
Tear down marker, install MQ2 using instructions provided in packager. Reassemble marker leaving frame off for now.

Step - Disassemble CCM frame
Self evident.

Step A: Trim Frontstrap and Bottom interior to fit 9volt

You can see from the pics that not a lot of material needs to be removed from the back of the frontstrap, and from the floor of the inner grip frame. The idea is to get the battery to sit at an angle, so that it just clears the grip frame screws. Using a coarse file, you could basically just file the floor of the grip frame flatter, and keep notching the frontstrap at an angle until the battery fits. Using a dremel, same thing, Using a mill, same thing. Whatever gets the job done. Once you have the 9 volt, and the frame, you'll see what I mean. It almost fits as is, you just need a way to tip it slightly. I actually took out metal where I didn’t need to.

That's it for the frame. Once the battery fits, you are golden. You want it to sit low, so take off about 1/8th of the front inner bottom of the frame, to drop the battery down some, and allow it to tip.

Seriously, you are done with the frame. All down hill from here.

Step - Trim Hogue Grips and Drill for Led

The very lower rear inside edges of the Hogue grips need to be trimmed/flushed off a little on the inside. There is a ledge that fits onto the inside of the frame. Just knock it off slightly, and the grips will flush out perfectly with the frame with the battery installed. See pic where it says trim here.

On the left side of the grips, attach the left grip panel with screw, and mark lower corner for led on the inside. Take off grips, and use drill bit to drill out hole carefully so led press-fits into plastic. Drill from the inside out. The grips are plastic inside, so the drill will bite, hard to drill through rubber. Go carefully, and don’t go too big. Should be easy, use a smaller drill bit and work your way up, until you can press the led into position. It looks really good when done. You may want to trim up the outside edge of the rubber with an exacto knife, as there may be some that didn’t get cut off by the bit.

NOTE: My initial intention was to drill through backstrap for led install, so it would look like most electro frames with led. No reason too, looks just fine in the grips in my opinion, and again, no impact on frame itself. That is the blue or red light you can see in the left hand shots on the lower rear of the grip.

THOSE ARE ALL THE MODIFICATIONS NEEDED TO INSTALL. IF YOU DID IT RIGHT, YOU SIMPLY CANNOT SEE ANY DIFFERENCE IN THE FRAME ONCE THE GRIPS ARE ON. You can’t go back to plastic grips, but you should make your peace with that before starting this project.


NOW ON TO WIRING.

STEP B: Main Wiring harness Fitting:

Chip goes in the top portion of the grip frame, as seen in pictures. Wiring connector should face down in my opinion, acting as a cushion between board and battery. You might want it to fit a different orientation.

EYE WIRING:
No eyes on mine yet, but there will be. I just trimmed the wires down to be around 4 inches so I have enough to work with later, and slid a piece of heatshrink over them to keep them organized.. If you never plan on eyes, just cut off all the eye wires, it will make it look much better. You can always buy another harness. The ball of wires in heatshrink just behind the board you see is the left over wiring in the harness. Eye wiring might be pretty hard, might not. I don’t have eclipse eye to test fit yet. And if you are wondering “Eyes on a pump gun?” I want to do custom programming so that board has to detect a valid “Breech Clear” state, until re-initiating firing cycle. This way you can’t just pop off shots and sound like a semi.

MEMBRANE HARNESS – 3 PIN THINGY – (WIRING HARNESS A – RED ORANGE YELLOW)
Trim wires on board harness to about 3 inches or so. Solder pins correct wires OR USE THE PROVIDED HARNESS.
See Scenario dreams website for layout for pins. This may need some trial and error, as I am not sure what colors would ship with your board. My pins had wiring already attached, but the pics from the site show raw pins, so I am not sure what you would get.

FOR ME, THE WIRES GO:

BOARD HARNESS = PIN HARNESS
RED = BLACK
ORANGE = RED
YELLOW = WHITE

You can then turn the pin connector around if you find that the eye switch is turning the gun on and off. Ignore connection to membrane pad for now, that will come later.

LED (WIRING HARNESS A – BLUE RED BROWN GREEN)
Pain in the ***, it has four wires. Trim the wires also to around 5 inches. Trim the LED contacts down to about 1/4" or less prior to soldering. Slide on heatshrink before soldering. These wires have to be long enough for the led to be mounted in lower leftside grip panel on the back. Don’t go too short. You may want to leave a little extra, it won’t hurt anything.

Look at the diagram of the LED (on the scenario dreams website) AND THE LED ITSELF, you can see the inner working of the LED and will be able to figure out what wire goes where. Do the wiring sequence in WHITE – GREEN (LED COMMON) – YELLOW – GREEN (LED GREEN). You can see the interior of the LED, just hold it like it looks on the scenario dreams installation page, and go white, green, yellow, green. I would give you more tips, but I just had to wire them until the colors behaved correctly. I only screwed it up once though, and I am seriously colorblind, so it isn't that hard.

BATTERY HARNESS (HARNESS A - BLACK AND BLACK)
Trim battery wires to about 3 inches on harness. Use provided battery connector, Red on the connector goes to “9V IN” black wire, black goes to remaining black. Now lightly hold the battery on the connectors, with the harness hooked up to the board.

IF THE BOARD GETS REALLY HOT ALMOST INSTANTLY, YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG. VERY WRONG. YOU HAVE THE POS AND NEG REVERSED.

I don't recommend doing it this way, but since I hooked them up backwards, and almost fried the board, if you don't know what you are doing, I would do a test before soldering everything together. You could use alligator clips. You could also fry your board. Don’t blame me. Nothing bad happened to mine, but I’ve shorted out plenty of electronic boards this way. I suck at that whole red/black/positive/negative thing between the terminals on the battery, the connections between the connector and the main harness. It always confuses me. It shouldn’t but it does, and I came to terms with that long ago. Some things about yourself you just have to accept you can’t change. For me, this is one. I can always count on connecting the wrong terminals.

AT THIS POINT YOU SHOULD HAVE A FUNCTIONAL LED, MEMBRANE AND BE ABLE TO TURN THE BOARD ON AND OFF. HOOK UP THE MEMBRANE TO THE THREE PIN, MAKE SURE BATTERY IS CONNECTED, PRESS THE BUTTON THAT LOOKS LIKE AN ALIEN HEAD IN FOR A COUPLE OF SECONDS AND RELEASE.. RED = GO, FLASHING GREEN = SAFE. If that doesn’t turn on board, press the eye one. If that one turns on board, then you have the pins reversed on the membrane connector. You can hit the eye button, and see it flash blue briefly. If it is not RED to start, FLASHING GREEN IN SAFE MODE WHEN YOU PRESS THE ALIEN HEAD AGAIN. You might have wired the led up wrong, if it is blue or something.

You might want to test the switch now before going further, and access the programming modes. You can use some alligator clips from the harness to the switch to get into programming modes and see if all the colors match. See manual.

SWITCH (WIRING HARNESS A – ORANGE ORANGE):
You need to trim the two wires for the trigger switch to about 5 inches. Run this through the whole where the spring used to go. Strip wires, slid on small heatshrink on both, and solder to switch. IMPORTANT. The switch must look like this

_ I__I__I_ - - - - - - wires going through hole down BACK OF FRAME/////
I________I
<-___

Where the switch lever is pointing towards the rear of the frame when the switch lever if facing down. I.e it the angle is open towards the back of the marker like this <. For this particular application you will solder the two orange wires from the wiring harness to the First and Second pin in the diagram. Remember the switch "opening" must face the rear of the frame. This will allow it to engage the roller on the trigger, and have enough travel so nothing binds. Doesn’t matter which wire goes where, as long as it is on the first and second pins. Be careful, once you hit this step, the harness cannot be removed from the frame, since it won’t fit through the spring hole.If you have spare male/female two pin connectors, this might be a good use to put them too. I’m not worries about it though. Put doublesided tape on switch, cut to size. Leave on paper, this is for fitting later.

MEMBRANE PAD INSTALLATION:

Trim a piece of double sided foam so that it covers about the top 1/4th of the membrane pad. Take off paper on the membrane and stick on double stick. The idea is that the grip frame has the little ledge. Part of the membrane pad rests on the ledge, flush with the grips, hiding all the wires. The remainder is supported by the double stick tape. Works fine, and is the simplest thing in the world, and all the wires are completely covered. You simply cannot tell that it isn’t supposed to be like that. Prep the handle a little with alcohol to get a good stick. If you have some automotive trim tape, that would work better. Same stuff, better adhesives. Hit the edges of the tape with the Sharpie so it isn’t white, take a victory lap, and spike the sharpie like you mean it. You are almost done. The membrane pad is very delicate. Don’t try and remove it and readjust. Do it right the first time. Other wise you may break the pad itself. I speak from experience

NOTE: If you have a mill, the simplest thing in the world would be to cut a channel in the ledge, and flush the ledge with the grip panel. But then you couldn’t remove the electronics and have it look exactly as it did before. And you'd probably want a re-ano.

MQ2 FEMALE CONNECTOR (WIRING HARNESS A - EP VALVE POWER - RED/BLUE OR THE SOLENOID POWER - BROWN RED (didn't seem to matter which one I used))

Run wires up through spring hole, trim so you have about 3 inches to play with. Solder together. TEST BEFORE HEATSHRINK. Turn the board on, hook it up to the mq2, and trip the switch. You should hear a faint click of the solenoid. If you don’t, switch the wires around, and then try again

Step – Trigger Adjustment

Basically the switch just drops in the rail, and get pinned in place with tape. Yes, tape. My initial intention was to use 4/40 set screws in new holes drilled and tapped in side of frame to hold the switch in position once I got it proven it all works, and spent some weekends with it. I am lazy, and the tape will clearly hold the switch in the right place, so I am sure I will never get around to that. You might though. This would be a “cleaner” install, as you never have to worry about the switch moving positions once you adjust it to where you want the activation point to be, and tighten it down, and give you a very adjustable trigger. All I’m saying is that the tape methods works. Just jam the sucker in there, and fiddle with it until it goes off when you want it too. If you are planning on using this as a semi, with no autotrigger, I would do the screw, as the beating the switch may take might be more. The switch has enough force to return the trigger to a resting state. Feels just like the mouse click we all know and love.

You have a couple of options here. I use the autotrigger as a stop. You can set the switch in the frame rail so that the back of the frame is the stop. If you use autotrigger, make sure you know where you want the cam position to be, prior to setting switch activation. Reassemble marker, and see if it clicks where you want it. If not, take apart, and move to a new location. With the double sticky tape pressing it into place, you should have a problem moving it around. Whatever you choose, I just found where I wanted it, and jammed it in there. Fool around with it and see what you get. I have every confidence in the tape method.

STEP C: Marker Assembly/Adjustment
Run the plastic protection guard on the mq2 wires down the spring hole, with the connector facing up. this should leave you with just enough wiring to connect them together with the female connector you wired to the board harness, and then press into place in space in frame. Bolt on frame, and check trigger position.

Step - Board Settings

Basically just set the dwell to 4ms. Everything else can be the same. I set mine shot queing off, abs off, etc. Fool around with the modes, they are fun. After you set to 4 ms, you should be able to adjust pressure to set velocity. Set reg low before airing up, and work pressure up until you get velocity up. It will feel as if there is no way it could possibly be releasing enough air to fire a ball. It is amazing.


EDIT: Set debounce way way up, like 40 ms, turn shot queing off, and set max rof to around 12. Otherwise trigger is really bouncy, and exhaust venting from mq is enough to trigger another shot.

Step - Pump Stop:
Using a reball or other similar material, construct a pump stop out of 1/2" of reball material, and around 1/2 of plastic material. You will have to shave this to fit into the main pump rod chamber on the pump. In my use, mine go inside the CCM pump kit. What happens it that without the cocking lug to stop the pump stroke, it is way too long, slowing the cycle speed, and allowing double feeds, so you need to cut the pump stroke down. You may or may not need this depending on the length of your pump rod, and where it bottoms out on your pump kit. The reball material provides a little shock absorption, and the plastic rod will allow you to trim the length to get it so you just clear the feedneck + about 1/8th no compression, and about another 1/8th compressing the reball. I should point out that I use forcefed hoppers on this marker, you may need more clearance to allow the ball to drop before the return pump stroke. The reball insert also takes some of the shock and stress off your shoulder joint, if you pump very, very fast.

I have no idea on the if the depth is the same on all runs of the CCM delrin pumps, so you will have to play around with the length of the buffers to get it to feel right. Reball material goes in the main pump rod chamber first, followed by plastic rod (try using a "jumbo" plastic coat hanger, that looks like it might work) I used some material I had lying around.

Step D: Go shoot people.

Good luck, all the above is free info, so you may get what you pay for, I also lied about this being the last dremel hack job, I'm sure something will come up.

I'll answer questions as best I am able. Please point out any obvious errors, like I skipped over something, but snarky comments can be kept to self, thanks, Jake

EDIT: SEE POST BELOW. PBMODSHOP HAS A BETTER WAY TO MILL THE FRAME. I SUGGEST SUPPORTING THEM IF YOU ARE THINKING OF HAVING THIS DONE. THEY DO GOOD WORK.

[Heebs]

Nice writeup! Shoot a vid of your gun shooting

[jt526]

Originally Posted by Heebs

Nice writeup! Shoot a vid of your gun shooting

I have a lot of toys, but a video camera isn't one. A friend at a scenario game next weekend does though, I'll see if he can't post something for me.

[pizzaluvr]

Wow, that's awesome!I want a video too. That is one of the best ideas I've ever seen.

[Contour]

Just curious, do you think this mod could be used in a CCM 45 frame, and if so harder or easier?

[jt526]

I don't have any idea, I can't find an internal picture or dimensions. If a 9volt fits in the grips, with the grip panels on, I don't see why it wouldn't work. Every other dimension would be almost identical. See if you can fit a 9volt anyway in there, with the grips on. I suspect there isn't enough clearance, since it seems to me that the CZ grips are thicker than my 45's, But I could be wrong.

[Warwitch]

Huge props for actualizing this man. Thanks for sharing your knowledge those of us that are, um, less enlightened.


Would you mind if I link this over on UMS? Im sure it would be put to good use by a great group.

[hvacman250]

A 9 v battery will fit in an 86 frame still using the stock panels

I'll post pics in a bit. Im doing one for a customer.

[jt526]

Originally Posted by Warwitch

Huge props for actualizing this man. Thanks for sharing your knowledge those of us that are, um, less enlightened.


Would you mind if I link this over on UMS? Im sure it would be put to good use by a great group.

No problem on the link. I hope someone can get some use out of this. Right now I am trying to get a cheap eblade eye, so I can check the fit of the wiring, and the process of running those 4 more wires through the frame.

If you wanted to do a cocker, I would say you could groove out the trigger to lay the wiring over it to run out the front of the frame to the solenoid. The noid wiring might fit over the trigger as it is, but it gets pretty tight towards the front of the grip.

I am completely happy with the results so far, and love the feel of the MQ2. It really looks as stealth as you can get with the membrane pad on there. Using a slide switch mounted in the grips would make it completely unnoticeable.

[jt526]

Originally Posted by hvacman250

A 9 v battery will fit in an 86 frame still using the stock panels

I'll post pics in a bit. Im doing one for a customer.

Sounds good, I look forward to seeing how a real machinist does it! I imagine you could groove the front/bottom in such a way that you let the battery actually sit in the frame its self. I didn't think of that. By grinding down the grip mounting screwhole slightly, you'd be almost all the way there, I would suppose. By the way, love the dual pump arm plate I bought from you, very nice.