Paintball

[drg]

Originally Posted by Cunha

If anyone actually designed the paintball gun to have a breaking point to protect the tank and tank regulator, it would surely be the RAIL that the bottomline mounts to, since those rails are only 20 dollars retail.

So the idea that a trigger frame was designed to break is a joke.

On egos, the rail is integral to the frame. So if the rail breaks, the frame is broken. You may be interested to read Jack Wood's comments on this thread at AO:

Automags.Org Online Forums - This is what happens when you pay 1600 for an overmilled amrker (taken from PBN)

Basically what they were seeing is on the previous design, frame rail/ASA interface failures, which would break BOTH pieces. They warranty this type of damage, so designing the frame to fail and beefing up the rail means only the frame breaks, thus they have to warranty only one part:

Originally Posted by Jack Wood

Can I comment?

I have posted on this subject several times on PBN but never here, but as you guys are paying it some attention I suppose I may as well have a go at explaining things here too.

The year before last we made a conscious decision as a company to take a look at the dovetail ASA/frame interface point. Through 05 and 06 we had a lot of incidents of people tearing the ASA off the dovetail mount during "accidents" (usually occurring during diving manoeuvres!). This destroyed the frame interface and the ASA and we ended up replacing 2 parts for people, the frame and the ASA. On top of that we had several cases of the hosing pulling out of the fittings after such an incident and the tank/hose flying around.

When we started to look at this when we started on the 07 design we decided that what we felt was best for us, and best from a safety point of view, was to have one sacrificial part, but have it so that that one part kept the tank and the gun body/grip together.

Without adding another "crumple" part between the frame and the ASA, this is what we thought offered the best compromise. The down side is that if you have a crash as bad as this one it will obviously damage the board too, but we feel that the quantities are so low of this type of incident that it warrants the risk.

Yes we do warrant this type of damage. Don't ask me why, but we do. We know people don't do this type of thing on purpose (most of the time!) and that 9/10 it is pure accident or mis-fortune that causes this type of bend.

Yes the gun is light. Yes the frame is milled light. Yes it aluminium. But at the end of the day, we would rather have someone bend a frame and us be able to say "here you go, lets fix that for you" rather than be looking at replacing a bent body, snapped FRM or In-Line reg or worse looking at some kid who just got all his teeth knocked out because he dove in the snake, spiked the barrel, snapped the tank off the ASA and it punched him in the mouth.

Jack

Originally Posted by Jack Wood

the T-Rail design was implemented to make sure that the ASA never came detached from the frame. That was our primary concern. From that point the development moved to deciding what would be the weak link, and how we could ensure with most certainty that it could deform to accommodate a critical impact without the tank ever becoming separated (either at the tank end, or so that the hose becomes the only link between tank and gun) from the grip and body of the gun. We played around with a separate piece between the ASA and the bottom of the grip, but we could not make it a size such that it did not effect the aesthetics/feel of the gun and yet accommodate the full absorption of a major impact.
Add into that we need to sacrifice the lowest cost item. The body is the most expensive item in the gun by several orders of magnitude, so me wanted to make sure that that NEVER got damaged (see some of the early SL66 egos that got crashed like this one here and you will see the body is warped and cannot be salvaged, meaning several hundred dollars at cost in the trash can right there).

That left just the frame to work with.

Now I am not vain enough to say that I got the Factor of Safety (FOS) in the frame 100% correct. Maybe it could be stronger and still be the critical fail point? But, as a company we are 100% happy with the results that the design delivers. We have had players come to us with smashed out teeth, broken ribs, broken collar bones, dislocated shoulders, all from bad dives. We are confident that with a different design those players could be looking at much more serious injuries from the gun, tank or worse. A new frame, maybe (in very rare occasions) a new board, and the gun is up and running at zero cost to the customer and a manageable cost to us.
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[drg]

Originally Posted by CamoDeafie

actually.... since our aluminum industry doesnt do much business here, most of the extruding and such are done overseas, (manufacturing processes and materials analysis classes i took in college specifically on research of where materials and processes happens) so it is simply this, extruded material imported into the US qualifies for the made-in-usa since most of the milling, boring, reaming, stamping, finishing happens at the shop that the material arrives. the same can be said for forged items such as barrel blanks, handle blanks, and so on. one particularly amusing tag on my ancient JT straps that i have, says "designed in america, assembled in mexico" and on one box for the spyder semi automatic paint marking pistol, cal .68, says "designed in US, made in Taiwan" so...really. since the forging and extruding industry in the US is not able to get the quality for the price of the materials, most businesses choose to import the material overseas. now...it has been said that american steel is stronger, but thats not true lately...more and more, we're using mexican iron since its usually have higher nickel content, and its cheaper than the home-grown US stuff. I'm not sure of Aluminum, altho i know the mineral is mostly from Australia, one of the largest mineral deposit for the stuff that becomes Aluminum alloy, and one interesting thing is, that aluminum is 100% recyclable, whereas steel/iron isnt.

So who has an Ego and can tell us what the box says?

[Raion]

I have one. The box doesnt say where its made. Just the typical "this is not a toy and wear goggles." Try the manual ? They have them listed on pbnation in the ego forums. If that wasnt what you wnated me to look up, lmk.

[JKW]

What a waste of time. I read through twelve pages of mostly misinformation and speculation on a site populated by people who (again, mostly) disdain electronic guns, have no real appreciation for tournament play (see the comment "does anyone really need to superman dive?"), have little connection with paintball as an industry, and in general seem to hate what one aspect of modern paintball has become. I did it all in an effort to find the one person stating that Bob Long guns are machined in China or are built on castings, just so I could blow them up and tell them what idiots they are. Is it more sad that I wasted the time for such trivial reasons, or that I actually had it to waste on a Saturday morning? I should be playing.

Anyway. So the frame bent. Anyone that has really looked at an new Ego should not be surprised that one bent, but rather should be surprised that they don't ALL bend. Actually that they hold up to the abuse as well as they do is a testament to how well they are designed and built. And save the comments like "For eighteen hundred bucks it shouldn't bend!" Hell, when it comes to MACHINED parts, its far more expensive to take material off than to leave it on. Now I don't have an "inside source" at Planet, but I imagine the decision to make the gun as thin and light as they did went something like this.....Warning, the speculation that I bitched about earlier starts now: "Ok, since lighter and smaller sells, lets give them what they want. We'll make the new Ego as light as we can get away with and assume an acceptable failure rate to get it there. We'll design it so that the failure rate is as low as possible given how light and small the customer seems to demand, even though it will be more expensive to do so. We'll make it so that when it does fail it is unlikely to threaten anyones safety, and then we will repair the guns that DO fail with smiles on our faces, and do so quickly and professionally. We'll also charge what the market will bear". Given Planet's reputation, does that not seem more reasonable than them just throwing out a piece of weak, shoddy equipment and bending the customer over to give it to them? And for the record, I never have and probably never will own an Ego. I love the fit and finish, the packaging, the esthetic design, and the customer support, but just don't like the (admittedly subjective) feel of the way they shoot.

As an aside...I have seen one of our Marq frames bend and they are comparatively beefy. Machined from billet too. Then again, I saw Derrick Obatake core sample his Closer's barrel so hard, he felt like the tank cracked ribs. The only thing that was damaged (other than Derrick's ribs) was the duck bill. Yep, the gun was fine, but that chunky, clunky, piece of old school hardware bent at an almost forty five degree angle. Anything can fail..even the ribs of an old Samurai.

[drg]

FWIW Eclipse says the Ego is made in England.