Paintball

[punkncat]

I wanted to post this somewhere that I would not get instantly burned to death about having a less than fanboi opinion on this marker.

I recently purchased a used Ego7. It is a beautiful marker. Super light, good mill work, feels nice in my hand. It came with pretty much all the upgrade that it needs already having the zick kit and bump pistons. I actually had to look those up to see what they were...lol

The marker is easy to take apart and clean. Everything is laid out simply, much like any other stacked tube marker. Truly much along the lines of a marker that IMO it emulates in the timmy series. NO I am NOT saying this is a timmy, but it is much like it.

The user manual that came with is nice, well laid out and very thorough in its explaination of assembly, maintainance, etc.

Now let me got down to brass tacks. This marker would have cost me something in the neighborhood of 1200 bucks last year. The 8 version which is barely different is actually fetching a touch more than that this year. I paid half that, one year later, for a pretty much "fully upgraded" one. We can see already some point of issue here. If this marker is so damn nice, how come they are not holding any kind of value?
Not that many things are nowdays, mind you. About the only few things that I am actually familiar with that do are Mags and Vikes...anywho.

I got it home and the first thing I did was to diassemble, clean, re ring, and lube/oil in the appropriate places. It was apparent that the previous owner had taken very good care of this marker. It was not nasty and nothing was out of place or malfunctioning.

The first thing I noticed upon using it is that it has TERRIBLE consistancy issues. I went in search of answers and find that this is not an uncommon issue at all with this marker. There are threads all over the most common site (which I will leave unmentioned) about this and how to fix it.
Apparently this company, Bump, thought to make some improvements on the consistancy and efficency of the marker and designed these high priced "upgrade" pistons. As I can only compare this to a stock 7 that a buddy has...well I will wait a moment to get into that.
So in addition to these upgraded parts of apparently little actual affect on anything. I have this zick kit ram. Now the idea behind this is that it has a little cushion of air behind it and helps the marker not kick so bad. I have the stock rammer, but have yet to put it in....here is where the comparison to my buddies stock Ego7 comes in.
His marker has no discernable amount more kick than mine. He is using all stock parts. This $50 upgraded ram seems to be nothing more than a bragging point IMO. I actually had to set my dwell several ms higher than he was able to tune his to. As a result of the zick kit or the pistons I am unsure, but the result is that he is gaining efficency of a much higher order.
His consistancy is considerably greater...but there again, my mini has better consistancy than this Ego. I am experiancing velicity changes + and - 30 FPS. I have been through the regs, made recommended adjustments, new batteries, even had a local "expert" check everything out. I am now down to the apparent "go to" answer of, since I replaced all the orings perhaps it needs to break in again. A period of time that varies up to an incredible 10K cycles.......????

As far as that part goes I actually did get the stock pistons and rammer with the marker and am going to put those parts in as an experiment and see what changes if anything. However I cannot right now due to the newest and at this point most costly problem. I cannot change anything in programming because the LCD screen went out right after I got it.
Yes that's right. It was working fine. Played one game with it, didn't take any kind of hit to the grip frame, drop, or rough treatment. I brought it home, working fine. Layed it on a table I use for storing all my markers, in the house in climate control. Pick it up the next time to fiddle around in the back yard and guess what? No display. Of course it will power on and operate, but I have no idea what any settings are should I wish to change them. Luckily I had already spent a couple of afternoons, a case of paint, couple of tanks of air, and a battery in the chrono making adjustments to it to be both legal and as consistant as possible. Good thing too.....
So now I have no faith whatsoever in the stock board. I have owned Eclipse LCD boards before. Had this problem to a varying degree with some Zero B boards a while back, but would have thought they addressed this issue.
Instead of spending $50 to swap out and having to worry about it happening again, I went absolutely bat s--- crazy and spent almost $170 on that new Tadao board with the OLED. Yes, here I have this over priced, value loosing, inconsistant beauty of a marker...and now I am throwing an almost 200 dollar designer board in it...I guess so I can be more agg?!?

Well I must say. The jury is still out on this. WAY out. I dunno if I did myself a service, or if I have jumped off in the middle of hyped out money pit, marker style. When I get the new board and am actually able to adjust my settings I am going to check and see whether the $100+ in "upgrades" actually just made it worse.

I will get back to you all about it. Until then...I love to shoot the thing, I love the feel, the weight, the profile. But at this point I kinda feel like a guy with a high maintainence, good looking girlfriend, who is a bad lay and can't cook.

[himurax13]

Well I will give you my 2 cents. Honestly I like the Ego because it is small, light weight, fairly efficient, and it doesn't break down anywhere near as much as those mass produced spool valve markers. I used to tech for my local paintball field and I can't even recall if anyone has ever asked me to work on one. The one I have now came broken but loaded with drama, but it was purchased from another member on a less reputable forum. Needless to say, I lost a lot of time, money, and patience, and respect for my fellow human beings. I hope the Credit Card Company works him over good. Don't let that instance deter you. I might buy another one some day, but I want to do a 3rd party trade or maybe even see it in person first.

[grande]

While I have very little experience with the Egos, I currently use a EtekII as my primary marker, not excactly the same marker but really close.

Mine wes taken out of the box and it chronoed 275 with +/-10 consistency with the stock .693 2 piece barrel and smaller paint. After shooting roughly 5-6 cases the changes in velocity decreased a little and its now shooting 290 +/-5. It's not like my karni (cp reg) with a maximum of +/-2 with good paint, but it isn't bad either.

One of the lightest and sturdiest markers I've shot (weighs at one kilo), easy to shoot fast even with the off hand, great balance for running&gunning.

As far as efficiency goes, I can play 2 points of x-ball in the back center, roll my gun all game long and dont need to worry about running out of air (68/45 tank, and I carry 7 pods per game). It is advertised to shoot 1700 balls per full 68/45 fill, I dont know about how many I've got but I believe it's roughly similar to those numbers. It comes with a battery already installed and I'm still using the same battery, no problems here.

[Mr. Furious]

I have an Ego 07 that's new and waiting for spring to go to the field and an '07 Etek. I have owned a lot of guns over the years and never thought anything would surpass Dye in terms of fit, finish and the overall feeling of "It was worth it!" but when I opened the box on my Etek I was very pleasantly surprised and all thoughts of other electro's left my head. Due to my love for the Etek I soon sold off my other guns and bought the Ego7.

I understand you're having issues with your gun but I'm going to go out on a limb and blame it on the fact that it was used. The board issue may have been rearing it's head before the original owner sold it to you and he ditched it when he did before he was the one stuck buying a new board. The inconsistency issues can be traced directly to the board and the failure of the LCD may be just another symptom of the board's swan song. PE specifically states that rechargeable batteries should not be used in their guns yet many owners who are too cheap to buy new 9volts a couple times a year(after spending $1250 on a gun, go figure) insist on using them. Rechargeables have too much voltage and will often kill a board slowly by doing a little more damage each time the gun is turned on and used. Just because a gun "looks" like it was taken care of well does not mean it wasn't abused in some unseen way.

If you're new board doesn't fix the problem I'd say give PE a call or contact Bill at www.paintballshowcase.com and they will hook you up. If your Ego hasn't been registered you should do so and PE may even take care of you for no charge. I've heard of it happening before even for 2nd and 3rd owners.

The Zick kit made a huge difference in both my Etek and my Ego7 so something else may be going on with that. Be sure and check/replace the o-ring in the Zick ram cap as well. Although the "cushion of air" is the big selling feature the conical end of the Zick ram interfaces with the o-ring in the cap and if that's worn down you will lose Zick performance and it will seem like it's not even there.

Finally, the reason the resale sucks on PE, Dye, SP, DP and just about any other electro on the market is twofold;

1. All these companies come out with a new gun every year that's a little bit lighter and milled a little bit different. As soon as that happens people with more money than brains buy the new hot gun and flood the market with barely used guns that are no longer any good because of nothing more than the year they were produced.

2. The prices in the paintball gun market have crashed since the Ion came out. A few years ago guns like the Mini, Fusion and PMR would have been in the same "mid-range" category but they would have cost $500 to $700 leaving the "high end" $1200 to $1500 category to the DM's, Ego's and PE Shockers. Since the Ion came out the price categories remain but they have all moved down in price except for those "elite" few at the top. Now guns that used to be worth $500 to $700 are priced at half that because the electro Spyders are no longer alone in the $150 to $250 "low end" electro category thanks to Smart Parts who forced everyone else to compete with the Ion. It won't be long before Dye and PE, MacDev, Alien and the others in the $1000+ range have to drop their prices to compete with all of the lower end guns that offer comparable performance(although not necessarily quality) for much lower cost.

[B]

best advice I can give is get an 08 Etek it is a fully perfected 07 ego. Previous years Ego's are the platform for the next years Etek. Egos are in a state of constant chance and up grades/ updates through a given years production.

[chrisshanks]

I am extremely biased, so I will do my best to offer some fact & minimize my opinions

I play on a team where we all owned new eteks (last year) & got them all at once
- there are 22 (twenty two) of us & yes, twenty two Eteks
- we traveled to 15 (fifteen) games all over the country last year
- we average anywhere from 3-8 hours of continuous play per player per game
- we have been in every environment possible that USA playing feilds have to offer (sand storms, ICE cold [20*], Swealtering heat [115*+], 100% humidity, etc...)
- majority of my teammates have NEVER used an electronic gun before, let alone own one
- you can pretty much get the picture & do the math...
- we had 1 (one) single gun problem the whole year & we attribute that to user error

that to me has to mean something, we did all the maintenence that PE requires (which is: oil & the #11 oring on the rammer... that's it)

we as a team have chosen Planet Eclipse simply because it's nice to be associated with a company that any Joe-blow off the street can call up with a gun problem & they will fix it with no questions asked

problem is - our gun tech is like the Maytag repair man, he never has anything to do

I hope this helps a little

-chris

[flyingpootang]

Raising your dwell will give you a better shot to shot consistency, but will also increase the kick slightly...

[Tugboater203]

I got my 06 well used and with a few upgrades. It has the Tadao M7 board and I love how it shoots, the only thing I want to add is a cure bolt but I'm not sure how well it will work with the Killa detents it came with. It was also scary loud, I didn't expect it to be so loud since it was a new gun, but I scared the poo out of the cats, in fact it's MCB's kind of loud I love it. It light, fast and I got it cheap because the 08 are out and they just killed the market. I know I'll never get what I paid for it but if the only real difference in model years is milling then I can live with that.
Tug

[Shrub]

I have an '06 as well it has a virtue board/TI rammer/cure bolt and I am getting around 1800 shots off of a 68/4500 mine kicks a little but nowhere near what it did before I installed the Ti rammer. I have the Reg spiking issues as well but from everything that I have read and seen I would say more likely than not it is your reg. I am about to put a CP on mine if that fixes the issue I will pm you. Other than that I usually pull a ful service on it after about 6 cases or so. I have rebuilt my HP reg numerous time but to no avail.

What is your dwell set on? How do you have your LPR & HPR set?

I have my dwell set on 9-10 depending, With LPR flush and My HPR is 2 and 3/4 turns out from off I am shooting 275-289. Using a pure energy HP 68/4500.


As far as being a fan boy I have always shot either a DM or an angel until the DM6 left a really bad taste in my mouth. Mine was obviously a 1st generation one and I cannot remember a day that I pulled it from my gear bag that it did not go down. I still own both angels and DM's and probably always will but my Ego is my main marker and usually the only time I don't use it is if I am playing pump.

My other markers are usually loaned out when someone on my team has marker issues.

[mxmtl]

Yeah, it sounds like your electronics could be the most likely contributer to the consistency and efficiency problems (having to increase the dwell or pressure to compensate for not enough power to go to the solenoid). I bought a brand new 05 EGO in 06 for half the price new as well. I shot it every weekend for a year and I learned that most of my consistency issues were caused by bad batteries or a failing board.