East Coast Angel (ECA) won't return my Angel A4 Fly

[punkncat]

The issue with that Ego are reg piston/seat. They have been out of the 7 ones for some time. There was some snippet that Eclipse was going to convert the German site to be supplying all the old parts again, but I have yet to see that come to fruition. The last I tried over a year ago, the only Ego 8 pistons you could find were from the SL8R, and a hunt shortly after netted only used parts available. Superb markers, but without that LPR piston you are rather screwed.

[Roger7pball]

I’m trying to think of any parts that are unobtainable...

For an Angel LCD

• Board and battery - Enoch, PPE, Virtue etc and a 9v
• Solenoid straight from SMC
• HPR anything is better than the mini reg
• LPR you can rebuild it or use an AKA they still make
• Orings from anywhere
• Feednecks still available, nummech makes stubs
• Ram is rebuildable although a pain

The breach pins may be the hardest thing to replace if you ever need to but they’re not hard to make.

The later generations could have some harder to find parts but I haven’t hit that snag yet.

[imped4now]

Have 4 Angels currently - all in excellent shape and I'm pretty good on parts. Finding parts, while not "easy", has never been a huge issue. It helps that the markers stay nicely lubricated and rarely see any actual use. 😆

[CrowsFeast]

I honestly kind of want an angel but I already have 1 marker which could easily die and eternal death (from the sounds of things the Ego7 is now old enough that a number of replacement parts are hard/impossible to find) and I don't need the headache/heartache of another.

[Tarsun2]

ha, glutton for punishment here.
god i love my angel though. (to me) it has so much character. Its reputation has long preceded it though; especially in recent years. it was so far ahead of its time that it stayed relevant for so long; but that's been changing in recent years.
the best thing though, is that its an angel and will always be. its not something that you can just walk into the proshop and buy off the wall... it still has this aura surrounding it and i find that pretty cool.

i have a 68 camaro and love it. its not pretty, its not fast, it handles for sh!t, and gets awful mpg. in every aspect of a car, a 2008 civic si will destroy it...
but its a 68 camaro and will always be. there are only a limited number of them out there (let alone still on the road). it has an aura around it and people get excited when they see it. (even though its not that great by todays standards).

thats how i see the angels.

[Paintslinger16]

The very reason I sold my Alien abduction
Angel.
my question on all of this shit show, has anyone contacted his local PD and filed complaints?

[imped4now]

punkncat, to be fair the factory HPR's suck. I stash the factory HPR's and use CP or AKA HPR's in all of mine.

[punkncat]

This is exactly what I am talking about.

I had the reg seat (I think that is what it was called) maybe the piston, but anyway the little end of a ball point pen looking thing with a ring and a seat on the back end of it, made of brass originally. It was "improved" upon as a delrin bit called the "Lite" or something such....and ALL bought up by what seemed like a couple of people that didn't want to come off of them. Ended up having to find and purchase the CP vert adapter and use an aftermarket reg all because of inability to find that part. There are "like" 4 people hoarding all of them.

[punkncat]

In truth, there are certain failures that are already becoming nearly impossible to reliably come back from on many models newer than the LCD. The only reason I don't mention those is the sheer number of them out there available to rob (possibly temporary) parts from.
Solenoids. Cup Seals/Valve, breech seals, the Vert ASA gasket....that's just the tip of the iceberg.

[Shaftski]

I bought out a local angel tech's spares around 20 years ago, all LED and LCD parts. Main reason I still have both of my LCDs is because of that spare stash. Otherwise I would have sold them off years ago, too much hassle, too many knuckleheads. Both have dead boards and I'm making homebrew boards for them rather than shelling out 300+ to get them running. Has a LiPo charger circuit, oled board, everything.

[Cunha]

Your post takes all angel guns out to pasture for everyone but the most dedicated of triple tube lovers. Yikes

[punkncat]

When WDP went out of business, things have just been on a steady downhill. IMO, there were service issues WELL before that. Anyone remember the "original" TAG?
When FB came up with a couple of Angel forums, right at first they were SUPER helpful, or so it seemed. We come to find later that what it (mostly) was a tool for collectors to fix higher prices and then scare out and suck up all the nice Angels and anything decent they could get for parts. It went from helpful to shithole in less than a couple of years. There are well more people than just Brad in that community that are complete douche canoes. MANY of them have no issue being openly hostile if you happen to have one or a few of a couple dozen people in your friend list.

Top this off by a substantial lack in repair and replacement parts, and suddenly you have various people attempting to make things to fill the void. Some of them work well, some of them meant well, and some of it is pure shit it itself. For instance, the Enoch boards that came out are honestly an astounding bit of hardware for a blind marker, but by and large there is a critical failure in the ability of the system it's build on to read and react to eye signal properly. Basically all of them are half ass blind....People out there charging $50+ dollars for genuine breech seals, total lack of parts for the newest (SB), and very few for some of the earlier G7 platform. The aftermarket manufacturers quit fucking with them years ago.
As any maggot would know it's basically getting near impossible to find Angel feednecks aside from one (Empire copy) person, who happens to be pretty cool in my book, but have read complaints about him as well.

I don't say any of this to defend Brad. He brought this on himself....but IMO if you are into Angel you either know something, have some backstock, or are a glutton for punishment outside having a beautiful wall hanger.

YMMV

[Chappy]

Sounds like SP's m.o. "Don't open the magic box, the fairies will escape and it wil be useless!!"

[iamthelazerviking]

I saw this Brad fellow's replies in the PBN thread...unreal. Total ass-hat, rude, condescending, and cocky. Going off about how much he has done for Angels. If he was here doing that, he would be banned right away.

[Shaftski]

There was a problem with some certified angel techs there for a while where some would make you think these things were rocket science, and you should never let anyone inexperienced touch them. Which was all total BS of course. My theory is it had to do with the marker cost. One tech told me I could afford the work because I shelled out so much for an LCD.

I went to college for mechanical engineering and one of them still argued with me about the design complexity. Check 2 pressures, listen for leaks, chrono, and done. Easier than a spyder.