It is a sad day. My Vibe is broken (Edit: Problem fixed! Dwell settings. Scroll down for explanation.)
As I posted earlier, I just bought a used Smart Parts Vibe. It performed great the first time I used it (two weeks ago). I took apart some parts of the gun and reassembled it (just because I like figuring out how stuff works) after I got home from that trip. Today, when I hooked up my CO2, gas started spewing out from the bottom of the reg. I thought perhaps I had messed something up when I reassembled the gun. I took the regulator apart and put it back together. The leak stopped (not sure why), but the gun would not cycle. It would make a pathetically weak, quite "pop", and the bolt would kind just lurch a bit.
Fortunately, there was some paintball tech guru type at the field, so I took it to him. He took everything apart, cleaned/lubed all the moving parts and o-rings, reassembled the gun, replaced the battery, tried a different tank, etc. Still no fix. He told me that my solenoid was probably toasted.
So now my questions for you, PBNation members:
1. Does his diagnosis sound legit to you?
2a. If so, how did my solenoid go bad since my last outing?
2b. If not, what might be wrong? What remedies should I attempt?
3. Is it worth replacing my solenoid? Or should I just buy a new marker?
Thanks
P.S. Yesterday I ordered an HPA Ninja tank. I was going to pimp out my Vibe with a lime green Custom Products one piece barrel, lime green dropforward, and black on/off ASA, but at the last minute, I cancelled everything from my shopping cart except the tank. I figured it wasn't wise to dump a lot of money into a cheap gun. So glad I didn't! Otherwise on Monday I'd be receiving a box full of parts for a broken gun. At least I can use my new HPA tank on any future gun.
Last edited by NinjaBall : 04-30-2012 at 05:12 PM.
not to sure wether its the solenoid or not, but if it is im pretty sure the Blackheart Board comes with an Ion solenoid, so if you love the vibe might as well keep it and get the Blackheart and boom! your marker all of a sudden is a performing paintball destroying machine, and for me a blackhearted vibe is more then enough of a marker to compete.
And besides who doesnt love pimping up a marker
I'll leave the techie smart people questions to the techie smart people
__________________ Retired from Paintball! I will return soon PBNation!
try several batteries BRAND NEW IN PACK.. even those sometimes are not good enough when ya buy em and you will need to try a few (akiline)
I have two sp1s (basicly vibes) and tried to use them last weekend.. they worked fine for a bit.. then started the same symptoms stated above in your post.. I tried cleaning everything, re assemble,ect ect.. even tried 4 different batteries, new in pack.. nothing.. get em home.. screwed with em some more, threw in a brand new akiline battery and what do ya know.. like nothing was every wrong in the first place..
as for the noid, when you have the marker on and pull the trigger (no air) you should hear the beep of the board (at least in my sp1s ya do) just behind the beeping if you put your ear next to it you should hear a faint clicking.. thats the noid..
best bet try several name brand akiline batteries..
__________________ I shot the Sheriff,The Deputy And the Ref.. But we all knew the Ref had it coming.
I tried firing while my finger was down the feed neck. I could feel no air movement in the chamber at all. I did, however, notice a puff of air escaping through my grip panels (or whatever the slabs are called that hold the battery in).
I created a short video documenting the problem. As you can hear, the firing sound is very weak. And as you can see, the bolt is not moving at all.
I'm not sure if pictures would help anything, but here are some pictures of the solenoid and board. I'm not sure what it's supposed to look like, but it looks fine to me.
The only thing wrong was this bit of fraying in the wire. The damage is mostly to the insulation, and damage to the actual wire is minimal (if any at all).
Last edited by NinjaBall : 04-29-2012 at 05:12 PM.
If you can , have the wire repaired.. little bit of soilder and a bit of heat shrink tubing or electrical tape will fix it.. and again try fresh batteries. ecen still with video same symptoms as the sp1s i have when using crappy batteries. even when new in pack i had the issues.
__________________ I shot the Sheriff,The Deputy And the Ref.. But we all knew the Ref had it coming.
If ur comfortable taking ur solenoid apart, do that, look at the disk looking part, particularly the rubber nub in the middle and see if that's bad. Bad as in not flat looking. Try flipping it over and see if it works. It's a hit or miss trick...
NoX13: I'll try another battery when I can find one, but I don't think that's the problem. The battery I originally had in it was a brand new Energizer. The guy who was helping me fix it used one of those electric current tester thingees and the battery was reading 8.5 volts. Just to be safe, he tried another brand new Energizer and the problem persisted.
After examining the frayed wire a bit closer, it does look like there are a few broken strands. Not sure if that matters or not, but considering that there aren't too many strands to start with, perhaps it does.
shocktroop: I opened up the solenoid and flipped the disk around. The nub looked fine and the o-ring below it looked great.
I tried firing with the bolt out of the gun and the bolt housing back cap dealeo off the gun. Air was puffing out of the rear screw thingee on the board. When I put the bolt back in and sealed everything up, it seems like all the air got redirected straight out the solenoid.
The air is exiting the solenoid pretty violently (enough to budge an 1/8" allen key sitting on my table a few inches away), so I guess that explains why I felt air puffing through the grip slabs.
Air is suppose to exhaust through there. Perfectly Normal. Your circuit board may be the problem. It's rare but it has happened in my experience. If you can get ur hands on another one to try out to test, that would help you eliminate another possibility.
I'm thinking of another possibility of your bolt being really worn by the previous user. Can you get me a picture of that? with the bolt stopper off.
Oh, ok. That's good to know. The main thing that's confusing me is how the gun worked fine two weeks ago, then stopped working yesterday.
I think my bolt is fine (all the black anodization is intact, and the o-rings look good), but I took some pictures of the bolt and the solenoid. Note that any streaks that look like wear or scratches in the anodization are actually just smeared grease that the tech guy applied when he was checking out my problem
I've added all my photos for this issue to a public Facebook photo album at:
Update: Not sure if this matters or not, but I just put the gun back together and the bolt would jump a little bit each shot (compared to not moving at all before). I turned off the gun, then turned it back on. Then the bolt wouldn't move again.
Im telling ya, as silly and stupid as it may sound..
fix the wire,clip,strip,soldier and cover..
BRAND NEW Alkaline battery..
im not kiding when I say last weekend I played and used (or tried to) both of my sp1s.. swapped 4 new batteries in each and it would do the same stuff you are mentioning.. I got to take a hand full of shots,try again.. nothing..
figured since i tried so many different batteries it had to be the board or noid.. last ditch effort I picked up a double pack of energizers and tried again (despite having tried one I had sitting on my stand that seemed good for everything else) and the first sp1 shot like a dream again.. threw the second battery in sp1#2.. and again no issues.. I was so frustrated yet happy at the same time..
__________________ I shot the Sheriff,The Deputy And the Ref.. But we all knew the Ref had it coming.
he does have a point.. i cant count how many problems i have had with my electros and when it all came down to it .. it was a stupid battery.. it never even crossed my mind
I never go anywhere now without packs of duracell batteries
So go out and buy yourself some nice fresh new batteries, cross your fingers and put em in
__________________ Retired from Paintball! I will return soon PBNation!
Shot in the dark here, but did you make sure to screw your reg screw back out when you put it together? You may have accidentally screwed it in and choked the gun off. Just a thought.
I feel like the biggest idiot ever, but I'm so happy that my gun works that I don't even care, haha. I have a really old Vibe (before they were select fire). When I first got the marker, I didn't know that they ever even made non-select-fire Vibes, so I tried all different combinations of unplugging the battery and pulling the trigger to try to get it out of tournament lock semi-auto (not realizing that the gun was ONLY semi-auto). Turns out that when you disconnect the battery with the trigger pulled, you enter dwell-adjustment mode. Each trigger pull after that reduces the dwell. Through my tinkering, I had accidentally lowered my dwell from the standard (50) down to 15.
But I still owe you guys for the battery suggestion. I just got back from Rite-Aid with a four pack of 9v's. I tried them all with no luck, but something about repeatedly plugging batteries in over and over again triggered some memory in my brain about adjusting dwell settings by unplugging the battery, and that's what lead me to this fix.
I brought the dwell back up to 50 and pulled the trigger. BANG! A grin crept across my face.
Shots fired in celebration:
Thank you very much to paintballcrazy94, NoX13, shocktroop, and Dedloc for helping me out!
P.S. Is there a way to add "(Edit: Fixed!)" to my thread title?
Last edited by NinjaBall : 04-30-2012 at 04:59 PM.
Awesome.. glad to hear it worked out for yajust as a reminder to yourself you can take a piece of white sports tape and put it inside the grip panel with a note in sharpie to yourself . ive had to leave myself a few notes in the past and in a spot like the grip panel youre sure to see it going in for making adjustments.
__________________ I shot the Sheriff,The Deputy And the Ref.. But we all knew the Ref had it coming.
If there's a secret dwell adjusting mode, it's definitely not told by the manufacture besides the two preset one when you hold the on/off and connect the battery.
shocktroop: The two preset modes are present on all the select fire Vibes. My Vibe is one of the oldest ones, made before they were select fire. Only the old semi-only Vibes like mine have this kind of dwell adjustment setting, if my info is correct.
(Edit: Problem fixed! Dwell settings. Scroll down for explanation.)
