Post by Beast on Mar 19, 2010 10:06:16 GMT -5
How to make a tracer hop-up unit;
It is easy to build a functioning tracer hop-up unit out of spare or cheap and easy parts. By building a tracer unit into the hop-up, there is no need to buy special tracer mags or the mock silencer tracer units. And the tracer hop-up unit can be left in the gun and never need to be swapped out when night fall arrives at a game.
I started with several items that I already had. A spare metal hop-up unit, and a cheap light up toy that came from my kids. This was the cheap light up type of candy containers that you usually find in places like dollar stores and such. Mine happened to be a light up pumpkin left from Halloween. It used a single LED bulb and two watch batteries to light it. Also I scavenged a micro switch and small two pin connector out of a box of parts from my RC car racing days. Note in the pic that I had already disassembled the light up toy and cut it down to the battery box.
Next I used a 1/8" high speed drill bit, (which matched the size of my LED) to drill through the hop-up. Coming in at a slight angle from the front and up as high as I could get it. This will help make sure that the LED charges the next BB to be loaded into the hop-up bucking.
Care must be taken that you don't push the bit too hard which could deform the feed tube. Use a high speed bit on the highest setting on the drill and let the bit do the work. This should leave you with a nice clean hole that does not need to be cleaned up.
[http://i454.photobucket.com/albums/qq269/wmi-airsoft/stuff/tracer%20unit/DSC_0371.jpg/img]
Using the smaller side of the two pin connector, I cut the leads and soldered them to the leads on the LED.
Next I began to build the wiring harness for the switch and battery box. Using the contacts from the toys battery box, I soldered the leads from the other half of the two pin connector, cutting the red lead in half and adding the switch in the circuit.
Now it was time to mount the LED to the hop-up. I used hot melt glue to both hold and insulate the LED and leads. Take care to make sure the the LED is not placed too deep into the hop-up unit or it will block the flow of BBs.
Assemble the battery box and put the batteries back in and hook up the connectors and give it a test.
With the switch on it gives a nice strong white LED light into the feed tube of the hop-up unit.
After the test, final assembly was simply to e-tape the battery box and switch together to make a nice small package.
Now putting it into an AEG. This is as simple as knocking out the pins and removing the upper receiver, and removing the inner barrel and old hop-up. Simply swap the hop-ups on the barrel.
And replace the barrel back into the gun, making sure to feed the small connector through the feed hole under the outer barrel assembly.
I don't have a front wired gun, but there should still be plenty of room to feed the battery wires through as well. And because of it's small size, the tracer battery pack should have plenty of room also to fit into most hand guards with a regular battery pack in them. It might take configuring the switch in a different spot so that it is long and skinny to fit above the barrel and still leave room for the main battery pack. But should be easy to figure out if you still run the battery up front on you AEG. Mine wedged perfectly in between the barrel and the MOE handguard, although I might add a zip tie to hold it more securely down the road.
After reassembly of the upper and a quick flip of the switch, it was ready for action in the dark.
Test firing in the dark showed that it worked very well on semi, but due to the fast rate of fire of my AEG (20 bps) it did not have as great of effect on full auto. It still charged the BBs enough that you could see them, but not as bright as when fired on semi which gave them a little longer chance to charge in the feed tube. A slower rate of fire would greatly help this. I also feel that in my other AEG with 3 round burst it would work great as the slight pause after every third round would help charge the BBs.
Is it worth it, my opinion is yes. For the very little cost (I did mine for free) and the short amount of time it took to build (30 to 45 minutes) it should work quite well for night games or other dark environments. The only other possibility that I would consider changing up if I were to build another would be to do a two LED set up so that the BBs had longer exposure to the charge due to the high rate of fire on my AEG.
It is easy to build a functioning tracer hop-up unit out of spare or cheap and easy parts. By building a tracer unit into the hop-up, there is no need to buy special tracer mags or the mock silencer tracer units. And the tracer hop-up unit can be left in the gun and never need to be swapped out when night fall arrives at a game.
I started with several items that I already had. A spare metal hop-up unit, and a cheap light up toy that came from my kids. This was the cheap light up type of candy containers that you usually find in places like dollar stores and such. Mine happened to be a light up pumpkin left from Halloween. It used a single LED bulb and two watch batteries to light it. Also I scavenged a micro switch and small two pin connector out of a box of parts from my RC car racing days. Note in the pic that I had already disassembled the light up toy and cut it down to the battery box.
Next I used a 1/8" high speed drill bit, (which matched the size of my LED) to drill through the hop-up. Coming in at a slight angle from the front and up as high as I could get it. This will help make sure that the LED charges the next BB to be loaded into the hop-up bucking.
Care must be taken that you don't push the bit too hard which could deform the feed tube. Use a high speed bit on the highest setting on the drill and let the bit do the work. This should leave you with a nice clean hole that does not need to be cleaned up.
[http://i454.photobucket.com/albums/qq269/wmi-airsoft/stuff/tracer%20unit/DSC_0371.jpg/img]
Using the smaller side of the two pin connector, I cut the leads and soldered them to the leads on the LED.
Next I began to build the wiring harness for the switch and battery box. Using the contacts from the toys battery box, I soldered the leads from the other half of the two pin connector, cutting the red lead in half and adding the switch in the circuit.
Now it was time to mount the LED to the hop-up. I used hot melt glue to both hold and insulate the LED and leads. Take care to make sure the the LED is not placed too deep into the hop-up unit or it will block the flow of BBs.
Assemble the battery box and put the batteries back in and hook up the connectors and give it a test.
With the switch on it gives a nice strong white LED light into the feed tube of the hop-up unit.
After the test, final assembly was simply to e-tape the battery box and switch together to make a nice small package.
Now putting it into an AEG. This is as simple as knocking out the pins and removing the upper receiver, and removing the inner barrel and old hop-up. Simply swap the hop-ups on the barrel.
And replace the barrel back into the gun, making sure to feed the small connector through the feed hole under the outer barrel assembly.
I don't have a front wired gun, but there should still be plenty of room to feed the battery wires through as well. And because of it's small size, the tracer battery pack should have plenty of room also to fit into most hand guards with a regular battery pack in them. It might take configuring the switch in a different spot so that it is long and skinny to fit above the barrel and still leave room for the main battery pack. But should be easy to figure out if you still run the battery up front on you AEG. Mine wedged perfectly in between the barrel and the MOE handguard, although I might add a zip tie to hold it more securely down the road.
After reassembly of the upper and a quick flip of the switch, it was ready for action in the dark.
Test firing in the dark showed that it worked very well on semi, but due to the fast rate of fire of my AEG (20 bps) it did not have as great of effect on full auto. It still charged the BBs enough that you could see them, but not as bright as when fired on semi which gave them a little longer chance to charge in the feed tube. A slower rate of fire would greatly help this. I also feel that in my other AEG with 3 round burst it would work great as the slight pause after every third round would help charge the BBs.
Is it worth it, my opinion is yes. For the very little cost (I did mine for free) and the short amount of time it took to build (30 to 45 minutes) it should work quite well for night games or other dark environments. The only other possibility that I would consider changing up if I were to build another would be to do a two LED set up so that the BBs had longer exposure to the charge due to the high rate of fire on my AEG.