Garf3r's Part Defination Guide

[Garf3r]

Ok, had a few PM's asking what certain parts do in AEG's, so i though i'd make a little list of what each part is and what it does, so people can understand how a Gearbox works.


Pinion gear - the small gear attached to a motor. This is the first gear in the chain of gears. It does not have a fixed location within the gearbox, i.e. is not held within the gearbox. It is attached to the motor and comes out with the motor.

Bevel gear - the first main gear within the gearbox. This gear transfers energy from the motor's pinion gear to the chain of gears within the gearbox.

Anti-Reversal Latch - This will stop the Bevel gear from back spinning, a sort of lock so that it can only turn one way.

Spur Gear - the second gear within the gearbox. This gear transfers energy from the bevel gear to the sector gear. It appears wide and flat compared to all the other gears.

Sector gear - the final gear within the gearbox. This gear transfers rotational energy from the gearing system to the piston's rack in order provide the winding action of the piston. It appears to have only half the teeth on it's circumference. The sector gear also serves as a timing mechanism for the movement of the tappet plate.

Piston - the cylindrical object housed within the cylinder. Serves three purposes: 1) to bear the rotational energy from the gears and transfers it to a lateral energy 2) compresses the spring and 3) bears the piston head

Piston head - the piece attached to the piston. Contains an O-ring. This part creates a seal within the cylinder and during compression (from the spring pushing on it), it pushes a volume of compressed air out of the gearbox.

Tappet plate - a plate which moves the air nozzle in time with the movement of the gears. Timing is based on the movement of the sector gear.

Selector switch - The lever or button that allows the weapon to change between firing modes (eg. Single shot, Burst, Full auto, Safe)
shim - small metal washer-like object located on the axles of the main gears. It sits between the gear and the bushings and acts as a "filler" to prevent too much lateral movement or "play" in the gears. Available in several sizes: 0.13mm, 0.2mm, 0.3mm, 0.5mm

Shimming - the act of properly placing shims on gears to provide just the right amount of spacing so as to avoid the binding of gears and also to avoid too much lateral movement in the gears

Spring - The main source of muzzle energy. A metal coil that has compressional flexibility.

Spring guide - a metal or plastic tube which holds the spring and guides the spring. Prevents the spring from buckling under the piston's pressure.

Spring guide with bearings - similar to above, but containing a bearing system which serves two purposes: To compress the spring which provides more muzzle velocity, and to bear the rotational stress of the spring which occurs during it's compression.

Piston head with bearings - similar to above, but containing a bearing system which serves two purposes: To compress the spring which provides more muzzle velocity, and to bear the rotational stress of the spring which occurs during it's compression.

Bushings/Bearings - plastic or metal cylindrical (or oval-like) objects that sit in the gearbox housing. The axles of the main gears are located within these bushings/bearings and take the rotational stress of the gears.

Cylinder - the cylindrical object which contains the volume of air to be pushed out of the gearbox. Houses the piston assembly.

Cylinder head - the part which attaches to the cylinder and emits the compressed air volume through a small opening, creating a focused stream of air

Cylinder port - a hole or a number of holes located on the cylinder which provides a breathing point for the action of the piston assembly. Location of the port will describe ROF characteristics as well as the volume of air to be pushed out of the cylinder.

Hop-Up buckling - the rubber "lump" that presses against the "bump" located on the sleeve. This "lump" is the piece that is pressed down by the hop-up chamber to provide hop-up.

Hop-Up Chamber/Unit - the assembly which imparts a backspin on a BB to provide a more stable and longer flight path

Hop-Up Sleeve - the rubber sleeve which surrounds the inner barrel. The sleeve has a bump on it which is the contact point against the BB to impart the backspin as the BB passes through the barrel.

Vented piston head - a piston head with holes located on it's surface. These holes will fill and push the O-ring out on compression of the piston assembly - the expanded O-ring will in turn create a better seal and will result in a smaller loss of velocity due to lost air. On the back-motion of the piston, these holes will suck air out of the piston head and will pull the O-ring in, thus, allowing the piston assembly to draw back at a faster speed due to reduced friction from the o-ring against the cylinder.

Tight bore - a smaller radius inner barrel which would replace the stock barrel on an airsoft

16 AWG - The recommend wire type for re-wiring your aeg's

if i've missed any, please do add them to the list as this could help alot of people out when upgrading/downgrading.

[mj23lj]

Re: Garf3r's Part Defination Guide

Great guide mate, should come in useful when I upgrade my rifle this week...

Needs to be stickied!

[Garf3r]

Re: Garf3r's Part Defination Guide

no worries, a got the idea from your sniper one which has proved very helpful in my decession of bolt action's so cheers for that.

I find that if you know how your stuff works, then you know how to tweak it to what you want. I find that alot of people don't know what half the parts do, but just buy them anyways because its branded, i.e systema.

[sj_asc]

Re: Garf3r's Part Defination Guide

The Hop Bucking is the Sleeve not the Spacer. The Bucking is also an air seal part and can affect FPS as well as accuracy.

I find that alot of people don't know what half the parts do, but just buy them anyways because its branded, i.e systema.

Agreed, theres more to it than brand names, most good brands don't make the best of every part, if people knew a little more about how everything worked it can make it easier and cheaper to get the setup you want.

http://www.geckoairsoft.com/index.php?page=32
Ill update it soon

[Garf3r]

Re: Garf3r's Part Defination Guide

For those that don't know how it would work heres a little animated picture i found on the net ages ago of a ver 2 gearbox (not 100% accurate, but you get the picture, no pun intended!)



Also another quick pointer i can give some of you.

For a fast Rate of Fire (many people ask this)

You can do the following simple steps:
1. Faster motor, a TM EG1000, G&P M120 or systema turbo (fast aeg motor on the market, however its con is that its a high drain! meaning it'll gut your battery quicker), faster motor will make the mech go much faster than standard motors

2. Less powered spring, a m80 or m90, this means less tension and less work for the motor to do, meaning faster RoF.

3. Higher voltage battery, most aegs run on 8.4v or 9.6v. However if you bump it up to 10.8v or 12v it'll make the motor run even faster! Caution, too fast may cause a cheaper low budget motor to burn out.

these are the 3 main cheap ways to make a aeg fire real fast! I would of course recommend ethier Guarder, Deep-Fire, Systema or Prometheus parts for doing a re-work of any gearbox.

In some cases though, firing to fast can cause a problem which i personally call "bb stalking" (thats not its real name) its basicly when you fire, its that fast, that the bb behind it hits the one in front, this cases the bb to not fly straight and true, it'll go were ever the hell it wants, to stop this problem i would recommend a nifty little part called a "Tappet Plate Delayer" this will fix the timing of the bb's loading mech, meaning you AEG has a chance for the first bb to leave the barrel and fly towards the poor sod on the other side!

Picture of the Tappet Plate Delayer


It fits onto you the sector gear (gear that pulls the piston back), there are probably a few makes of this by now, however the only two im aware of are STAR and Element, and they cost under $5! Cheap upgrade to fix a major problem

I of course hope this guide helps many people with problems they may face as well, over the next day or two, i will do a video of high speed vs high torque and post it here, it'll show the pro's and con's of each set up. I will also post example of tune ups i have done to my AEG's and the ones that were done to the aegs in the video. If anyone has any questions, fire away, im sure there are many people on these forums who can help as much as i've hopefuly done tonight

sniperjesus:
you are more wise with these matters, however i dont recall saying the buck was a spacer however if i did then i stand corrected in which case can someone amend this, i should have also mentions the differences between hard and soft hop up sleaves.. You are correct on the parts bit, not every good make make good parts, apparently Element make a beast of a hop up chamber, i can't confirm this myself however its what ive been told.

Hard would be for springs over 120? or is it 130? can't remember everything lol and soft one's are for below 120/130 im sure.

[sj_asc]

Re: Garf3r's Part Defination Guide

Hop Buckings, depending on manufacturer, Soft is generally below 400fps w/.20g, Hard usually 450fps+ (going by Laylax Prometheus), FireFly and KM offerings have a wider range and are more specific about velocity range. Long term, I have found Systema and Tokyo Marui's are fine durability wise up to 400fps.

The Tappet Delayers engage the Tappet sooner and release later than normal, the purpose is to allow for more time for the mag to feed the bbs to the chamber.
These have been around for a while now, and i have seen many different types, one thing that i don't like about them is that they engage the tappet plate earlier, this means that for those without Active Breaking Switches, the sector will have continued around enough after cutoff (as it often does with high ROF) to engage the Tappet sooner which leaves it open which is not always good as ideally the Tappet Spring should be stored in a rested state.
These Tappet Delayers do work if you have a slow feeding Magazine, i don't, i think it is a better option to get decent mags, or modify them to feed faster, the majority of top name high cap mags will feed well to around 35rps, and low caps even higher.

High Rate Of Fire (ROF)
Very high cycle rates paired with low spring rates can cause gear timing issues, the initial sector tooth will attempt to engage the wrong tooth on the piston rack gear because it has not returned to battery in time which could cause the sector to attempt to pull the piston through the back of the mechbox shell, not only this but the Piston would be traveling forwards at the time of engagement and the tooth in contact will take the full impact and either deform or break off.
It sounds right for high speed setups to use lighter springs, but in reality it can cause failure, the Piston assembly must return in time before the sector attempts to pull it back, the following parts commonly affect this; Inner barrel length/bore diameter, Cylinder Type, BB weight + consistency, Lubricants used, Spring rate are all important when looking to build a fast ROF setup. The faster you plan to go, the more important it is that you consider these things, with pretty much any fast setup i recommend staying over stock spring ratings. There are various modifications that can be done in order to maintain high ROF, i will edit and branch into this when i get time. I did a couple of writeups for GeckoAirsoft and that has most of this covered.

[Garf3r]

Re: Garf3r's Part Defination Guide

sniper, if you do get the time, i would love for you to write me a ideal CQB set-up, not matter what parts etc are required, looking for a perfect setup for amazing range but keep within the fps limit

i can do a **** hot set-up for woodland, but not so great for cqb lol, but ye,, its with ever part mate, everything has its pro's n con's, it was a minor suggestion that a tappet plate delayer would fix the problem i had with the systema turbo, as its so dam fast is just makes bb's hit each other lol, however im using a m100 spring, not going any higher than that until my spring bearing guide arrvies, as the gearbox is polycarb and im always scared incase to make stress will case it to snap.