In addition to my refereeing and basic safety training on handling and filling high pressure vessels, aka "air/CO2 tanks", I also have air smith training. Air smithing, the repair and upgrading of paintball guns/markers, has a pretty serious geek appeal to me because I've always liked figuring out how things work.
Folks think paintball markers are pretty complicated, when they aren't, really. You just have to understand how they are are put together.
First a few definitions.
- A valve opens and closes to allow the gas through the system—think of a valve like a door or gate you have to open to walk into the house. All paintball markers have valves of some time to prevent control the gas release to fire the paintball.
- A regulator controls gas pressure. Think of what happens when you turn on your faucet—you can have a trickle or a high flow of water. A regulator does the same thing for a gas. Not all paintball markers use regulators. They are more common on marker systems using high pressure air rather than CO2.
A trigger—what you actuate to fire off the paintball—can either be a mechanical trigger and sear, or an electrical solenoid (switch). The trigger and sear/solenoid, are what start the paintball marker's firing cycle.
To fire the a paintball, you take a compressed, high pressure gas (the air tank), and let the gas out in short bursts in a systematic manner via a trigger or solenoid connected to a valve of some sort. Sometimes, there is a step-down mechanism to regulate the gas pressure between the tank and the trigger, or between other parts of the marker system.
There are about 3 or 4 basic designs, with some complications thrown in for good measure, but the key is learning the path of the air through the marker system, and how the actuators interact with the valves and the gas.
I'll talk more about the parts of paintball markers in my next posts.
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