Maryland Massacre - Lessons Learned

["Steve Tyng" <stevet-at-stcharlesmd.com>]

The Maryland Massacre was the third outing for the Dread T34 (T005). Arguably the 
oldest operational vehicle in that it has most of its original systems and structure 
as fielded during the first battle.  T005 is still holding its own well against the 
newer and upgraded units and continues to be a formable opponent on the field.  
There were very few technical issues that detracted from play this time out and I'll 
go over them here.


Servo Horn

Due to an unfortunate frontal collision with another vehicle that involved the other 
vehicle driving up the front of the T34 and pushing the marker barrel skyward.  The 
servo horn attached to my elevate servo was stripped. After this event it was 
difficult to get any repeatability with the marker elevate due to slippage of the 
servo horn on the servo.  The Hitec HS-705MG 1/4 scale servo was not damaged and I 
attribute this to its metal gears and output shaft.  This event showed me where the 
failure point in my elevate design is and in the future I'll have a supply of 
replacement servo horns on hand.


Marker Issues

During the last battle my marker started acting up.  It would not re-cock fully 
after a few rounds were fired off.  This was not a lubrication issue because I 
dumped plenty of lube into the marker with no effect.  It's my thought that the 
marker has some debris in it and requires a teardown to clean it out.  This is 
reinforced in that Joe Summer was having difficulties with his GT marker (similar to 
mine) and he did a world speed record field strip and cleanout while at home base 
during a battle to restore operation.  The lesson here is to be able to get to your 
marker easily for cleaning and have the tools available to strip the marker down.  I 
think I'll also make it a practice to clean the marker during the lunchtime break.


Motor Wedges

For whatever reason I've had a mental block in securing my motor wedges in place.  
I've always relied on the tension of the motor to keep them from moving around.  On 
the second day I broke down and screwed the wedges in to keep them from popping out 
during battle.


Wireless Camera

This year I tried a different wireless camera setup than the one from last year. 
This unit was fully self contained and operated in the 900mhz frequency range.  The 
system failed after the tank moved a few feet and no action video was captured.  I 
am personally done with wireless technology and will not be dumping any more money 
into it.  I think the way to go is with an onboard recording solution such as what 
John Pittellli has done.


Chronometer

This year we had a RadarChron brand of chronometer at the battle.  The RadarChron is 
a little device that is placed at the end of the barrel and it uses doppler radar 
technology to measure paintball velocity.  This year we enforced a maximum velocity 
of 280 FPS (feet per second) which is a standard in the paintball world.  The 
chronometer opened a few eyes.  Some tankers were shooting slow and got to up their 
velocity while others were shooting to fast.  An interesting note is that the GT 
brand of markers appear to be factory set at 330fps, way to fast for safe game play.


Tyng Track System (TTS)

I'll be following up with an illustrated article on the TTS, "The TTS, a Years 
Experience".  For now all I'll say is that the TTS performed admirably in the tall 
grass and underbrush that was prevalent at the Maryland Massacre and its still 
holding together after its third battling event.



Steve Tyng