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Heated grips for GBB


scorch

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I've just found one of those USB powered cup warmers in the attic. Its thin, and judging by the heating pattern, has 2 elements in it, so one for either side of the grip.

 

Just wondering if it'll be worth stripping and fitting it in the frame space between the grips and mags in my M9.

 

USB power is 5V right?

 

What would be the best way of powering such a thing?

 

AEG battery with a remote line shrink wrapped down a lanyard maybe?

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Has this been done before? I'd be careful about putting a heat source right next to a source of volatile gas. It sounds like a mini pipe-bomb to me. I'm not quite sure what temperature it'd need to be at to light, but you also have to take pressure into account... I'm no chemist, but I'm sure we can get someone to help answer that question.

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i will go the other way,and say it sounds good.

 

no worse than warming mags in your pocket before using them (if you get the maths correct!)...

 

the only problem i see is when changing mags. you cant use the new one right away, it needs to warm first ;)

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Green isnt very flammable tbh, it might just break a few seals if the pressure gets to high and vent the gas all at once. Why not use a few resisters and bring heat output down this should also bring down the drain on the batts. Put the heating coil on one side of the grip and see if you can fit in some coin batteries in the other. Saying that i know nothing of how electrics work and could be talking complete turd.

 

 

I would just put the heater in your pocket. Keeps you warm, keeps the mag warm and sloves the battery storage problem. Just load when needed.

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Green isnt very flammable tbh

Unless you're talking about the occasional can that's filled with HFC22, propane is what's in most of them and is very flammable. But it does need an open flame to ignite; even embers from charcoal or a cigarette won't be enough to set it off. Safety wise, any electronic heating element can short circuit and lead to an open flame. But you're likely to notice hot grips anyway before they burst into flame and ignite the gas. Just as a safety precaution, have the power source of the heating element disconnected when in storage.

Other than that, you could go CO2 mags (KJW makes M9 CO2 mags) if you just want to beat cool down.

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Green gas is very flamable!

 

 

 

The problem with liquid power sources like green gas or duster gas is that any time you draw pressure the tempriture of the gas drops, and any tempriture change means a pressure change. heating the grips just means that the first few shots would be higher pressure than normal, but it would still drop, unless you get so much heat into the magazine that the metal of the magazine holds extra heat, but even then the energy will be lost through the liquids evaporation.

 

A tiny heater will never be capable of keeping the tempriture consistent but it would help keep the tempriture higher than without it. I'd love to see just how much it improves performance, I await your results.

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Well, ive never experienced anything like what is in them videos with green gas. And ive just tried it myself with z1 green gas, try it yourself if you like. Put a lighter (not a wind proof one) infront of your GBB and pull the trigger, it will blow the flame out just as it did with me. Ive vented mags into camp fires and nothing has happened except it blows the flames in the same direction as the gas flow. Im running a tm 1911 with nova mbk, guarder highflow valves, 6.03mm barrel, pdi winter piston head and a chamber packing. Maybe its just to light for me to see any flames or maybe im doing it wrong. (Doing the this is your own choice and i am not responsible if you hurt yourself)

 

Obviously propane is, and if you just run propane its not a good idea to do the above. I understand that propane is very flamable and as a gas by itself ofcourse it will turn your GBB into a flame thrower.

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Have had a look, and I don't think it's gonna be viable with what I have here.

 

I'm not scrapping the idea though by any stretch of the imagination.

 

As a sniper I HAVE to carry a backup at all times according to my local site's rules and it'd be nice to have a way of using the pistol/holster/mags I already have during the winter.

 

 

Edit: for clarification

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I just use a movil phone bag hanger inside my shirt, holds a mk23 mag close to mi heart and keeps it hot enought, no electricity, no overheating, and even "lubes" it, but as are MY MAGS, I do not mind (neither have them for sale)

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Just to add to the flammable propane argument, it is very flammable as I will explain.

 

Friend gets a woc when they came out, very fun and all that jazz... other mate thinks it would be cool to see if you could get a 'flamethrower' type thing goin on in full auto, nope just a scary fireball and flames coming out of the receiver and stopping at the gas bucking.

 

Luckily as soon as the fireball occurred I threw the woc away so no more gas came out, just glad the mag valve was working well or that could if been a nice grenade!!

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As a sniper I HAVE to carry a backup at all times according to my local site's rules and it'd be nice to have a way of using the pistol/holster/mags I already have during the winter.

It requires a new gun, but have you considered an AEP with a battery lanyard? Keep the battery under your vest and it will be good to go no matter how cold it gets.

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Just to add to the flammable propane argument, it is very flammable as I will explain.

 

There is no argument about propane being flammable, i even said that. What i am saying is that ive never been able replicate any kind of flame out of my GBB using green gas like the guys in the videos linked. Using pure propane will obviously get you those results.

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It requires a new gun, but have you considered an AEP with a battery lanyard? Keep the battery under your vest and it will be good to go no matter how cold it gets.

 

I'll carry my SPAS12 everywhere before I buy one of those pathetic things. <_<

 

Also, would require buying the gun, mags, and yet another holster as all of mine are for an M9 or a Mk23.

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  • 1 month later...

Hey all,

 

Just reviving this thread with a post I recently made on AirsoftMechanics, it does go over a few things that others have said, but hey ho.

 

 

I'm a UK based airsfoter and currently have 3 gas guns, one of which is a classic Maruzen Micro Uzi (the one with the recessed mags), as well as strongly considering getting my hands on a GBBR.

 

Problem with just adding a heating element and a battery is the fact that A: battery life would be terrible and B: the common heater the right size heats to up 40deg at 5v. This isn't ambient temperature as well, but direct application, meaning that the magazines run a risk of over-pressurizing and blowing or sending the fps sky high for the first shot.

 

So I found myself in a situation where I was in a pub, having lunch with a bunch of environmental science students who were discussing the more exiting species of lichen, which led to this:

 

needleswords-HeaterKetchupDiagSmall.jpg

 

What you see there is a very basic temperature control system. At the top you can see a heater and thermistor. In the middle you have a voltage comparator and a simple voltage divider circuit, with one end having the thermistor and the other will have the appropriate resistor, which sets the default cut-off point for the heater. At the bottom you have a 3.7v battery, ideally a li-on one, taken from a mobile phone, as they come with protection circuits built in, meaning that charging them is a piece of cake and I don't need to worry about the usual lipo troubles with charging and discharging. Also, as it's only 3.7v, it should drop the heater voltage to a max of about 25-30deg, which is a little bit safer than 40 I guess. I am not 100% sure as to what a safe heat is however.

 

needleswords-HeaterDiag.JPG

 

That's a more sensible version of the above image, with a charging point. What I am struggling with at the moment is being able to understand how the thermistors actually work. Ideally I'm after a device with a linear or roughly linear relationship of heat to resistance, meaning that I can get the heater to a certain heat measure the resistance of the thermistor and find a resistor of that value. That way I can manually calibrate the cut-off points for each device.

 

Also, the other part I am not 100% on is the comparator switch. I know that they are cheap, and usually come with two in one package and compare voltage. But how they work or which one to pick is also a tricky one. I can dig out my op-amp lecture notes, but I think it will be cheaper to buy a prebuilt comparator. Hell, this may not even be the best way to do this, so any input would be much appreciated. All I know I need is something that completes a circuit is one voltage is higher than the other one and runs on as little as 3.7v and if it has some sort of delay built in that would be even better.

 

Oh, and for reference on costing and sourcing parts etc:

 

Heaters

Available in USB heated gloves, pretty much any China-rubbish store, such as ebay, bestofferbuy.com etc from ~£4 and come in pairs, sometimes even 4 in a set. They also come with nice small bullet connectors and a USB cable that you can use to make the charger.

 

Thermistors

Are the NTC types and are available on ebay

 

Comparator

No clue, all I know, is I need this, a <a href=" http:=" en.wikipedia.org="" wiki="" voltage_comparator#dedicated_voltage_comparator_chips"="">Dedicated voltage comparator chip

 

[edit]

Just saw this website.

Looks perfect for me, available on the bay for 2.20 for 6, I'm sure RS etc would have it for cheaper. Was getting confused by some of the other models which had clock in pins and all sorts -_- Seems to have a voltage range of 2-36V. I may end up needing a quad however so that I can use one to disconnect the heater circuit from the charge loop... Or should I not bother to allow for external batteries etc? bleh, decisions...

[/edit]

Anyway, hope this helps someone or someone has any advice to help me, even if it's something mind-numbingly simple, haha

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Funny that you mention environmental science, which so happens to by my major. Now I'm curious about that lichen you mentioned...

 

ANYWAY, how about you just rig two heating elements in series (one in each grip) to effectively cut your voltage in half? 3.7V batts fully charged would probably read 4-4.5V so you get a maximum 2.25V per heater. That would probably get you something under 25C, safe enough.

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Haha, I'll need to get you talking with the missus, she is doing work experience as an environmental consultant. She has a latin plant names of the week and everything...

 

I'm still debating over the effective temperature to go for actually.. I mean how many people keep mags in their pockets for warmth, and that is near 30-35. Is it a better idea to blast it with heat until the mag reaches 25 or to gently warm at 25? Just wondering what the easiest way to use this device to slow the cooldown effect alongside just it being a winter warmer...

 

I was definitely going to have a pad either side of the mag, maybe if possible staggered as well, so one covers the upper section of the mag and the other one covers the lower section. If I'd want to blast them with heat, then wiring the 2 pads in parallel is probably a better idea. The thermistors I got will probably go just next to the heater in an attempt to measure the mag temperature, rather than the heater temperature.

 

Thankfully the comparators I got are dual packages as well (8 pins, able to compare 2 sets of voltages), so the heaters will be able to cut off independently to one another, depending on how cold that side is.

 

Last thing I came across was something called resistance wire. Basically does what it says on the tin, it's wire with a high resistance. Converts voltage to heat, yay! May be an idea for me to buy a few meters and play around with it, see if it's cheaper or more effective than buying the heater gloves or not.

 

Hurm.

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