Well, it looks like another case of the industry at its finest.  I am so
fed up with the various paintball companies that I will be shortly
releasing all of our designs (including those that get around the many
patents that have been suppressing technology in this sport) as well as
all of our source code and hardware information.

This should even the playing field and put the manufacturers in check if
anyone can make their own boards and build their own markers.  Let’s
face it.  A board for a paintball marker in single unit quantity is less
than $20 to make.  In mass production quantities, they are $5 or less.
I originally wanted to sell our products for $29, but National Paintball
decided that they were worth $129 and everyone should make a bunch of
money because players don’t know any different.  Well… hello players!
Wake up!  While I was working with System-X, I learned that it cost
only $138 to make the Enemy, and this was all made in the U.S.  This
price included our board, solenoid, and wiring harness that was $40 to
System-X.  I am working with a company in China right now that can
produce a electro-pneumatic Spyder clone for about $40 complete with
electronics, and that is in 100 piece lots.  We have been getting hosed
for years people!

There are only a handful of people that I respect in this industry.
Dale Ford is one, for bringing out many of the truths.  Bob Long is a
pioneer because this man spends hour upon hour experimenting.  Bob can’t
solder wires to save his life, but he has the knack for putting things
together until something works.  Bob has gotten screwed by the industry
far worse than most will ever know, and has always come back with great
stuff.  Jack Rice is also another person with incredible ideas and
patience to try every possible combination.  Obviously, WGP and AGD get
a huge amount of respect as being the pioneers in pneumatics and
compressed air systems.  Tippmann will always be a leader because they
have an active R&D department and focus on the rec side of the sport,
which is the “fun” side.  David Zinkham and Glenn Forster are also
pioneers.  These guys truly love to make things the best possible, and
they are not afraid to blow something up!  I consider them friends.

Smart Parts, Dye, and WDP should give it a rest in the patents
department.  Perhaps one day someone will step up and challenge the
patents.  Given the massive amounts of prior art, and apparent lack of
investigation by the U.S. patent dept., I believe you really can’t have
3 different patents with the exact same claims.  You can be innovative,
make money, and not stifle technology.

Many years ago, I had a prototype of my Corkscrew loader.  The idea was
sound and it worked, but I had no time to finish development and go to
market.  Ironically, NXE released my basic design.  The people at NXE
are from Phoenix, and I practiced with them.  I was a little surprised
that they would do this.  But hey, no patents, so it really didn’t
matter.  If Tom Kaye had patented compressed air for paintball (which he
could have), where would we be now?

What happened to the sport?  I feel a bit responsible for the rate of
fire wars that were started about 7 years ago when I first made Bob’s
Intimidator boards.  Not long after that, just about every Pro team came
to me asking for cheater boards.  Guess what?  I never made any cheater
boards for any teams or any person.  The closest I cam to making
anything out of the ordinary were some boards for Bob Long that could be
put into full auto for cycle testing solenoids.  It seems that
manufacturers and some players lost sight of the sport and turned
paintball into who can cheat the most.  Very sad really.

Then there are the Internet experts.  It’s amazing to me just how much
these people don’t know.  The AKA FSDO fiasco was an amazing event,
bringing out all of the experts, including AKA.  Since I helped design
the new Koganei solenoid used in the Viking and Excalibur, I wanted it
fast as possible.  So, we changed the valving to reduce the OFF time to
be just 2ms, instead of the normal 10ms.  Guess what that did?  It meant
that your total dwell time was now controlling the actual dwell.  The
previous solenoid’s OFF time was 8ms longer.  This means to get the
exact same result with the new solenoid, you needed to add 8ms to the
dwell time.  That freaked people out as it was thought that the shorter
the dwell the faster the marker.  Adding a capacitor to “fix” the FSDO
problem that our “board” had, worked… of course it worked, it
increased the total dwell time – just like if you made the dwell longer!
Easy to see on a scope – duh!  Later, it was discovered that other
board manufacturers either stated to increase the dwell or did it
without telling you.    The information about the solenoid being
faster was not public at the time, and not even AKA really knew that it
had changed.  As solenoids break in over a period of use, they also get
a bit faster on the OFF time, which is what some people saw with the
original solenoid and required a slight increase in dwell.   Some people
equate this as the marker “slowing down”.

I have oodles of interesting stories like this… but most of those are
for doing design work and prototypes, and never getting paid (like Brass
Eagle and JT).

I have a lot of respect for the players that I have met.  People use to
freak when I would have Oliver Lang’s WAS’d Angel for teching.  It was
like a huge celebrity thing to a lot of players who look up to the best.
All of the players I have met and got to know (all of Dynasty, Ground
Zero, Ironmen, etc. etc) are all real people with a love for the game.
Even people like Chris Lasoya (who I have only met in passing) gets my
respect for the passion he has to be the best. Some of his decisions are
a bit nutty at times, but he has the spirit to win.  There are some real
upstanding players that I loved to hang with at tournaments, like Brian
Cole, Tony Perez, and Dave Baines, just to name a few.

After playing in 114 professional tournaments, I can say that I had a
great time playing the game, but the industry destroyed it for me and
will continue to do so for many people, for years to come, if something
is not done.

Dale, you are welcome to put this in your newsletter if you like. I am
sorry about you becoming another victim of the greed in the paintball
industry.