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PBX mQ-Valve The PBX mQ-Valve is out of production, and has been rendered obsolete by the MQ2. This page is generally considered complete and will not be updated on any regular basis. Instructions The most critical part is the instructions. Make sure you follow them, or you'll damage your valve. Installation Instructions - This is version 1.4. It has a slight change in wording from 1.3 near the end. I don't know exactly which version Mel (owner of PBX) is supplying, but hopefully it's not one with my home address on it. Assembly Instructions - These instructions are the procedure that the factory should follow when assembling and testing a valve. This may be of interest to some of the more technical people out there. The thickness of the head of the "nail" is .022". The die for installing the 90 duro oring is not needed. The oring can be inserted by rolling the face of the poppet against a hard surface until it is fully seated. Don't Screw it Up Installing an mQ-Valve is not difficult, but there are some things you need to look out for. Due to the design of the spacer between the solenoid and IVG, the cocking rod is screwed against the back cap of the solenoid. If you over tighten your cocking rod more than finger tight, you will crush the solenoid. This will reduce the solenoid plunger lift to the point where it will not move at all. I examined one valve that had been crushed to such an extent that the urethane dot was cut through and the sealing edge was peened over. That customer ended up purchasing a new pilot assembly at a high cost. You MUST hold the pilot assembly in place with something inserted into the slot when the IVG is tightened. Failure to do so will result in shearing the wires off the solenoid. The slot in the pilot assembly can be damaged by too much pressure from the allen wrench or whatever you used to hold the valve in place. Do not attempt to rotate the pilot assembly once it has been tightened in place. This can distort the aluminum enough to make removal of the pilot assembly difficult. What not to do - This is a particularly bad valve that I received and took a picture of. Avoid this at all costs. The wires usually are cut off with just enough left to solder them back together. You should cover the solder joints with 1/16" heat shrink tubing. A very fine soldering iron tip is helpful. The solenoid should measure around 5.8 ohms. James Sullivan, who assembled the first batch of valves, has experimented with fixing crushed solenoids. His procedure is to insert a steel rod into the solenoid and pound the back cap back into position. The lift would most likely have to be reset as per the assembly instructions. I have no idea how durable this fix is. The Extra O-Ring This particular -014 o-ring is quite important. If it is not installed on your valve, place it in the shown position before installing the valve in your gun. This o-ring acts as the seal that is normally provided by the valve retaining nut in a normal gun. If it is not installed, a large amount of gas will vent into the grip frame, causing various negative effects (see "How it Works" in the general section). Different bodies may require larger or smaller o-rings in place of the -014. Some people may even have to remove it or cut the rim on the valve body back. The White Spacer You most likely have one of the Taiwanese valves, as there were very few valves in the first run. This white plastic washer is likely included somewhere inside the package. Look through the slot in the pilot to be sure it is NOT installed as shown in the above picture. If it is installed, take your pilot apart by removing the 4-40 setscrew. If your valve has a silver plunger spring, remove the white spacer. This spacer will result in inconsistency at normal operating pressures due to how the pilot works. The spring force is supposed to be mostly balanced by the pressure on the orifice. With too much spring force or too little pressure, the pilot relies more on the force applied by the solenoid to operate. The valve was designed to only require a small kick from the solenoid to open the pilot. The solenoid, electronics, and battery can not deliver a consistent large kick. Note that the solenoid will not lift the plunger without any pressure in the valve. According to PBX, these spacers are not installed in the current valves that are shipping. Some users may need to use the spacer to run an unusually high pressure. It should be included somewhere in the kit. A small volume in front of the valve or a flow restriction can require the use of higher pressure to get velocity. Most users will not have to worry about this. See the "Troubleshooting" section below. Cocking Rod? The cocking rod is actually not necessary to the operation of the gun. Its only purpose is to prevent the backblock from twisting. It also has the safety benefit of not allowing the backblock to shoot off the back of the gun in the event of a broken pump rod. Mike almost got hit in the face this way during early testing. The rod can be cut down and threaded and/or the knob at the end removed to improve the cosmetics of the gun. Fine Tuning Our testing has shown that a high pressure low dwell situation is the best for efficiency. However, you really can not go wrong with the standard 4ms dwell. Race users will need a higher dwell due to lower voltage. The best method for setting timing is outlined in section E of the Installation Instructions. This thread on PBNation is where people post their settings. A search through there should give you a good idea of what to expect. Some mini bodies may have issues with low velocity. See the troubleshooting section below. Really Quick E2 Timing Setup In a hurry? Follow this procedure. It will get you workable settings with little effort. You may still need to adjust the settings for optimum performance. Set it to factory fast, set CON to the lowest setting, then adjust COFF so there is not any difference in sound between the first subsequent shots in 15bps ramp mode eye off. Maintenance One of the early prototypes was run in a gun without any maintenance for approximately 100k shots. This particular valve had an unanodized aluminum valve body which has very little resistance to wear. When it was removed to be replaced with a redesigned valve, it was still operating normally. However, the poppet was starting to get a bit sticky (no first shot drop off was noticed) and some dirt was building up inside the solenoid. A conservative recommendation is to tear the valve down every 20k shots or so. My feeling is leave it alone until it stops working right. Wipe all lubricant off the poppet and out of the valve body. Re-lubricate with a generous amount of Dow Corning Molykote 55 grease (33 is also acceptable). I believe PBX is recommending Dow 33 or other paintball greases at this time. Apparently people have been having problems with sticky orings. 33 is a low temperature silicone bearing grease that causes the seals to shrink slightly. 55 is an oring lubricant that causes the seals to expand slightly. If your seals feel loose, then 55 would be recommended. If you have issues with FSDO and sticky orings that don't want to get moving, use 33. People have also reported that petroleum jelly (vaseline) works well to fix sticking poppets. Disassemble the pilot by loosening the 4-40 setscrew and removing the solenoid. Wipe off any dirt from the plunger and solenoid bore. Lubricate the end of the urethane seal, but not the rest of the plunger. The solenoid is designed to run dry. Reassemble the valve. Replacement Parts Someone on PBN requested I post up some info about replacement seals inside the mQ-Valve, so here it is.
The -008 90 duro urethane oring is going to be difficult to get. I would suggest a paintball store because the Automag uses a couple of them. You can obtain the urethane sheet for the plunger seal from www.mcmaster.com. The smooth side of the urethane should be facing away from the plunger. The poppet spring is McMaster-Carr part number 9435K74. Troubleshooting Most people's problems, other than crushed solenoids are timing related. Shootdown is very common, and is easily corrected by increasing the amount time the bolt is allowed to close (COFF). Make sure your tank is screwed in all the way If your valve does not fire, and the solenoid is not crushed, wires are intact, and operating pressure in correct, a stuck poppet is most likely. Typically you will hear a quiet popping noise from the pilot. Just firing the gun can unstick the poppet. Disassembly and relubrication may be necessary. If a valve sits unused for too long, the poppet may take a few shots to get moving. Valves that sit unused can also develop a slight leak in the pilot assembly. In this case, disassembling the pilot by loosening the 4-40 setscrew and removing the solenoid, lubricating the urethane seal on the plunger, and reassembly may solve the problem. If the pilot does not pop, check all the electrical connections and be sure the back cap of the solenoid is not crushed. The solenoid should measure around 5.8 ohms. Make sure you have a good battery and grip frame. Double check your operating pressure, which should be around 300 psi. Failure to fire can also be caused the 5/16" setscrew in the bottom of the gun body contacting the poppet. Check if it fires without the screw installed. Low velocity may be solved by increasing dwell and input pressure. Additional volume in the valve chamber, in the form or a low pressure chamber or regulator with a lot of post regulated volume, is also helpful. In the case of boards that do not allow sufficient dwell or mini bodies, adding a small shim under the plunger spring to run the valve at higher pressure may help. Experimentation will be necessary. If you need to run an extremely low velocity (~230 fps), the velocity will not be stable due to the low input pressure. The solenoid plunger spring will need to be tuned for the lower pressure. If there is a spacer between the E-clip and spring, remove it. Otherwise, you will need to experiment with cutting the spring. Early valves had occasional problems with the oring blowing out of the front of the poppet. I don't think this is an issue with the current production units, but it can be solved by gluing the oring in place with super glue. Make sure you roll the oring against a hard surface as mentioned above in the instructions section to ensure it is evenly seats. The best solution may be to replace the entire poppet assembly. Bad consistency- Some valves just need to be broken in. The latest batch of valves using newest Taiwanese plunger spring (silver colored) do not need the white washer under the plunger. Unfortunately, they were installed on some of the new valves. Your valve should leak at around 320 psi. If it leaks at a significantly higher pressure (~400psi), you need to take apart the pilot and remove the white washer (see the section above). First run valves with the dark colored American spring DO need the washer, so do not remove it. The cocking rod can get stuck in the spacer causing it to rotate behind the IVG. This makes disassembly of the gun impossible. The spacer can be locked in place by tightening a long screw into the rear gripframe screw hole. This will make a real mess of the spacer, but it beats not being able to take it apart. You'll most likely have to use the cocking rod to pull out the spacer after you take the IVG out. A better solution is to drill a small dimple in the spacer and use a pointed screw to lock it in place. Some people have had trouble with the valve locking open when firing. It was reported on pbnation that lowing the input pressure will solve this problem. You should also check to be sure the poppet and solenoid plunger are moving freely. Polishing the inside of the valve body can help a number of problems, including sticking, first shot drop, and bad consistency. See "Optimum Performance" in the general section for a brief description of the procedure. Switching lubricants can also help these issues. See the Maintenance section above. Leaks form the Taiwanese valve bodies- I suspect the oring around the poppet may be slightly out of spec. I don't have any numbers to back this up, but you might consider replacing it with a quality oring from your local hardware or auto parts store. Leaks that can't be fixed by replacing orings- Apparently some of the bodies are bored way too big. I don't know if this is a tolerance stack up issue, or just craptacular Taiwanese parts. This is one of those issues that needs to be solved by PBX. You should also check the valve seat for burrs or scratches. MQ2 Upgrade? The assemblies are certainly compatible, but I don't see a major advantage to upgrading a working valve. The pilot assemblies should be approximately the same in function, so the only performance gain would come from swapping in a new higher flow MQ2 valve body assembly. The cost to do this is high enough where it makes sense to just buy a complete new MQ2 and sell the old valve. Custom Projects Please note that I am no longer selling any mQ-valve parts. mQ-Valve Assembly dimensions - I've made up a print with the dimensions of the assembly. This should be very useful for determining if the mQ will fit your custom application. Karnivore - This thing is a piece of crap and I hate it. ICS? More like POS! You need a Karnivore spacer and a cut down ICS rod. You should be able to order the valve with the spacer. You will have to cut your ICS rod to 1.50" overall length, including the threads. No particular precision is required, just make sure the rod is not hitting the back of the solenoid when everything is assembled. The titanium cuts very easily with a hacksaw or dremel. Keep in mind that the titanium dust is quite flammable. I seriously doubt the cut down ICS rod will ever be supplied with the valve kit. It has come to my attention that PBX is supplying some kind of half assed spacer made of a drilled out standard spacer. Here's a print of the real Karnivore spacer. Delrin and aluminum are acceptable materials. Trilogy- Needs an adapter sleeve which I ended up designing. I also made up a set of supplemental installation instructions. These instructions are more printer friendly than the standard ones. Note: this is a little more difficult to install than a regular mQ. The setscrew may need to be cut down a little. The best, but more expensive solution is the universal 11/16" valve body mentioned below. Note that the newer BlackMagics will not take a Trilogy sleeve. I assume this design change may have been made to the newer Trilogies. If your lower bore has a step at the end of the valve chamber, you need to use the universal 11/16" valve body. AKA Excalibur- Not really a cocker, but close enough. This gun is a closed bolt with solenoid valves manifolded under the body. The MQ was installed using the Trilogy type sleeve, and the setscrew should have the tip cut down to mate with the hole in the sleeve and valve in a fashion similar to the Trilogy. However, I now recommend the universal 11/16" valve body described below. In the particular example I installed a valve in, the hammer ram housing was the perfect length to hold the valve in place. YMMV of course. A slot must be cut in the body to allow the wires to pass through and the valve to be aligned. You need to order the Race version of the valve which comes with a 1.25mm pitch Molex connector. Tests showed ~300 fps at 250 psi. How this changes efficiency has yet to be determined. Due to the drop in operating pressure, using a lighter plunger spring is recommended. The American spring with no spacer seems to work fine. The Taiwanese spring should work if cut down. It appears that the velocity is much more sensitive to input pressure changes. It will be a little more difficult to set your regulator. For those using the Tadao board, it will have to be modified to operate the mQ-Valve. AKA Merlin body- You should be able to use the same type sleeve as the Trilogy, with a modified setscrew similar to the Excalibur. However, I recommend the universal 11/16" valve body described below. I expect there to be a moderate decrease in operating pressure. How this changes efficiency has yet to be determined. *I should note here that some of the dimensions differ between the Trilogy and AKA sleeves. They go in the same diameter bore, but the oring grooves are different to allow reuse of the stock orings. If you contact me to purchase a sleeve, please let me know what type of gun it is for. I can also do Excalibur installations. Also, I have not actually tested the sleeve in the Merlin body. I assume the Excalibur, Viking, and Merlin all use the same valve. BlackMagic- Apparently some of these have a step in the lower bore that makes the use of a sleeve impossible. I assume this was done for ease of assembly. This gun requires a 11/16" dia. valve body and a special setscrew. See below for valve body info. If there is no step in the lower bore, you can use a Trilogy spacer.
Universal 11/16" valve body.- This is a replacement valve body for the MQ that is used in the Trilogy, Black Magic, and all AKA guns. This particular item makes the old sleeve system obsolete, but costs more due to complexity. It includes a special setscrew to lock it in place. However it does have the following advantages:
1. Fits all 11/16" valve chambers, AKA, Trilogy
and BlackMagic
Turtle and half-block cockers - All you need to do is cut down the bolt pin so it no longer protrudes into the bottom tube. A delrin replacement would be ideal here. I think the race half-block has some kind of lug for recocking the hammer that must be removed instead of modifying the bolt pin. Midget bodies- These bodies have excess material cut off the back of the gun, usually flush with the back of the grip frame. You will either need a short spacer between the IVG and solenoid or deeper IVG threads. The stock spacer may be easily cut down with a lathe. It was suggested on pbnation that the nut that holds the stock valve in may also be an acceptable spacer in this application. Catapult body - There were only around 10 or so of these ever made by some guy on pbnation. I had the misfortune of installing a valve in one of these bodies. Mike and I examined it and found it was poorly designed and poorly machined. If you like galling aluminum and tool marks, this body is for you. It required cutting down the bolt pin so it no longer protrudes into the bottom tube, and turning down the .680" rim on the valve body so the front oring would seat. In stock form, the shuttle block protrudes into the bottom tube. I fixed this in the milling machine with a ball end mill. No personal offense to Xadion on PBN. Back to MQ-Valve General Information last update: 9/29/07 |
