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Friday, March 22, 2013

Mod Guide: Nerf Elite Rayven

Since the Elite Rayven isn't really outstanding in stock condition, I modded mine. Here's the guide to tweaking your blaster. We'll be covering lock removals, overriding unnecessary switches and voltage mods.

1. Prepearation
Necessary tools and materials:
-Your Rayven
-Screwdriver
-Sandpaper
-Soldering Iron
-Trustfire Li-Ion Batteries


Remove all screws in the shell, open the blaster and get familiar with all the internals.


2. Lock removals
This first lock right below the trigger to remove keeps you from pulling it when the acceleration trigger isn't activated.


Remove the screw and take the upper plate out, then remove the main trigger.


Now remove the lock itself. Notice the little notch up there? 


There's another one on the main trigger, too. 


Sand both of them down a bit and you should be fine.



Put it back together and check if it's working fluidly.


The second and last lock is in the back, right above the clip-release button. It prevents you from pulling the trigger when there is no clip inserted, so remove the screw, take it and the plate that's sitting below out.


3. Overriding switches and Thermistor removal
You'll want your soldering iron for this part. There are much more cables than in the Stryfe, and I've spent some time trying to figure out which cables are relevant and how the circuit is working. To start, take all switches and cables out of their place to get a better overview.


The jam door is first. Remove all cables (red, pink and blue) on the switch and also take the blue cable off its pole. You should end up like this:


Now the clip detector switch, take off all cables (red, red and white). Also remove the white cable on the pole. Your setup is now:


The thermistor stops your current at higher voltages (in this case at about 11V-12V), so it needs to be removed, too. To do this, take it out of place first.


Note the soldering spots and melt both cables off.


Finally, just solder both yellow ends together.


We need the red cable just a little longer to reach all the way until the main switch slot. You'll need your red cable which you took off earlier now. Solder both red ends together.


Finally, solder the red end to the lower pole of the switch. The yellow cable should still be in place.


Your finished internals should look like this picture (I forgot to put some parts in here). Make sure to route the cables neatly and nothing is in the way of any moving parts.


When you have finished reassembling everything, take the other shell part and screw everything together again.

4. Voltage mod
This mod is quite easy, take your Trustfire Li-Ions and drop in how many you want. You can use any voltage now since the thermistor is removed. Be sure to check out my Basic Voltage Modding Guide for this. I decided to use 2 of them for a total of 8.4V and overrode the 2 other slots with cables.


Done! Congratulations to you for your newly tweaked Rayven. Go out there and dominate your friends now!
You probably noticed that the Elite Rayven also decelerates faster if you either remove the clip or open the jam door. However, I haven't found a method of a Fast Deceleration mod yet. I've tried everything, even accidentally shortened the circuit and almost fried the whole thing. If you have any idea/solution for it, please inform me. Also drop a comment on your thoughts on your "new" Rayven.

Sunday, March 17, 2013

Nerf Rapidstrike CS-18: The Elite Stampede?

This listing recently showed up on the swiss shop soundmedia.ch, which normally sells media stuff. According to the description, the so called Rapidstrike appears to use batteries and on the photo it's shaped a little like the Stampede, so could this be the long-awaited Elite Stampede? Also, the earlier spotted clear Elite mag comes to action here. Nobody knows yet if this is real or just a photomontage, but by customer reviews, this even seems to be a trusted shop. What's definitely weird is the spot for a barrel extension, since the blaster already looks large. What surprises me even more is that they already have listings for the recently leaked Mega Centurion, Vortex Revonix and the Rebelle line, too. I'll be watching this rumor.

Thursday, March 14, 2013

Updates - Snipercreep is now DarkLime! 1000 hits!

So I thought I'd make some updates for you to avoid confusion. First off, as you might've noticed, I changed my name to DarkLime. I mainly did this for the incredible number of 1000 Pageviews! This blog is up just a month and It's already got over 1000 hits by you! Thanks to everyone for this great event.  Stay tuned, once I hit the next milestone there might be a giveaway... Anyway, when I saw that 4-digit number pop up, I decided to finally choose a unique name. Snipercreep was my beginners name, and after some thinking I chose DarkLime. So don't think that someone else has taken over this blog, It's still me. Also, some things have been updated, added and changed, for example the reviews and mods pages and the other blog's list on the right. Over the next few months, I'll probably focus more on mod guides once I'm through with all Elite reviews. I also have a secret modding project going on which might be done next month. Keep up to date!

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Review: Nerf Elite Retaliator




As you can already see by the design, the Retaliator is the successor to the older N-Strike Recon, with some changes. Nerf has replaced some attachments with newer ones. There is no sight anymore and the old wobbly stock has luckily been redesigned. It's now solid, but for me and most people too short. I didn't, but SGNerf took a really nice stock comparison photo as you can see. There are still 4 pieces, and the 4th is no sight anymore, but a grip. It's pretty much like the Stampede's, just no bipod and smaller. The new 12-dart clip is nicely balanced between the 6 dart (which is empty way too fast) and the 18 dart clip (which is too big sometimes). Like the Recon, it's fully customizable: a tactical rail, barrel attachment and stock. In terms of performance, this blaster unleashes the full power. I've had 62ft/19m flat results and even 75ft/23m at a small angle! All in all the Retaliator is a nice allrounder: customizable and great performance. I actually suggest it to every Nerf fan, ranging from a beginner to an advanced. I'll see what I can do in terms of modding soon!

Friday, March 8, 2013

N-Strike Elite Mega Series: 100ft Blaster?

MyLastDart posted this on his blog, and there was a whole mess after it. He misunderstood the rules of his NDA and accidentally posted it. When things got cleared up, he deleted the post, but the Internet is now crazy about it and you see posts about it everywhere. Anyway, let's go on to the blaster itself. It looks like a new series red sniper-style weapon featuring a bipod, a cocking mechanism like the Longstrike/-shot and an unusual clip. On the left of the box, it shows a dart and says "actual size". So since the blaster looks big, it must be a big box, and if it shows the actual size, I assume the dart must be pretty big. Could this be the long-awaited Elite version of the Longstrike? It also says "up to 100ft", so this gun must be pretty amazing. Any more information will be posted up directly, and I'm very excited about this, too.

Review: Nerf Elite Rayven






The N-Strike Elite Rayven is the successor to the Rayven. It comes with a glow-in-the-dark "firefly" 18-dart clip and glow-in-the-dark darts. In total, it uses 7 AA batteries, 4 for the gun and 3 for the firefly clip. The Elite Rayven is flywheel powered, thus being semi-automatic. This blaster is also customizable, featuring 2 tactical rails and a place for a barrel attachment. Different from other Nerf guns, it has a bullpup-style design, so the clip slot is behind the grip. I think the clip release is not placed very good, it's actually a little button behind the clip. Performance-wise, the Elite Rayven has the same motors and voltage as its predeccessor, just some voltage regulation tweaks. It does not fire that far, and my range tests had only results up to 45ft/13m flat. Even 45 degree angled it barely reaches 56ft/17m. Another downside is that it jams fairly often and a dart gets stuck every 8 shots. All in all I do not reccommend to buy this blaster, except for the looks. It has bad performance and jams up, and you can get the same results with a tweaked N-Strike Rayven.

Sunday, March 3, 2013

N-Strike Elite Clear Series?


The user Lamlamomo on the HvZ forums has spotted this clear 18-dart clip on a website called Baidu. There hasn't been a clear 18-dart clip before, and it actually has the N-Strike Elite logo on it. Could there be a clear Elite series coming? There might be more photos soon, and I'll keep up to date on this!