New product: Distraction device kit that converts a Tornado into a DD!
 

We just released a new $15 DD kit which turns your Tornado fragsim into a DD!

Our kit blocks the bb spirals and directs all the gas against a mylar sticker that bursts with a loud bang! Simple, loud, and cheap to operate. Our kit includes 50 blowout stickers and spare packs are $4.95 for 50pc so running costs are pretty cheap.

If you've already got a Tornado, a DD kit is only a small incremental cost compared to a standalone DD which doesn't blast pellets. The funny thing is that players initially think that a frag has been thrown at them so they still dive for cover. Then they get startled by the bang so in a sense we're able to simulate the practical effects of a real DD without all the impacted earwax and retina burns.

http://www.airsoft-innovations.com/DDKit.html
YouTube - Tornado Distraction Device Kit

It's pretty loud at 119dB if the outlet points at you. To the side it's 112dB, and 110dB pointed away. All measurements taken at 3' with an impulse capable sound meter.

I'm still producing content for the page, but most of the info is already up.

KPOW!

looks sweet.

Nice!

Cool! And cleverly simple!

looks nice

No more tapeing the zippo to it. YAY!!

It's about time that something affordable in a distraction device has come out! I'll be looking into getting a couple of these grenades to add to my kit.

I just spent the evening at TTAC3 running the DD's all night. They work. People freak because they think a grenade is in coming. The bang is loud enough to just break concentration...honestly the bang of throwing against the plywood walls is pretty distracting as well.

Pure simplicity in operation. Really fast to reset and get it back into your banger pouch.

Don't mix them up with ones filled with BBs...it'll ruin your entry...:D

I held off buying the Tornados and was considering the MB distraction grenade...but when these things came out it clinched it.

Great for indoors and breaches. With practice, your guys can enter a room just as it's going off...pretty sweet.

I hate you so much... I thought I could stop with one.

Well, I don't really two lungs...

Wow, lots of shit blowing up at TTAC tonight. It's making me think about getting into the bb business now.

I'm looking forward to adding more economical accessories to my Tornado grenade. I've worked out some cute ways to turn them into booby traps and I'm also working on an accessory spoon assembly. I thought about putting them in as part of the stock build, but truth be told, I kind of hate the spoon. The novelty and utility is really cool until you lose a spoon or stomp on it. I'm making the accessory kit removable so you can at least revert back to the basic build in case you lose all your spare spoons and are waiting for more spares in the mail. At least with the pins you can bend spares out of hangar wire, but spoons are very hard to fashion.

I love the spoons ;). We played with 7 of your nades ,5 of which I did my spoon mod to.1 1/2 days in a hospital (abandoned) in Melville Sask,went through about 7000 bb's never lost a spoon.By the end of the day, the sound of the spoon hitting the floor and the bouncing of a spent nade was all you needed for distraction.

I can attest to this.

Those were amazing.

Kody's spoon mod totally changes the AI grenade in my opinion. The only bad thing about not having the spoon is that you need 2 hands to use it. With the mod, you pull the pin and transfer it into one hand so you can hold your weapon with the other. Works great.

Well, if you really like the spoon mod, then I'll put more effort into productizing one.

Currently I'm prototyping with modified real grenade spoon assemblies. The blue handles make me think that they came off a practice range.

Looks like this one ;)


http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/i...s/DSC00882.jpg

So what are you using to push down on the shuttle?

I'm dropping 3 bbs into the top to bear on the shuttle as a cheap disposable pusher thingy.

I find that bearing a screw into one of the 3s holes is plenty strong enough to mount the assembly. I do have concerns about players getting slammed in the face with the top now that the rubber bumper isn't there. I put that thing on the aluminum stem for a reason and I'm a bit uneasy not having it there.

I cut 1/4 wood dowel to the full length between shuttle and firing pin hammer thingy,grind off the pin so it doesn't hook the dowel.Leaving the thingy there gives some mechanical advantage to hold down the shuttle.Without it in place I found way to much upward force on the spoon.I also customized the spring assembly so the spoon flies off when you let it go.


4/40 3/16" socket set screws tap in nicely to both 3s holes.

Also needed is a mod to the head assem for allowing the removing and replacing of the small rubber plug thingamajigger.

And as far as the rubber,I know what you mean.But we are adults here and lobbing these under hand into a room or down a hallway should be ok. They are about a hundred a crack, so I roll them.and ohhhh are they so nice in the stairwells.(that hospital had 5 stairwells).

I've done away with the spring assembly altogether. The flying spoon is cute, but I don't really want to getting into manufacturing parts that aren't really necessary. I also went a little nuts having to hold it back resetting the thing and the spoons fall off anyways. I contemplated a machined part to hold down the shuttle, but I figured something that small would be too easily lost so I'm going with 3x 6mm pellets. If you're going to blast 200 bbs, who cares about 3 more holding the shuttle down.

I'm not really worried about most users whipping hail mary passes across a field, but I have seen some users hucking them over the temporary walls at TTAC. Officially I'd call that wall hacking since most rooms would have a ceiling. Having a grenade falling from 9' onto my noggin with that metal end down would suck. Not that the rubber bung would be a comfy thing coming down on my head, but it does reduce the impact significantly.

Manufacturing for mass market does entail some crappy compromises. A much broader customer base also entails having to anticipate a certain level of stupidity.

very intresting too bad i just got rid of mine might have to get some later on once i get more free time.

Pivot or Kody do you have any video of these in action?

These spoon mods look really good! I like that they look much more realistic like that.

One thing though if you are developing them to use a spoon - perhaps there could be some way that the spoon is attached to the body of the grenade (just so that you don't loose it in outdoor games).

That would interfere with the spinning action of the grenade, which makes it so effective.

True enough, I hadn't really thought that one through. All the same - they still look really good!

I just got this kit as well, and it works AMAZING, especially for the low start up costs for a full grenadier loadout. You essentially get two devices for just a tiny bit more than the cost of just one device. You get:

i) A frag grenade
ii) A distraction device

Videos of this noise maker going off do not do it justice. Most modern recording devices and their amplifiers have automatic cut-offs that suppress sound when it gets past a certain volume level to prevent damage to the equipment. (Either that or the quality of the equipment just isn't engineered to record such large dB spikes.) The bang of the grenade happens so fast that the recording devices cut it off before it is fully recorded - trust me, this bad boy will definitely startle your targets.

I got spooked when it went off in the airsoft innovations warehouse... imagine if it goes off in a small cqb room?

We did a couple of staged entries ,with a close up of the spoon flying before the toss.Thankfully that one hasn't surfaced because that was one of those, ZERO delay misfortunes that happen once in a while.:rolleyes: Anyway it went off in my face and then we all almost pissed ourselves laughing. Good times for sure.

any plans on making different shapes of grenade? so they look like...grenades?

I've had that request a bunch of times, but I've already got some mild issues exporting my product as it is. Usually I'm able to work things out with customs (having some very brightly coloured grenades in a box makes the shipment more toyish). Truth is I'm pretty sure I don't want to be a manufacturer of replicas. Many countries are quite leery with dealing with potential explosive devices and Canada Post has instated policy that prevents them from handling replica explosive devices. I think every now and then some box tears open and a replica grenade rolls out and they have to clear out the sortation plant for EOD to handle the situation and that just starts to get tedious after awhile.

There are also functional issues. Having barreled sides would require either an increase in maximum diameter, or a reduction in gas capacity (make the valve body smaller in diameter). It's more difficult to make the current pneumatics work in a barreled valve body. To make a realistically shaped grenade I'd have to see what functional tradeoffs could be made for a more realistic yet equally effective device. A realistically shaped grenade would probably have to be made in a bright colour to prevent problems with export which kind of defeats the purpose of all that reengineering for the sake of aesthetics.

I've also got to amortize the current mould and some of the R&D before I can obsolete things and move on. I blew a lot of time and capital in bringing this product to release. It'll take some time before I can catch my breath and move on with a significant new model. Injection moulds are a much deeper financial commitment than CNC Gcode.

I've always wondered how well a ball shaped tornado would work...

Any thoughts on that?

reminds me of the rubber stingers...those do hurt like a bitch...

Can't fit the cylindrical valve body into that. The way the pneumatics work aren't really amenable to being stuffed into a sphere.