AEG pinion depth

[Slayr]

My son and I are new to airsoft, played paintball for years. Has anyone ever used an amp meter to set the motor depth on an aeg gun.

[ThunderCactus]

Generally no.
The preferred method is to shim it outside the gun to ensure the best possible engagement width, then re-adjust the height of the motor if needed (since the height is adjustable from the bottom of the grip)

[wind_comm]

several high end techs on ASM have investigated and integrated power measurement into their shimming process. generally though, it's not as relevant as getting the bevel height and it's engagement with the pinion correct.

[HKGhost]

You should be shimming the gears so the entire teeth is making contact without having pressure in the valley or on the teeth. If you have to use an amp meter or something else to test the pressure of the gears, then you're doing it wrong. Gears shouldn't be putting any pressure on the teeth or valley when static.

[ThunderCactus]

However, using a wattmeter to test the SHIMMING is not a bad idea, although incredibly tedious to get a baseline measurement and improve on it.
Ideally you shim using a depth gage or vernier, leaving .0005" to .001" of slack side to side.
Shimming by feel is just silly lol

The wattmeter will tell you if you have gears rubbing or shimmed something too tight, but only if you have a baseline comparison of the exact same setup. And it's nothing that can't be verified by hand by simply spinning the gears by hand with the mechbox closed and the cylinder removed.

[lurkingknight]

I use a wattmeter to help the shimming process, usually at the end when it's fully assembled.

What it does is log data before and after to have an idea how long your battery may last as well as see issues such as maxmium system draw (in the case for lipos usage) and as well to finalize the motor height on v2s since there's no cage to set the height before assembly.

On every other configuration you can properly set motor height when you shim since the motors are on frames or cages.


using the meter just for motor height without shimming might give you lower power consumption, but if the bevel gear (and other gears) aren't shimmed properly adjusting the height by itself might actually disengage the pinion off the bevel enough that the teeth don't have enough surface area, and could damage the gears without checking the shimming and engagement of the bevel and pinion inside.

[ThunderCactus]

Yeah but you'd hear the screeching noise increase as you move the motor further down before you'd actually strip the pinion from moving it down too far.
Down too far: screech
Up too far: gun jams or strained screech
Right spot: nice and quiet

[lurkingknight]

sometimes the pitch is not obvious, in which case the wattmeter will help be more precise about the final motor height.

[Slayr]

I'm a mechanic by trade so I know all about shimming and proper contact patch. I've set up more differentials than I care to remember over the years. Lurking knight you hit the nail on the head some times you can't distinguish any tone change as you move the motor up and down. The amp meter lets you see the load in numbers not guessing by noise.

[pestobanana]

Shimming with a watt meter is a pain in the ass. Shim the bevel height visually, then adjust the bevel height up and down and see which way draws less power, while adjusting the motor height again each time. Pain in the ass since there's no way to visually see what will give the best meshing.

Just shimming visually doesn't cut it, since the height where pinion is making full contact isn't necessary the optimal meshing for the gearing.

[lurkingknight]

well you're not shimming with the wattmeter.. you're double checking it after assembly. If you completely suck at it then you'll have to take it all apart and redo it.

[ThunderCactus]

Well you're really just using the watt meter to set the final pinion height