Board Operation:
To activate the board, push and hold the power button until you hear it chirp (it will activate if the power switch is held in for two seconds). At this point your gun is ready to fire. The baord will boot in non-Vision mode regardless of whether you have a board with Vision programming or not. If you do have a Vision board, push the power button once more to enter Vision mode. To deactivate the board, hold the power switch in until the board chirps once more and the LED no longer blinks (again, after two seconds).
The LED in non-Vision mode blinks twice fast every one second (the interval between blinks is 1/4 of a second). The LED in Vision mode while a ball is loaded is four blinks every second. If no ball is loaded, the LED will blink once every second. As said, to toggle between Vision enabled and disabled, push the power switch once. If you have a non-Vision board then nothing will happen.
Cricket boards have a non-adjustable maximum rate-of-fire of 20-bps in Vision mode, or 13.7-bps in non-Vision mode. ROF is not adjustable, nor is Vision sensitivity, nor any other setting.
Dwell:
Dwell is the only adjustable setting that the Cricket board allows. It will effect a number of things, including but not limited to, velocity, consistency, efficiency, and maximum attainable rate of fire. Dwell is the amount of time the solenoid remains open, thus the time the hammer remains forward opening the valve. So long as the valve is open, pressurized air will be released through it and down the barrel to propel the paintball. Because of this, increases in dwell generally cause increases in velocity, and vice-versa (however there are working limits to this).
Dwell adjustment for Cricket boards is accomplished via the two buttons on the right side of the circuit housing. You may need to remove the circuit housing and take out the rubber cover to access the buttons. The left button decreases dwell by 1/4 millisecond whereas the right one increases it by the same amount. Cricket board dwell is adjustable between 4 and 14 milliseconds, totaling 40 chirps.
This picture shows where the Cricket board adjustment switches are located:
You will find that increases in dwell will generally increase velocity, just as increasing operating pressure will. Because of this, if you decrease the operating pressure, you can compensate by decreasing dwell time, and vice-versa. However, most countrary to popular belief, there actually is an optimal dwell setting for Impulses (and other markers) to use. Know that [in most cases] too low of an operating pressure or dwell will cause inefficiencies, and too high of an operating pressure or dwell will cause inconsistencies. These statements are derived from the natural tendancies from the gas, and in some cases they can be circumvented however the design such as employed by the Impulse does not allow many of these modifications. Unfortunately the method by which one should use to determine his or her Impulse's optimal dwell setting depends on whether your solenoid is operating with or without an LPR / whether your operating pressure varies from your pneumatics pressure. If you want to know, the general idea is that you are looking for the point in which the marker will deliver higher volumes of air without compromising velocity. This will maximize the efficiency and consistency of the marker. If, then, you so desire to tilt the dwell/operating pressure one way or another, feel free to do so.
Impulses without LPR:
Set your Max-Flo output pressure between 180 and 200-psi (my recomendation). Set your dwell to 15 chirps (or the minimum setting of the dwell pot) and fire one shot over the chronograph. Now increase the dwell (one chirp with Cricket, small adjustment of the pot without Cricket) and fire a second shot. If the velocity increased, increase the dwell again and fire another shot. Keep doing this until the velocity levels off. Then, if using a Cricket board, drop the dwell setting down two to four chirps (leave it alone if you don't have a Cricket board). This will be your dwell setting at whatever operating pressure you had the marker set to. Now decrease your operating pressure and use it to control your velocity.
Impulses with LPR:
Set your Max-Flo output pressure between 140 and 180-psi (again, this is my recomendation), and also turn your LPR all the way up, as far as it'll go. Set your dwell to 15 chirps (or the minimum setting of the dwell pot) and fire one shot over the chronograph. Now increase the dwell (one chirp with Cricket, small adjustment of the pot without Cricket) and fire a second shot. If the velocity increased, increase the dwell again and fire another shot. Keep doing this until the velocity levels off. This will be your dwell setting at whatever operating pressure you had the marker set to. Now decrease LPR output pressure to find whatever velocity you desire. In the future, also use your LPR to control velocity.