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Tech index -> Nerve -> Adjusting and maintaining -> Electronics & pressure setting

This page indexes all the currently available lower circuit boards and displays an adjustment guide for each. Select your board from this list to view instructions for HOW to adjust the settings. For instructions on WHAT to set the boards at, scroll down view information about the various features.

Board type:	Software versions:
Smart Parts	Nerve programming Vision boards without Nerve programming non-Vision boards Team boards Blackheart board
Tadao	Original Musashi3 programming Musashi5 programming Musashi6 programming
Predator SFT	Original SFT boards AFA 5.0
Virtue	Virtue
FCP Reloaded	Reloaded v1 Reloaded v2

Adjusting your Dwell:
Dwell is the name for the amount of time the solenoid remains open, which is the approximate amount of time the Nerve valve will remain open, which is the amount of time pressurized air will be released to fire the paintball. Because of this, increases in dwell generally cause increases in velocity, and vice-versa (however there are working limits to this). Dwell can effect a number of things, including but not limited to, velocity, consistency, efficiency, and recoil.

The dwell setting on your marker is what allows the ram/hammer/bolt to fully cycle from shot to shot. If set too low, the bolt will half-stroke and the gun won't fire properly. If set too high, the valve will be open for too long and air will be wasted, decreasing efficiency. Because of this, it's generally best to use the lowest dwell setting possible, while still keeping it above the point where the marker has trouble firing.
There is no such thing as the perfect dwell setting. Some guns will require a higher setting than others, depending on the parts, manufacturing characteristics, weather conditions, etc etc. Each gun requires a bit of experimentation to find the optimal setting that should be used.

The default settings for dwell are 20-30 for a Parker solenoid, or 30 or more for a Humphrey solenoid. It is generally easier to just set the dwell and use the input pressure to alter your velocity, and to use the LPR pressure for fine-tuning velocity. I suggest an input of 180-240 psi for a good balance between efficiency and fire rate (using the new factory LPR extender and valve poppet). If you don't have the new parts your input will need to be higher, usually 220 as a minimum.

Setting your Pressure/Velocity:
Pressure adjustment is easier than messing with the electronics. The marker's input pressure is how you determine the velocity for your shots, so after setting your dwell simply use your pressure adjustment to achieve your desired velocity. Higher the pressure, higher the velocity; lower the pressure, lower the velocity. Use the vertical reg input pressure to find the "ballpark" velocity amount, then use the LPR to ajdust it in smaller increments.
Do not adjust your velocity through dwell. This will not yield good performance.

Primary Regulator Pressure:
If you're using an HPA tank (preset or adjustable), the regulator on the tank is known as the primary reg. If your primary reg is adjustable, set the input pressure to 550-600 psi if you're using the stock vertical Max-Flo reg. If you have an adjustable screw-in tank, set the reg as high as it will go, under 800-psi.

Dwell and LPR Theory: Teh combination of dwell, LPR pressure, and input pressure are all used to fire the ball correctly in a Nerve and most other hammer/valve designs. There are a lot of things that can be drwn from these three variables, some of which are listed here.
· Higher input pressures will provide more energy to fire the ball and as a result require the lowest dwell amount. However, the higher the input, the more force will be required to open the valve on the hammer's side.
· Higher dwell settings will leave the valve open for longer amounts of time, however if the LPR pressure is lower then usual it will be required to increase the dwell to compensate for the valve opening and closing slower than it would at other settings.
· Higher LPR settings will work with lower dwell times since the valve will open faster, hammer will move faster, but more air will be used on the part of the LPR.
· When adjusting the velocity using the input pressure, increases in pressure will generally increase the velocity as a result. However this depends on a balance of the LPR and dwell setting as well, since in some combinations the higher valve pressure will increase the force needed to open the valve on the other side (higher LPR or dwell would be needed). This is referred to as a velocity plateau and should be avoided (use a higher dwell and if possible a lower input pressure).
A high operating pressure (around 190-200 psi) is recommended to achieve the optimal, balanced LPR setup with the Shocker using an LPR. The use of an LPR on the Shocker is not required, and in fact you won't be able to decrease the pressure much more than 10 or 20-psi less than the operating pressure. The Evolve bolt kit offers the largest pressure drop between the LPR and operating pressure however even then it's only 20-psi maximum.

Debounce and AMB Adjustment:
Debounce is an electronic filtering timer that will tell the board how long the trigger must remain compressed before it will recognize the trigger pull as being an actual pull of the trigger. The reason for this is because the switch will actually tend to close several times before and after you actually compress the trigger fully (known as switch bounce), which causes the board to think you've fired multiple shots quickly in a row. This is due to any number of factors which I won't bother explaining at the moment, but it is a characteristic present on all switches, used for paintball guns or not.

Debounce should only be set as high as required to filter out unnecessary bounce. Basically, lower this setting and your marker has a higher chance of adding shots (and vice-versa). The default setting on most boards (for any gun) is around 10-ms, however a higher setting may be necessary in order to prevent the marker from adding shots. A good way to test this is to compress the trigger as slowly as possible and see how many times the marker fires. If the marker fires more than once when you pull it, your marker is bouncing and the setting should be increased. If the marker fires once and only once, the current setting is sufficient and will work okay. If the setting is set too high, the board will wait too long before firing and slow down your maximum ROF (this usually happens around 16-ms, but will vary depending on how the board is programmed).

Some boards have an additional setting known as AMB which stands for anti-mechanical bounce. This is a setting which limits the length of the shot buffer to help filter out false trigger signals sent to the board which are a result of the gun kicking when fired. This setting can be adjusted if your marker seems to add shots when you rapid fire. Setting AMB too low may cause the marker to mechanically simulate fully-automatic firing.

ABS (Anti Bolt Stick) Adjustment:
This setting is used to increase the dwell for the first shot you take after a period of inactivity (generally 10-15 seconds). This is useful if the marker is experiencing first shot dropoff problems (known as FSDO), where the first shot you fire is much slower in velocity than the rest. Sometimes this is caused by the bolt, in which case ABS can be used to guard against it.

The default ABS setting is 5-ms added dwell time. If ABS set too low, the marker's first shot will still move slower than the rest. You may be able to live with it as long as the ball actually has some speed. Setting ABS too high will add velocity to the first shot, so you would then have to turn the velocity down over the chronograph (which would put you at a disadvantage). The perfect ABS setting may be difficult to find, since you would have to adjust it, wait a while, then test over a chrono, then repeat. Becuase of this I suggest setting it to 4 or 5-ms and testing the gun out; if at that point the first shot is reasonably strong, just leave the setting there. if the ifrst shot is higher than the others, decrease the ABS setting.

ROF Adjustment:
Most boards have an adjustable max rate of fire (ROF). There are a few reasons why you may wish to adjust this:
1. You may be required to limit your marker's rate of fire due to the tournament or field rules.
2. If your marker is experiencing velocity dropoff, slowing the ROF will help to keep your shots from dropping. However, this is only a way to circumvent the dropoff problem, it isn't a fix for it. You should try to repair your dropoff issue when you have the time.
3. If your Shocker doesn't have Vision, decreasing the rate of fire may be necessary to help prevent chopping in the chamber. If you're using an agitated loader, a BPS setting of 12-13 will work good. If using an eVolutionII, a setting around 15-16 bps will work. If using a Halo-B or Reloader-B, a setting of 18-bps will often work. Please note that hoppers will feed slower and slower as time goes on, due to the motor wearing out.

Eye Holdoff Adjustment:
Eye holdoff is also known as loader delay on Tadao boards, or eye sensitivity on Virtue boards. This is a small delay setting that is used to prevent chopping during that split second between when the ball is detected by the eye, and when it actually clears the top of the bolt and is seated in the chamber. This is a necessary delay because the ball is detected on its way down into the chamber, not as soon as it reaches the bottom. Eye holdoff should be set to 2-ms on most Nerves, or possibly higher if you're not using a force-fed hopper. Shockers can use the same setting, even though its eye is in a different position. Some extremely dark or extremely rough-textured paintshells may require a higher loader delay becuase of the increased time necessary to detect the ball (I suggest 1-2 ms maximum added time). Most force-fed loaders won't require a high loader delay setting unless you frequently participate in extremely fast bursts of shots.

Ramp Activation Speed / Shot Count:
Some boards allow the adjustment of the speed required to activate their ramping modes. Most users will wish to adjust this between 5-9 bps, depending on the trigger setup and max speed. Higher settings will usually prevent the user from activating ramping mode unless he/she specifically tries to do so during the game (a setting of 12-bps will prevent unwanted ramping, for instance). Some tournament series require a certain activation speed to adhere with their rules, however most series won't be too strict on it. PSP rules require a speed of 9-bps, for instance.

Ramp activation shot count is a similar setting which is used for ramping and other firing modes. This is the number of semiauto shots that must be fired (at or above the ramp activation speed) before the marker enters the mode. This is set by default on just about any board at 3 shots, in order to adhere to most tournament rules. Too low a shot count will result in the gun entering ramping mode too quickly, and perhaps firing one or two unwanted shots.

Related Links:
· Firing assembly
· LPR assembly

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Tech index -> Nerve -> Adjusting and maintaining -> Electronics & pressure setting