Its time fellas, under the hood of the Phenom

Oh man, christmas came early! The UPS man just made his rounds and stopped outside my house. I certainly wasnt expecting one of these to show up on my step this soon. So it looks I get to show everyone inside Tippmann's new "flex valve" system. Most everyone thats interested has seen the basic field strip in videos and pictures, but nobody was showing the inside of the valve.

So some first pics...Unboxed and put together. Initial impressions, its way lighter than the regular X7. Its also much shorter as advertised. In terms of feel, its definately very high on my list of nice milsim type guns. It also seems like Tippmann decided to spiff out a few bits that I wasnt aware needed spiffing. The push pins have a black dust ano job now instead of the glossy ano. Also its worth mentioning the first new stock barrel ever for a non-98 Tippmann. At least Im pretty sure, and thank god. The ancient middle-ported barrel that was stock since the Pro-Am was showing its age. The new stock barrel seems to have a nicer internal bore, and tight grouped porting at the tip.

I didnt get any pictures of the reciever halves split open, because honestly theres absolutely nothing in there. The only 2 parts inside the reciever halves is the ball detent and the barrel adapter. Also interestingly, since the design doesnt require smooth sliding surfaces for a rear bolt, the entire inside of the reciever halves is hollowed out for weight reduction.





And field stripped. Not much to say here, it comes apart fast thats for sure. One worry I noticed is the extra "push pin" that retains the valve in place is plastic. A bit odd, considering it has a pretty narrow neck in the middle.





The trigger group is interesting, and a fairly clever layout. In manual mode, the area of the trigger that intersects the safety sinks into a slot cut into the safety. In electro mode, the trigger is sortof "half-stopped" by the safety, so it cant engage the "sear" or whatever the term for the piece on the right is. In mech mode, the top of the trigger lifts the "sear" and that piece in turn presses a simple on/off type valve in the bottom of the main valve. In electro mode, the "sear" is actuated by the solenoid. Pretty standard stuff. Now heres where it gets weird....





I have absolutely no idea how switching the safety to electro mode activates the board...I really really dont. Theres no physical switch on the board except for the mode select button. The board detects the trigger using 2 hall effect switches at the top that detect 2 magnets set in the bottom rear sides of the trigger. Also notice in the trigger picture that the area with the magnets is adjustable in some fashion by a set screw in the trigger. Im not exactly sure what it adjusts, most likely fire sensitivity, because this isnt mentioned at all in the manual. Im already imagining plenty of folks messing with that set screw and throwing the sensitivity out of whack, then getting utterly confused because its not in the manual.

I like the fact that they added the plastic frame to the board. Should prevent folks from knocking components off.

Also check out the nifty brass internal hardline. Someone must have had fun programming the bender to crank THOSE out...


Well here goes with the valve. I like the way they decided to just make the thing completely self contained. Its a bit fun to open up all the way, all that it requires is removing the velocity adjuster, unscrewing the rear housing with a crescent wrench, and everything drops out the back.



Its a bit of an interesting method. From what I can figure, the rear spool (second from left) functions as the on/off on a mag does, shutting the source off once the dump chamber is charged. The main spool (first on the left) plugs the powertube, and works like a balanced spool valve. The trigger valve on the bottom simply adds enough pressure on one side to pull the spool back, opening the dump chamber to the powertube. Also along the way in the firing cycle, at the very end of the bolt extension, a small internal hole is opened, which operates the cyclone feed.

Most of the weight of the reciever comes from the brass regulator piston and the velocity adjuster. Theyre both pretty hefty for their size.

Its pretty amusing the way they plugged the holes that were used to drill the internal air passages in the valve. And theres a lot of them, someone put some time into thinking of how to physically build this into a self contained unit.



Overall Im pretty damn impressed. Im not even sure how to classify it, a blow forward spooler with a sear tripper e-grip that doesnt actually use a sear?

Keep an eye on the Replacement Parts Guide thread in Maintenance & Repair, Ill be updating it with hardware and o-ring specs from this thing in the next couple days.

#25, its in the first picture :D

Enos Shenk wrote: #25, its in the first picture :D

Reb Cpl wrote: I'll find out for myself soon, but how does one change firing modes? It was advertised that you no longer had to stick the screwdriver in the grip....what's different?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wfRe9Du960

Select fire

Enos: Where is the Phenom made?

and still no randon forumer selected for field testing....

^^^The 98 is "customizable," this one is "customizabler" and the next one will be the "customizablest."

Mine was really tight as well. At least we dont have to worry about the push-pins falling out.

With consecutive serial numbers like 25, im not so sure Id want to play paintball with it :P