My son and I went to our usual speedball session at Santa Clara Paintball (San Jose, CA) last night. I was using, for the first time, my new Halo B that my wife and son gave me for Father's Day. My marker setup is the 98C with E-Bolt. We were using Diablo Heat paint  that is brilliant PINK, which shows up well as the day wanes to dusk. (no lights on the field as long as the summer days are long.)

I had been using a standard gravity feed hopper before and though I never had problems with chopped paint the balls would occasionally hang up in the feed neck coming out of the hopper.  I'd have to shake the marker hard to get things flowing again.

I had tried my son's Halo several weeks ago and really loved the fact that there was never a failure to feed. Not so last night. On six or seven occasions through the evening session both mine and my son's Halos would fail to feed paint for 2 to 3 shots in a row. The bright pink paint should be easily visible to the eyes in the hopper.

Today we are going to disassemble both Halos to clean throughly and see if we can discover a problem. We suffered no broken paint in the hoppers or chambers during the play, so we don't expect to find the eyes obscured by paint smears. Before we tie into this anyone have a suggestion as to for what we should be looking?

The Guy wrote: sometimes humidity can cause the balls to hang up or stick together.

Certainly, I'd expect that in a gravity feed hopper, but the Halo is a positive feed design, not just an agitator, that pushes the balls into the neck.  The paddle wheel cone should break up any stuck together clumps of paintballs.

I dont know much about the B yet. Mine comes Tues. The only thing I can think of is the eye(s?) may be blocked by debris (could be from oily balls in the hopper or anything really), or the detent in the loader is too strong. But I dont see how the detent could completly stop the motor. Im sure youll figure it out when you disassemble it.

Not sure, but if the batteries are low it might be enough to decrease the motor's tourque or function. But again Im not sure.

triggerhappy1 wrote: I dont know much about the B yet. Mine comes Tues. The only thing I can think of is the eye(s?) may be blocked by debris (could be from oily balls in the hopper or anything really), or the detent in the loader is too strong. But I dont see how the detent could completly stop the motor. Im sure youll figure it out when you disassemble it. Not sure, but if the batteries are low it might be enough to decrease the motor's tourque or function. But again Im not sure.

This was the second time on my son's batteries, but the first on mine...freshly installed new batteries. Also if the batteries are low the hopper LEDs flash. That wasn't happening. We will see.

The Guy wrote: Keep an eye out for any loose connections. I really am out of suggestions.

Think we found the problem. The position of the balls in the hopper feed tube may not be in the proper position for the eyes to see them. Placed an "O" ring in the feed neck to space the hopper up about 1/8". This causes the balls to sit in a different place in the neck letting the eye see them differently. Let you know how it works.

Update

Well, it appears that adding the "O" ring to raise the hopper fit in the feed neck did the trick. The only failure to feed I had was when I was near empty in the hopper. Robin's marker never missed a beat...problem appears to be solved.

RoboCop wrote: I don't see how adding the o-ring in the feedneck would help because Halo Bs use motion sensors and not gaps.

Well the literature that comes with it does not say one way or the other. The "O" ring for ball height adjustment was something we read in Action Pursuit Games magazine. There it said that the Halo B used eyes to see whether there was a ball in the feed. Inspecting the internals it sure does look like detection eyes to me.

While writing this I just went to

http://www.pbreview.com/products/reviews/1237/ - http://www.pbreview.com/products/reviews/1237/

People there also seem to be under the impression that the B uses eyes to detect the ball. I'll call the manufacturer tomorrow.

The Guy wrote: hey Bruce, how fast were you shooting? (bps)

Well, though I have gotten pretty good walking the trigger since I installed the E-Bolt, I doubt if I can shoot over 10 to 12 BPS. My chronograph is an older one that doesn't show BPS. Next time I'm in the chrono shed at the field I'll see what it will do.

I am going to call the manufacturer tomorrow.

The Guy wrote: oh OK. I was reading a Warpig test for some new batteries and stuff. Around 17-18 bps the Halo will sometimes skip shots since the motor has to play catch-up.

I don't think I am getting anywhere near 17-18 bps. I sent an email to mailto:support@odysseypaintball.com - support@odysseypaintball.com  today explaining the problem but have received no reply so far.