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I designed a TDC

11K views 82 replies 11 participants last post by  practicalmike 
#1 ·
So I got annoyed with all of the existing TDC designs that I've seen and decided to design my own. Basically I wanted something that didn't require gluing the base to the outer barrel while being more functional than what I've seen.

Main highlights:
-no gluing
-click adjustment
-rigid nub (with a spring return)
-drop in compatible with the AA VSR chamber

Obviously still requires drilling holes in the outer barrel, but I think this is a little more elegant than other designs. The biggest downside though, it's pretty tall (like 0.8"). I had to add height for the spring return and the click adjustment, though I think that's worthwhile.

I'll probably have a set machined for myself, but I'm guessing this is going to be pretty pricey if I go that route (there's 5 separate custom components here).

I may put it up on Shapeways or something for people to try out too. Anyone think that would be worthwhile?

 
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#75 · (Edited)
Adding some more work I've been doing on my arm for the AA chamber.

On one of my buddies guns I installed a Tridos TDC and I really liked the adjustment mechanism and low profile, however I was getting some weird results with consistency some of the time (haven't really figured out why though). So instead of troubleshooting that, I thought it would be neat to use my arm geometry in a design that can be adjusted by the Tridos mechanism. At this point I know there's something about my arms geometry that really lends itself to fantastic consistency, so having an easy way to adjust it should really round out the package. To do this, I came up with the below design. Basically uses the Tridos stuff outside the barrel and his threaded insert to actuate a cut down version of my arm. Will be printing it all out next week so hopefully it works.

Wheel Automotive exterior Motor vehicle Rectangle Auto part
 
#79 ·
I think there's some merit to having the "pivot point" of the nub (or arm/nub) as far away from the contact patch as possible. In theory this should give a stiffer overall nub setup.

If you imagine a normal square vertical nub in a TDC like the Tridos, or my design at the start of this thread, the resistance to the nub rotating comes from the walls of the square hole in the insert that attaches to the chamber. Unless those tolerances are super tight you can get a decent amount of twisting motion out of the nub, and if the tolerances are too tight it may not apply even pressure on the bucking as it binds up in the insert. Now if you use a pivoting arm the resistance to twisting is now much farther away from the actual contact patch and this essentially means the maximum angle the nub can twist ends up being much less leading to a more consistent contact patch on the bucking. This is at least my current thought process for why the arm works so well.

I also like the click mechanism on the Tridos TDC, lol. And ya this is basically just my arm design, but with TDC adjustment functionality.
 
#83 ·
Haha... Interesting developments :D I am not sure what were the small inconsistencies with the original TDC 2.0 setup but I would boil it down to some accidental micro installation error with either seating the bucking, maybe some dust got inside, maybe a small debris got in between the nub and bucking, etc. Normally our tolerances are dialed in pretty well where the nubs slide in and out with small force applied but have 0 wobble but sometimes there might be a lemon or two now that we are doing production runs in hundreds. If that's the case, we are always happy to send some free spare parts to help debug the issue and see if there it was a lemon.

I strongly believe and from my personal testing this has been true - as long as the (1) the nub is somewhat not moving around excessively and (2) covers the shape of the bucking evenly and large enough area - the performance comes purely from TDC screw and having the ability to really fine tune it. I obviously won't go around announcing that nub / arm contact surface shape doesn't matter but I could not tell any difference between our different nubs we've made for TDC 2.0. We made them available so everyone can do the testing and hopefully someone does an actual semi-scientific research if that really does anything at all to the accuracy / overall performance of an airsoft rifle. But until that happens, more power to the user so every one can come to their own conclusions and see what feels good to them.

The system with the hybrid design you've come up looks overly complicated to me but hey, if it works, it ain't stupid! Props to you and rock on.
 
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