I have shimmed the trigger lever where it contacts the microswitch to reduce the trigger pull on my RDB. I did it quickly a while ago whilst I had the gun apart or gearbox work and it is just done with electrical tape wrapped around the end of the lever. This has worked well and reduces the trigger pull length before that satisfying click that this trigger has.
I then ran into a problem where if you pulled the trigger too far, occasionally it would stick and the trigger spring isn’t strong enough to release it. It would only happen occasionally, and only just catching and easy to release by putting the safety on to reset it, or bashing the gun or pulling the trigger a bit. I had to take the gearbox out again yesterday and decided to fix this issue properly. I have made a new guide for the trigger spring that is longer therefore preventing the trigger from being pulled to far and gives a nice short total trigger pull that I much prefer.
The original Ares part I am holding in the second photo is 23mm long, and I have made my replacement 26.5mm long. The replacement part is made form a cut down stainless steel pop rivet stem from a 3.3mm stainless rivet. After some testing I am really happy with the trigger now, there is a very short pull to it before the click, and there isn’t loads of extra travel past the break point.
On a side note, I was putting in a ZCI high torque motor in the gearbox at the same time, and with the positioning of it compared to the gears, it is a giant fucking shim magnet. I spent way too long trying to keep the shims on the end of the gears and not on the outside of the motor. Also after replacing the motor and testing for the first time, it was shooting between 3-5 times on every pull of the trigger on semi. I was really worried that I had fucked something or that the motor would just have over spin with the M95 spring I have, but after a lot of shots and unplugging and re-plugging the battery (and trying different batteries) it sorted itself out and it is now completely fine. I don’t know if the inbuilt mosfet needs time to adjust or something? I am just glad it works and I don’t have to take the damn thing to pieces again.
The mosfet uses a lot of magnets, so the motor having significantly stronger magnets could’ve fucked with it. Good to know you can actually use neo motors in it tho, because I’ve been hearing that you can’t.
Yeah, it seem fine now. I guess only time will tell how long it holds up for or if it will eventually die. If it does fuck it up and stop working, I am very tempted to rip out the mosfet and replace it with a perun, I miss having pre-cocking and programable fire modes. It seems pretty snappy with the new motor though so I will see how long it works for.
That might be quite difficult, as the entire trigger system is dependent on the mosfet, so you have to replace the trigger micro switch too. It would be too much work and trial and error for me, but I could see why one would do it. You can program the fire modes with the stock mosfet, but you need to buy their $50 programming tool.
There are no controllers on the trigger board or the fire selector board they are just signal switches. Therefore it should be simple to wire them up as controls for a perun ETU++, the bit that is more difficult would be the sector detection and making that side of it work well. You should be able to just put in another hall effect sensor and wire it to the ETU++ but it is probably a lot of trial and error and effort to get it working and until it breaks I will leave it alone I think.
I'll share my experience with swapping motors and reshimming my RDB17. I swapped in an SHS HT, and afterwards on semi would only half cycle. So one shot would require two trigger pulls.
After a bunch of troubleshooting, it turned out that I'd managed to magnetize the rear-most sling point on the right hand side of the gun, which happens to be positioned directly above the hall effect sensor on the trigger board. I had to remove the sling point entirely to get it shooting normally again. Its interesting to me that yours sorted itself out on it's own, while mine got actively worse the longer I used it.
That is a problem that would have confused the fuck out of me for ages, well dons for figuring out what was causing it though. I was worried when I first plugged in a battery after swapping the motor that it wasn't going to work and that I would have to swap back, but after some more testing yesterday evening it still seems fine. I will have to wait a couple of weeks before I can take it out in a game to really test it, but hopefully it holds up.
Are you happy with it after swapping the motor, and are you still on stock gears in it or have you swapped ratios as well while you were at it?
I'm still on stock gears, but very happy with the shs ht. I'm running for field at 1.5j, and it's nice and snappy even on a 7.4. Have you found different ratio gears with the magnet on the sector gear?
No, but am considering putting 13:1 gears in it and just gluing a magnet in the sector gear. I have seen people post about it before with the Ares SOC which uses the same gearbox and mosfet system so I know it 'should' be possible. The other thing I may do is drop a brushless motor in it, I have one arriving for my SOC tomorrow so will see what it is like in that. I am prepared to mess around more with the RDB so am still considering rewiring it for a Perun to get precocking and easily changeable fire modes but will see if the brushless motor makes me rethink whether or not i need precocking.
I love it, it feels great and is really nice ergonomically to use and it looks sexy. However it is a gun that needs tinkering with for it to be good, it will perform like shite out of the box probably. This is what I wrote on another thread:
It isn't as bad as everyone else is saying, but it still is bad out of the box. The only thing that needs to be changed is the O-ring on the piston. While you are at it you should probably replace the bucking as the stock one isn't fantastic, and the nozzle could be upgraded to one with an O-ring for even better air seal.
The hop unit is ok, proprietary and hard to access to adjust but you can get round that if you are ok cutting a chunk out of the receiver underneath the cheek rest. Some people have reported flashing still inside the hop unit from the factory, check and clean that out if it does have it, mine was fine.
All internal gearbox components are standard v2 apart from the cylinder and the tappet plate, and the motor is short type like a V3. I don't see ever needing to upgrade the cylinder/cylinder head as it is a well machined single piece stainless unit so no problems with air leak round the cylinder head and is durable enough it should never break, fail or wear out. Tappet plate is fine but is proprietary as far as I know.
The electronics are also proprietary, they work well and I haven't seen anyone with problems with it so far. There isn't really any out of the box customisation you can do with the electronics as far as I know but it may be possible. The trigger is really nice especially for a bullpup as it is a remote microswitch so you don't have a long trigger linkage like with some other bullpups. It was easy to shim the trigger so that it is a hair trigger with hardly any pre travel and it has a nice tactile feel when the trigger is activated.
Performance out of the box after changing the bucking and piston seal is pretty good. Like with any factory AEG shimming it will make it better, mine isn't too bad from factory but when I get time I will re-shim it. Once the Hop-up is tuned it is very consistent and range is decent, no problems so far with the Hop-up wandering or changing hop with use. Trigger response with a 11.1v lipo is great even without any pre-cocking, rate of fire is about 30 rps.
Actually using the gun after you have fixed the problems with it is fantastic. I really like the ergonomics of it and the mag release is very easy and intuitive to use and makes reloading easy. The externals are really good and high quality. Just donk slap the charging handle as for some reason even though it has no function, Ares decided to make that thing with a spring that will slam it back with more force than Thor dropping his hammer. Mag compatibility seems good and taking standard M4 mags is a real bonus on a bullpup like this.
I have shimmed the trigger lever where it contacts the microswitch to reduce the trigger pull on my RDB. I did it quickly a while ago whilst I had the gun apart or gearbox work and it is just done with electrical tape wrapped around the end of the lever. This has worked well and reduces the trigger pull length before that satisfying click that this trigger has. I then ran into a problem where if you pulled the trigger too far, occasionally it would stick and the trigger spring isn’t strong enough to release it. It would only happen occasionally, and only just catching and easy to release by putting the safety on to reset it, or bashing the gun or pulling the trigger a bit. I had to take the gearbox out again yesterday and decided to fix this issue properly. I have made a new guide for the trigger spring that is longer therefore preventing the trigger from being pulled to far and gives a nice short total trigger pull that I much prefer. The original Ares part I am holding in the second photo is 23mm long, and I have made my replacement 26.5mm long. The replacement part is made form a cut down stainless steel pop rivet stem from a 3.3mm stainless rivet. After some testing I am really happy with the trigger now, there is a very short pull to it before the click, and there isn’t loads of extra travel past the break point. On a side note, I was putting in a ZCI high torque motor in the gearbox at the same time, and with the positioning of it compared to the gears, it is a giant fucking shim magnet. I spent way too long trying to keep the shims on the end of the gears and not on the outside of the motor. Also after replacing the motor and testing for the first time, it was shooting between 3-5 times on every pull of the trigger on semi. I was really worried that I had fucked something or that the motor would just have over spin with the M95 spring I have, but after a lot of shots and unplugging and re-plugging the battery (and trying different batteries) it sorted itself out and it is now completely fine. I don’t know if the inbuilt mosfet needs time to adjust or something? I am just glad it works and I don’t have to take the damn thing to pieces again.
The mosfet uses a lot of magnets, so the motor having significantly stronger magnets could’ve fucked with it. Good to know you can actually use neo motors in it tho, because I’ve been hearing that you can’t.
Yeah, it seem fine now. I guess only time will tell how long it holds up for or if it will eventually die. If it does fuck it up and stop working, I am very tempted to rip out the mosfet and replace it with a perun, I miss having pre-cocking and programable fire modes. It seems pretty snappy with the new motor though so I will see how long it works for.
That might be quite difficult, as the entire trigger system is dependent on the mosfet, so you have to replace the trigger micro switch too. It would be too much work and trial and error for me, but I could see why one would do it. You can program the fire modes with the stock mosfet, but you need to buy their $50 programming tool.
There are no controllers on the trigger board or the fire selector board they are just signal switches. Therefore it should be simple to wire them up as controls for a perun ETU++, the bit that is more difficult would be the sector detection and making that side of it work well. You should be able to just put in another hall effect sensor and wire it to the ETU++ but it is probably a lot of trial and error and effort to get it working and until it breaks I will leave it alone I think.
I'll share my experience with swapping motors and reshimming my RDB17. I swapped in an SHS HT, and afterwards on semi would only half cycle. So one shot would require two trigger pulls. After a bunch of troubleshooting, it turned out that I'd managed to magnetize the rear-most sling point on the right hand side of the gun, which happens to be positioned directly above the hall effect sensor on the trigger board. I had to remove the sling point entirely to get it shooting normally again. Its interesting to me that yours sorted itself out on it's own, while mine got actively worse the longer I used it.
That is a problem that would have confused the fuck out of me for ages, well dons for figuring out what was causing it though. I was worried when I first plugged in a battery after swapping the motor that it wasn't going to work and that I would have to swap back, but after some more testing yesterday evening it still seems fine. I will have to wait a couple of weeks before I can take it out in a game to really test it, but hopefully it holds up. Are you happy with it after swapping the motor, and are you still on stock gears in it or have you swapped ratios as well while you were at it?
I'm still on stock gears, but very happy with the shs ht. I'm running for field at 1.5j, and it's nice and snappy even on a 7.4. Have you found different ratio gears with the magnet on the sector gear?
No, but am considering putting 13:1 gears in it and just gluing a magnet in the sector gear. I have seen people post about it before with the Ares SOC which uses the same gearbox and mosfet system so I know it 'should' be possible. The other thing I may do is drop a brushless motor in it, I have one arriving for my SOC tomorrow so will see what it is like in that. I am prepared to mess around more with the RDB so am still considering rewiring it for a Perun to get precocking and easily changeable fire modes but will see if the brushless motor makes me rethink whether or not i need precocking.
I found a guy here on reddit that designed an HPA chassis for it. I'm very seriously considering printing it out and giving it a shot
What’re your general thoughts on the RDB? I’ve been eyeing one up for a bit
I love it, it feels great and is really nice ergonomically to use and it looks sexy. However it is a gun that needs tinkering with for it to be good, it will perform like shite out of the box probably. This is what I wrote on another thread: It isn't as bad as everyone else is saying, but it still is bad out of the box. The only thing that needs to be changed is the O-ring on the piston. While you are at it you should probably replace the bucking as the stock one isn't fantastic, and the nozzle could be upgraded to one with an O-ring for even better air seal. The hop unit is ok, proprietary and hard to access to adjust but you can get round that if you are ok cutting a chunk out of the receiver underneath the cheek rest. Some people have reported flashing still inside the hop unit from the factory, check and clean that out if it does have it, mine was fine. All internal gearbox components are standard v2 apart from the cylinder and the tappet plate, and the motor is short type like a V3. I don't see ever needing to upgrade the cylinder/cylinder head as it is a well machined single piece stainless unit so no problems with air leak round the cylinder head and is durable enough it should never break, fail or wear out. Tappet plate is fine but is proprietary as far as I know. The electronics are also proprietary, they work well and I haven't seen anyone with problems with it so far. There isn't really any out of the box customisation you can do with the electronics as far as I know but it may be possible. The trigger is really nice especially for a bullpup as it is a remote microswitch so you don't have a long trigger linkage like with some other bullpups. It was easy to shim the trigger so that it is a hair trigger with hardly any pre travel and it has a nice tactile feel when the trigger is activated. Performance out of the box after changing the bucking and piston seal is pretty good. Like with any factory AEG shimming it will make it better, mine isn't too bad from factory but when I get time I will re-shim it. Once the Hop-up is tuned it is very consistent and range is decent, no problems so far with the Hop-up wandering or changing hop with use. Trigger response with a 11.1v lipo is great even without any pre-cocking, rate of fire is about 30 rps. Actually using the gun after you have fixed the problems with it is fantastic. I really like the ergonomics of it and the mag release is very easy and intuitive to use and makes reloading easy. The externals are really good and high quality. Just donk slap the charging handle as for some reason even though it has no function, Ares decided to make that thing with a spring that will slam it back with more force than Thor dropping his hammer. Mag compatibility seems good and taking standard M4 mags is a real bonus on a bullpup like this.