The FAQ was born: February 9, 2001.

Last Updated: March 09, 2005

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Wicked Air Sportz Equalizer Board

From the Web site:

There is just too much information on the web site to duplicate here.  Go to http://www.wickedairsportz.com/products/eqimp.htm for all the Impulse Equalizer impulse information you can get.

Picture taken from www.wickedairsportz.com 

What is included with the Equalizer Kit?

Within the Equalizer Kit you will receive the following:

  • Equalizer board (duh!)
  • Eye board
  • Cable to connect the two (the cable might be connected to the eye board)
  • 5 small screws used as follows: Two to mount the Equalizer to the solenoid tray, One to hold the eye board in place and Two to plug the openings for access to the dwell Up and Down buttons
  • 6 shims for the long detent.
  • New eye cover.

What tools are needed for the Installation?

  • I used a 1/4 inch round needle file that is tapered to a point at the top to file down the hole for the eye board.  A 3/16 would probably work better, but because mine is tapered and you can only put about 1 inch of the tip into the hole, I did not have any issues.  I do not recommend using a Dremel or similar tool as you risk damaging the body of your Impulse.
  • A black Sharpie to color the un-anodized aluminum to prevent it from reflecting light
  • A standard set of allan keys to disassemble and re-assemble your Impulse, which you should already have.

NOTE: If you are upgrading from a green light board, you will need to buy an on/off button.  You can get the stock on/off from Smart Parts or a Smart Parts distributor like www.e-paintballoutlet.com or a chrome on/off button from Adrenalin at www.buypb.com. 

How does the Equalizer compare to the Stock Cricket Board

  Stock Cricket Vision Board Equalizer Board
Eye Enabled I always thought this was the stupidest thing, when you turn on the stock board the Vision is OFF.  You then have to hold the button to turn it on.  This just does not make sense to me.  If you have a Vision system, you will want to use it.  After all you paid extra money to get it. When you turn on the Equalizer board, the eye system is on by default.  If you do not want to use the eye system, to dry fire your marker for example, you can use the on/off button to turn the eye off.

NOTE: The board has multiple programmable eye modes.  Bypass will disable the eye system on startup.
Eye Logic The problem with the Stock Vision board is that the eye logic only detects movement.  Once it sees movement it stops checking for the presence of a paintball and will fire.  This is can cause issues when you are running and shooting, or snap shooting. The Equalizer board watches for paint and continue to do so while on.  If the ball is not there the marker will not fire.

In testing I have found that if you have the eye on and keep pulling the trigger while there is not any paint (or the eye does not like what it sees) it will change to Bypass mode and fire.

I asked Wicked Air Sportz about this and here is their response: "This only occurs if you are in Eye Mode 2 and there is a failure of the eye system... generally, it means that you deliberately held the bolt forward, or the marker did not cycle fast enough (bad o-rings or something trapped in the breach).  It could also mean that sunlight was hitting the sensor and caused a failure.  Eye system failures can only occur in Eye Mode 2."
Dwell Settings The Stock Cricket board has a Dwell range of 4-14 milliseconds and is adjustable in .25 millisecond increments.  This allows you to fine tune your Impulse. The range for the Dwell is 4-50 milliseconds on the Equalizer board.  Programming via the trigger is done by first setting the "major" dwell then waiting and programming the "minor" dwell.  The "major" dwell is adjustable in 1ms intervals. The "minor" dwell is adjustable in .1ms intervals for fine tuning.
Adjusting the Dwell Adjusting the dwell on the Cricket board is SUPER easy.  While the marker is on, just press the dwell up or dwell down buttons through the side of the solenoid tray.  This will allow you to easily dial in the dwell and it is easy to play around with the dwell if needed. Adjusting the dwell via the trigger with the Equalizer is a little more cumbersome. While the marker is on, you have to turn it off, enter program mode, perform a couple steps to enter dwell mode, program the dwell from 0ms up and wait for it to save.  Then power off and back on to test.

The detailed steps are provided in the Manual.

NOTE: Once you set your dwell you will likely not need to change it again so this is not all that bad.

Warrantee One year from the time of purchase.

However, Smart Parts will often replace a bad board for free if it does not look like you damaged/modified it.

 Lifetime on both boards as long as you have not damaged or attempted to alter it.

The eye cable is only warranted for 30-days.  Replacement cables are $5.00
Debounce Not adjustable This feature is very valuable on my Impulse as I was able to lower the debounce and increase the responsiveness of my trigger and still not have illegal "trigger bounce". 

This is important to me because I play National paintball tournaments where the ref's check your markers.

Range is 2ms - 50ms default is 10ms
Eye Mode None There are 4 Eye modes, Bypass (eye off) Eye Mode 1 (with a ROF cap), Eye Mode 2 (unlimited) and Simulate (just for testing).

In Bypass Mode the eye is disabled and the ROF is capped at 13bps.

Eye Mode 1 is for non-reflective bolts which is a bolt that does not properly reflect the IR beam back at the eye.

Eye Mode 2 is for reflective bolts which allow the eye to "see" the bolt.

Simulate does NOT bypass the eye. The eye system is used to monitor the bolt. If the bolt is not initially seen moving past the eye (non-reflective), the rate of fire cap + 10bps is used as a safety to prevent short-stroking the pneumatics (which is actually bad for the solenoid). If the bolt is seen, it is monitored and the rate of fire is adjusted based on the cycling speed.

Default is Eye Mode 1
BIP Delay None BIP Delay - Ball In Place Delay is the delay in time to allow the ball to fall all the way into the breach. A low BIP Delay is good with a HALO, while a high BIP Delay is needed for gravity feed loaders.

Setting the BIP Delay correctly for your loader can add to your ROF.

Range is 1ms - 50ms default is 10ms
ROF CAP All factory boards are capped 20bps for Vision and 13.7bps for non-Vision. The ROF Cap is only used for Eye Mode 1 when the eye system can not see the bolt.

Range is 10bps to 30bps default is 20bps
Eye Sensitivity Not adjustable on the Cricket board Controls how sensitive the eye system is.  The lower the value the more sensitive to light, the higher the value the less sensitive.

Range 1 to 20 default 10
Price If you have a non-Vision Cricket board it will cost you between $150.00 and $200.00 to get a Vision Kit For less money, you can get an Equalizer board which is in my opinion a superior board in manufacturing and performance.
 

Installation:

Instead of walking through the installation steps, you should go to to Wicked Air Sportz web site and download the Installation manual.  It is very detailed with color illustrations.  Read the entire manual first, then take your time and do not cut corners.

Equalizer board installed

With the Bolt, Hammer Assembly and Detents removed. Push a cloth rag into the back of the marker to catch debris when you file down the burr in the eye hole.  When done, push the cloth out the front of the marker.
Filed down the burr to open the hole for the eye board

Eye board installed

New DeSignz narrow I Cover over the Equalizer eye board

What about the recall?

First things first, why was the board recalled.  The boards are programmed at Wicked Air Sportz just before they ship.  The program was altered slightly to test different voltage amounts to the solenoid.  It was an accident that the first 50 boards were loaded with the software and the solenoid voltage was set to it's lowest possible setting.  For some users this meant that their board would not work at all in their Impulse, for others they had to use an unusually high dwell setting.  For me and my setup when I first installed the Equalizer board I had to set the Dwell to 9ms to eliminate First Shot Drop Off, but it worked.  With the Cricket board I was running the dwell at 6.25ms or 13 chirps. Remember AI boards have a lower dwell range, 1.5ms - 14ms

The only way to fix the problem was to re-program the boards.  So, how did Wicked Air Sportz handle this??  Like a company totally focused on Customer service.  Once the problem was identified and the recall was issues, Wicked Air Sportz paid for Overnight shipping BOTH WAYS.  Yes that's right, you contacted their sales department to get the information and they paid for over night shipping from you to them and again from them back to you.  The turn around time was 3 days due to shipping, time zone changes and time to program.  I have never been so impressed with how a paintball company handled a problem.

When I got my board back I was able to set the dwell to 6ms and my Impulse ran like a champ!

So, Is the Equalizer board worth the money?

Hands down, I would have to say yes.  Due to the relocation of the eye and the re-designed eye system the paint detection process is much much better.  I never liked on how a Vision Impulse would fire if you put a paintball in the breech and then removed it.

I conducted a simple test with the original Vision board and the Equalizer board.  I put about 100 balls into my EVO II and went onto the field.  I then proceeded to shake the hell out of my Impulse while firing.  As a side note, I looked very stupid while doing this.  My goal was to see if I could fake out the eye of either board and cause a chop.  I had three different chops with the stock eye board, and not a single chop with the Equalizer board.

Since getting the Equalizer board I have shot well over 6 cases of paint (gotta love practicing for 10-man) and have not had a single chop.

Is the Eye system really better?

YES, and I do mean YES.  Pictured below are the random items that were put into the breech while the eye was on and in White bolt mode.  For this testing the air source was off.

The eye did not like any of the following: any color Christmas bulb, the allen key, any pen, pencil or screw driver, the din connector for the mouse, none of the three plastic toy bolts, the piece of foam or the little red plastic fire hydrant.  Not pictured, but still not liked is my pinky finger (either hand).  The eye did not like the finger front or the finger nail.  Also not pictured, a green grape that fit in the breech, my son ate the grape while I got the camera.

When the plastic McDonalds French Fry was used the board would change from eye on, to eye off (flashing orange LED) essentially turning the eye off.  I do not know if it was the color or the texture.

Random objects tested with the Equalizer eye 

The eye also did not like either end of the Duracell battery, bronze or black or the black end of the Energizer battery.  The silver side of the Energizer caused the eye to go into error mode (flashing red/green) and the solenoid clicked so I am assuming the eye was considered non-functional and the marker would have cycled if the air was on.

As a basis of comparison, The Smart Parts Cricket Vision board simply detects movement and it does not care what is moving.  I got the solenoid to click when I put my finger in the breech, moved the bolt past the eye or put just about anything in the breech area.

Bolts tested for Reflective vs Non-reflective

To test to see if your bolt is reflective, with your board in either Eye Mode 1 or Eye Mode 2, turn the Equalizer on and move your bolt forward in front of the eye.  If the eye rapidly blinks green, the bolt is reflective and you should use Eye Mode 2.  If the LED does not flash rapidly, the bolt is non-reflective and Eye Mode 1 should be used.

Bolt Manufacturer Color Reflective or Non-reflective
Adrenalin Black Non-reflective
Demonic Roar Black Non-reflective
DEZign White tip Reflective
Imperial Paintball (IPB) White Reflective
New DeSignz Equalizer White Reflective
New DeSignz Equalizer Black Non-reflective
Off the Break (OTB) Blind bolt Clear tip Non-reflective
Professional Paintball Nylatron bolt Grey Reflective
Smart Parts Aluminum Black Reflective
VooDoo Black Non-reflective

As you can see, when the bolts are delrin or delrin-like the white bolt's are IR reflective and the black bolts are not.  I do not have any colored bolt so I am not able to test how other colors work, but if you have an Equalizer board, you can test it yourself.

UPDATED REVIEW: I now have version 2.0 of the Equalizer software for my Impulse Equalizer.  The review information related to version 1.1 has been removed and updates made to this review to reflect new features of V2.0 of the software. 

Trigger Programming Quick Guide

I found that I only needed a quick Guide for programming the Equalizer via the trigger, so I figured I would post it here to share.  It's a good thing to print and keep in your gear bag.

LED Color Function Valid Range Default Usage
Solid Red Dwell Range 4 - 50ms 7ms Program whole ms, then wait for LED to blink Orange, then program 1/10th ms
Solid Green Debounce Range 2ms - 50ms 10ms Lower = more bounce, higher = less bounce
Solid Orange Eye Mode 1 - 4 2 1- Bypass, 2 - Eye Mode 1 (ROF CAP), 3 - Eye Mode 2 (reflective bolt), 4 - Simulate
Flickering Red BIP Delay Range 1ms - 50ms 10ms Lower for HALO higher for Gravity feed.
Flickering Green ROF CAP Range 10bps - 30bps 20bps Used for Eye Mode 1
Flickering Orange Eye Sensitivity Range 1 - 20 10 Lower = more sensitive to light, higher = less sensitive to light

If you use the trigger to go past Flickering Orange, programming will start over at Dwell (Solid Red).

The Details

  • Installation: Installation is a little challenging due to the need to file down the extra aluminum in the eye hole, but other than that, it is very simple.
  • MSRP: $149.95
  • Options: None
  • Pro's:  It's a faster board with WAY better eye logic and eye positioning.
  • Cons: It's a little timely to adjust the dwell while in line at the chrono.
  • One more Pro: When new features are available, I can easily update the the software on my board with an Equalink cable (MSRP $49.95) and the program from Wicked Air Sportz.  Can't do that on a Cricket board.