Bottom or side?

[richardbridges]

Wouldn't it be more effective to have the air flow in from the side than the bottom?

[joannaardway]

It's much debated.

It would be nice to see someone actually build two otherwise identical vortex guns and prove it one way or the other.

[subterranean]

"noname" should be here shortly to clear things up. Acording to him the shorter the ditance the bb has to travel will allow for maximum speed to be kept.

[noname]

Yep. How'd you guess?
Besides, it wouldn't work at all with "my style" of block, without the full circle.

[Mr.Russ]

it probably would work, like noname said - with a full vortex circle.

Butttt it seems to be alot easier to get the air source from the bottom.

[richardbridges]

I'm not going for easy. I just got a 1/2 inch x 2 inch x 4 foot T6 aluminum bar and a Hudson 800 psi spray gun. Both free!

[noname]

Damn, I wish I was you. The normal air source works better, and it's easier. If you're not going for easy, you're going for worse performance. Just make a normal inline block.

[zeigs spud]

"noname" should be here shortly to clear things up. Acording to him the shorter the ditance the bb has to travel will allow for maximum speed to be kept.

yea thats pretty much true, the less friction & shorter they have to travel the less energy they lose.

[richardbridges]

What about completely eliminating the vortex so that the bbs have no surface to go around? Stick a magnet in the bottom to hold them in place in the barrel at the bottom of the feed.

[lukemc]

for one thing it is very hard to create a hopper that constantly feeds without jamming and also it is gravity feed so you would have to keep it up the whole time

[noname]

It's been done, and works so much worse than a vortex, it's unbelievable. You have to shake it to get it to feed, and then the ROF is like 5 per second, it sucks.

[jackssmirkingrevenge]

If it does make a difference, it will be negligible

[Modderxtrordanare]

That thread you linked to is about inlet placement on a cloud, where as richardbridges is asking about a vortex.

I would think that placing the inlet perpendicular to the barrel would be more effective [theoretically] due to less surface it must travel over.

[jackssmirkingrevenge]

That thread you linked to is about inlet placement on a cloud, where as richardbridges is asking about a vortex.

My point is that you're feeding air into what is effectively an expansion chamber at a lower rate than it's being expelled from the barrel - this remains true irrespective of what angle you're feeding the air, so simply varying the latter variable isn't really going to have any significant effect on performance.

[richardbridges]

Thank you jackssmirkingrevenge. You cleared that up for me.