A few facts on Paintballing equipment

paintballing stuff is not dat expensive. theres's a huge variety. there are different types of mechanisms/ screw types/ barrel types/ pressurized air or CO2 etc. there are even sniper guns, fully electronic, semi electronic and fully mechanical. i think wat we used is a fully mechanical one since they're da cheapest and has the least maintenance cost. the price ranges from 39USD to over 1000USD. 

 its basically like buying a SLR camera. the main part is the marker.

all the other stuff come separately unless u buy a packaged deal. other parts are the air/co2 tank and the ball loading thing at the top(called a hopper). optionally u can buy longer or shorter barrels which will respectively increase accuracy and lower weight.

hopper

barrel

high pressure air tank, (4500psi)

on a different note, condoms (in paintballing) are socks like things that u put on the gun in case of accidentally firing it. the sock like thing will catch the ball outside the barrel. its a type of barrel block. other barrel blocks are plugs like things u stuff inside barrel.

anyways from ebay u can buy a full kit for around 100USD. one product i found here. its not available to sri lanka and i dont think buying it off ebay is a good idea. im just saying, those hu are interested, this is not dat expensive.

the expensive part is the filling of compressed air/ N2 or CO2. out of this co2 is the inexpensive one. compressed air /N2 is filled at 3000-4500psi. a compressor which can compress air to such pressure costs around 5000USD. they are normally used in filling suba diving tanks. ( a normal compressor at a fuel station is around 100psi).

CO2 is the practical one. co2 comes as liquid in tanks with around 1800psi. the guns hav co2 bottles with several capacities

4 Ounce - 150 to 200 shots
9 Ounce - 450 to 500 shots
12 Ounce - 500 to 600 shots
20 ounce - 600 to 650 shots 

to fill the co2 bottles we need a bulk co2 tank, a few valve gadgets and a hanging scale(to measure the filled weight of the co2). the gadgets are a one time purchase and as on ebay can be purchased for around 20USD. youtube has lots of videos on refilling co2. its very easy. the price of bulk co2 in sri lanka is what i dont know. i will post when  i find out. 

on ebay 1000 paintball balls are 20USD. there are foam balls (re-usable) that can be used to target shoot which doesnt break. (not to shoot other ppl)

fix for Epson C90

A few years back I bought a printer in hurry. It was an Epson C90. Later only I found out that it was a total cartridge eater. It has 4 separate cartridges(CYMK) and it won't print in black, even if any other cartridge is missing or empty! I got really frustrated and threw it away. But now I have found a solution and it seems to work just fine.

It's called a refillable ink system. It mimics the original epson cartridges and is refillable with liquid ink that is very cheap. It is also environmentally friendly because you don't have to throw away any plastic because you are reusing the same cartridge over and over again.

These are not still available in Sri Lanka. I tried unity plaza and they only offered the continuous ink system which costs Rs. 8000 and is bulky. They are not worth for your everyday use home printer. They are often used in places where mass printing is done like in book shops near our university (University of Moratuwa).

In this pack there came 4 cartridges. They nicely fit my printer. Only my black and cyan cartridges were empty so I only replaced them. The shop owner said to use them all at the same time or else it won't work. But it did!

There are two plugs in a cartridge. One is to refill, and the other is the air vent. Make sure you pull out the correct plug before starting to print. There were no instructions in the box. The instructions were on their website.