Daystate Red Wolf Acting Sick

[scratchcoobster]

Went out to shoot today with my .22 RW Safari on the bench. Filled her up to 240 Bar, shooting JSB 25 gr ReDesigns.

Everything started out great. Popping bullseyes at 50 yds, on Medium Power (avg. 975 fps), loving this gun. First string of 20 had an ES of 16, and a std dev. of 5.1, dead accurate. Second string of 20 had ES of 21, std. dev. of 5.3 still pin point shots. But I started hearing a pinging sound during each shot. Haven't heard that before.

Third string was a different story. Started out at 972 fps for the first 3 shots than dove to 823, 828, 837, next shot was 670, then I stopped. Pressure was 184 bar so that was okay. I switched to High Power just to check it out, usually when I switch power and return the cocking lever I get a thumping sound and vibration from the gun letting me know the change took place. Not this time.

I took a shot and the fps was 817. Switched back to Medium Power, fps was 796 fps, Low Power was 640 fps. Just in case the pressure might be too low I topped up the bottle to 240 bar again. Loaded, cocked, pulled trigger - nothing. Repeat, still nothing. Turned safety off/on again, pulled trigger at Medium and got off a shot at 840 fps, 135 fps below my normal Medium setting.

So, It wasn't the bottle pressure or gauge it read down to 174 bar from my original 240 bar fill. When I refilled it read 240 bar and only went down to 238 bar after shooting 2 shots. In case it might be the battery I recharged it, but I still get no thump when changing settings and the display light does not turn on when I throw the safety switch. It was dark so I couldn't shoot after charging it but I think that is not the fix.

Any ideas on what I can check next? I didn't get a loud pop that might indicate the breach ring. Not losing air that I can tell. The gun has simply lost power and pooped out on me. Any suggestions or experience with this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, guys.

 

[ronmcc4]

I’m a new Red Wolf owner myself so I have no experience with this but it sounds like a problem with the board since you aren’t getting haptic feedback. I’d be on the phone with Airguns of Arizona ASAP on Wednesday.

 

[Odoyle]

I would contact the dealer and also leave the battery removed disconnected from the gun try 24 hours. Recharge them try again 24 hours later.

Breech O Ring would be my guess as well go check it.

 

[Spartan]

Curious how the boards are sealed in these mostly wooden rifles. Are there gaskets around the housing cutouts? Conformal coatings on the boards themselves? How are the wire runs handled and terminated?

 

[scratchcoobster]

Sure seems like it would be the board (or wiring) since the power settings jump around, the display doesn't light when safety is switched off, no hapatic response when program changes are made. The display light does come on when lever is back and trigger is held for programming.

 

[scratchcoobster]

So what you're saying @Odoyle is - reboot?

 

[Odoyle]

That's what you do when your phone and or PC gets screwed up right?

You want to let the gun reboot yes shut off rest 24 hours I think is reasonable. The board capacitors still got juice after you unplug that battery so you give it some extra time.

 

[newy]

The safety and cocking lever operate a plunger that acts on a micro switch and it doesn't take much movement for this to get out of alignment, could be worth a check.

** Make sure the rifle is unloaded as it could possible fire when aligned is restored**

 

[scratchcoobster]

Thanks @newy. How do I check alignment and find that switch?

 

[Macros]

Thanks @newy. How do I check alignment and find that switch?

The only way your getting to that is by removing covers and disrupting those 'warranty void if removed' stickers. Granted you do have to go through those to program so who knows what the point is. Probably wouldn't chance it on a broken guns that is going to need warranty work though.

In any case that switch is binary in that it activates the safety i.e. Effectively turns the gun on/off. It's not going to be the cause of weird power fluctuations and loss of several board functions. My guess is one or more components of the board circuitry has burned out/failed. Possibly one of the capacitors may have gone. 

I'd let the warranty guys do their work and sort (replace) it. Not much diy fixing possible from an electronics standpoint, apart from replacing them with a heliboard.

 

[newy]

Take the action out of the stock and the cover off the GCU that is located on the opposite side of the display. 

The GCU mounting screw is located underneath the stock mounting screw, if you loosen it slightly is gives some lateral movement under the plunger that allows this to line up with the micro switch.

Mine was doing all sorts of funny stuff till it stopped working completely, though all sorts of things might have gone wrong but in the end took me about a minute to fix!

 

[Odoyle]

Its probably not it if the safety still works IE does not fire when set to safe.

But plugging in that battery right now to double check safety starts the 24 count down all over again.

 

[Odoyle]

By trying to repair it by disassembly that may void the warranty as well as put that gun in a much worse position that may not even fire or have intermittent dead fire IE cock load press trigger nothing happens most of the time and sometimes fires BE FOREWARNED!

 

[scratchcoobster]

First, I consider myself FOREWARNED,

I'm not keen on disassembling my gun. I have the battery disconnected and will "reboot" in 24 hours. At that time I will check to see if the safety works, haven't tried that approach. Also will see if it fires, and at what speed (chrony it). I think I should try the tissue over the breech trick to see if any air escapes to verify breech seal integrity.

I did notice that on 1 or 2 occasions (during that shoot) I'd turn the safety on, turning power off, then turn back on, load pellet, cock lever, pull trigger and nothing happened. Pull trigger again, nada. Shut off, turn back on, re-cock and it would fire but pellet hit like 2 feet below POA. At all times the pressure reading was correct, power level was displayed, etc. But no thumping from gun to alert me when a new power setting was chosen and lever closed.

Other than that, it looks to be the electronics the way the power settings are so far off, and the sudden drop of velocity mid-shooting. Since it was working perfectly for the first 40 or so shots and then failed drastically it looks to be a problem with the board, as if something got fried or capacitor losing voltage.. I was shooting slowly using the single shot loader and taking my time with each shot, no magazine involved. All pellets were from the same tin, so nothing external was affecting the gun.

I am receiving a heliboard this week and was looking forward to installing it, but with the current problems I have a dilemma. Do I install the heliboard to try to fix the problem or send it out for repair first? If I install the new board and it doesn't work I'm in deep. Will I void the warranty? Jack says the install does NOT void the warranty as the original board can be re-installed like new. Not so sure about that.

What do you think @Odoyle? And by the way - you RULE.

Thanks for all the help guys, now I have to test this thing and make some decisions. Your inputs are greatly appreciated.

 

[newy]

@scratchcoobster you running a bottle mounted Bipod by any chance?

 

[scratchcoobster]

@scratchcoobster you running a bottle mounted Bipod by any chance?

No, Bipod is attached to a pic rail in the forend of the stock. Installed by AoA. I also removed the moderator (Hugget Snipe) to check for clipping causing pellet drop. Same results sans moderator, so no clipping. The pellet hits dead square to where I aim, just a couple of feet lower after power drop, guess I could use holdover. lol.

 

[newy]

The problems you describe sounds very similar to what was happening with mine.

I was worried about the warranty question as well so reached out to Daystate and the fix that worked for me, as described, was carried out during a video call direct with the factory, saved me lots of stuffing around sending it back!

Keep us updated on how things go

 

[elh0102]

Could it be as simple as re-charging the battery? I suppose you would have received a low battery warning, but maybe a discharged or bad battery. If not, then probably an electronic issue that is not user-friendly to fix. You might want to send to AOA for warrranty repair before replacing the board. If that should turn out not to be the problem, you might have voided your warranty. If it is a faulty board, then having it replaced under warranty would provide a good backup to your new board. 

 

[Springrrrr]

Did you take a look at the breech "O" ring yet? What you described can relate to the ring being launched or damaged.

 

[elh0102]

Did you take a look at the breech "O" ring yet? What you described can relate to the ring being launched or damaged.

I've never known a blown breech seal to cause the velocity to go down, then back up. Mine have always resulted in a rather consistent, but lower velocity, and accompanied by a recognizable popping sound with each shot.