Shocker Vision/Non-Vision Board Adjustment ZDSPB.com > Tech index > Shocker SFT > Adjusting and maintaining > Electronics adjustment > Vision/Non-Vision board
This board came in all Vision Shockers before the Nerve programming boards arrived (approx December 2004). All non-Vision Shockers come with the same basic board, except without the actual Vision mode (as described later).

Note: This is only a guide for HOW to adjust the board. Information regarding WHAT to set adjustments at can be found on the Setting Electronics and Pressure mainpage.

Upgrading: Although there are newer versions of boards available (Nerve board), Smart Parts does not offer an upgrade service for previous versions of the stock board. Further, the board cannot be reflashed without the proper security codes (confidential property of Smart Parts inc). Further, attempting to wipe the microcontroller will result in permanent damage to the chip (it will fry). Further, the circuit responsible for this is located on the blind layer of the board so there is absolutely, positively no way to modify it.

Board Operation:
To activate the board, push and hold the power button until you hear it chirp (it will activate if the power switch is held in for two seconds). The board is activated in non-Vision mode, ready to fire. If you have a Vision board, you can switch to Vision mode by pushing the power button again once (the board will chirp if successful). To deactivate the board, hold the power switch in until the board chirps once more and the LED no longer blinks (again, after two seconds).

The LED in non-Vision mode blinks twice fast every one second (the interval between blinks is 1/4 of a second). The LED in Vision mode while a ball is loaded is four blinks every second. If no ball is loaded, the LED will blink once every second. As said, to toggle between Vision enabled and disabled, push the power switch once. If you have a non-Vision board then nothing will happen.

Programming:
The only adjustable settings on the stock Vision/non-Vision boards are dwell and recharge. To adjust either of these, you must first remove the left side of the grip panels so that you can have access to the lower, vertical circuit board. You will see two grey buttons located on the side of the board; these are referred to as the dwell buttons and are used to adjust both settings. The top button will increase the setting wheras the bottom one will decrease it, denoted by the text UP and DN printed on the back of the circuitry.

Dwell buttons

Dwell:
To adjust the dwell setting, simply push either the dwell DN or UP button to decrease or increase the setting respectively. Don't hold the trigger down while doing this or the dwell won't be adjusted. Never set your dwell below 12 chirps, as the solenoid is not designed to cycle at this rate.

Tech On Vision/non-Vision boards, dwell is adjustable between 3 and 14 milliseconds, in 0.25 millisecond increments (4 settings total). This means your dwell increases one millisecond for every four chirps, with the minimum setting being 3-ms. Information for "where to set dwell to" is often given in chirps and NOT milliseconds. For purposes of upgrading the board to another one (which uses milliseconds to adjust), you may need to know how many milliseconds the dwell setting was for the Nerve board.

How long is my dwell time, in milliseconds, if I have it set to chirps?

Recharge Rate:
Recharge rate is the term we use to describe the length of time after the dwell has expired, before the marker will be allowed to fire again. Because of this defination, increases in recharge rate will allow more time between shots, thus decreasing your maximum rate of fire (and vice-versa). Recharge is only used to determine the max ROF for the marker; it has nothing to do with consistency, efficiency, recoil, or any other factor. All it will do is slow down or speed up your maximum cycling speed. It has no influence on how the marker fires at all. You're only adjusting the ROF, so the gun will fire the exact same regardless of where its set (basically). People seem to have a very difficult time understanding this, so I'm hoping that me stating it five times just now will help.Diagram of the firing cycle with adjustments:
Firing cycle diagram
This diagram shows that when you increase your dwell setting, the recharge will stay the same, thus the ROF will be lower since the firing cycle takes longer. To compensate you need to then lower the recharge. This is an example and uses example numbers.

To adjust your marker's recharge rate, hold the trigger down while pushing the dwell DN or UP buttons to decrease or increase the recharge time respectively.
Recharge is adjustable between 30 and 70 milliseconds in one-millisecond increments (40 settings total).

To calculate your recharge setting, you will have to use a calculator and punch in the numbers yourself. This is the formula.
DwellMilliseconds + 30 - (1000/DesiredROF)
or (DwellChirps/4) + 33 - (1000/DesiredROF)
This will give you a negative number. Ignore the negative sign and round the number up, and that will be your recharge setting.

Example: If you want to cap it at 15-bps and your dwell is set to 40, the formula will look like this:
Milliseconds: 13 + 30 - (1000/15)
Chirps: (40/4) + 33 - (1000/15)
This will give you -23.6667. Ignore the negative and round it up, and you have 24.

Demonstrational Videos:
This video was designed for a Nerve board, but also applies to the older Vision/nonVision boards. Ignore the part about adjusting rebound modes, since it doesn't apply to these older boards.
Nerve board adjustment, high-res (16-MB)
Nerve board adjustment, low-res (7-MB)