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Difference in LP or HP

Ion_Paintball

Beam me up Scottie
Mar 13, 2007
548
0
41
Sheffield
Both for me and other users on the forum...

Can someone with good knowledge tell me the difference between LP and HP regs? what the pressure outputs are?

And if there are any guns that wont work on HP or Lp (in general)

Cheers
 

Lucky

Platinum Member
Sep 1, 2004
1,556
1
63
57
rochester, UK
Back in the day when we were all on Co2 it was found that the output pressure of the bottles was 850Psi. So when we went to air we had to match that pressure so the guns would work, and we called this HP. Then some manufacturers learnt that if they reduced the input pressure then it would be softer on fragile paint. LP was established as a standard at 450Psi so you had a choice of
HP @ 850Psi
LP @ 450Psi
Basically HP will give a faster recharge rate and be harder on paint and LP will be slower but be softer on paint. It's all down to manufacturers choice and basically means nothing. Angels i believe are LP and you can hardly call them slow but they can shoot very fragile paint. My cocker is HP but yet i've never had a problem that wasn't loader induced or down to poo paint.
 
O

ollytheosteo

Guest
All I'd add to the above is that it mainly comes down to the inline reg, which has the job of supplying air to the marker at the right pressure. Some inlines like an LP supply, specifically some of the Angel mini-regs, whereas some don't mind HP or LP. As a rule of thumb a decent difference between bottle reg output and inline reg output makes for a good supply of air with no worries about shootdown, but at 12bps there isn't much in it. If you want an LP reg that will be happy at high flow rates look at a Crossfire reg, but if you try and run some guns on a less flowtastic LP reg they can be starved at high rates of fire.
 

Devrij

Sex-terrorist
Dec 3, 2007
1,341
2
63
38
Bristol
While we're on the subject, is there a difference in fps consistency between LP and HP inputs? Or is it a case of what the inline reg was designed to take? For instance: I run my etek on LP (works grand at 15bps) but would putting HP into it (as recommended) increase my shot consistency or does it have no effect at all?
 

Lucky

Platinum Member
Sep 1, 2004
1,556
1
63
57
rochester, UK
While we're on the subject, is there a difference in fps consistency between LP and HP inputs? Or is it a case of what the inline reg was designed to take? For instance: I run my etek on LP (works grand at 15bps) but would putting HP into it (as recommended) increase my shot consistency or does it have no effect at all?
Basically your front low pressure reg takes whatever your bottle supply is and conditions it to the actual "firing" pressure of your gun. It's also the main factor of maintaining consistency as it has to provide the same gas discharge shot after shot.
So theoretically you have HP=850PSi at the bottle
Your front reg will tale that 850psi and drop it down to 150-300psi, which is the actual pressure that your gun needs to fire the ball (it varies between markers).
Now your etek will run on LP as for example we'll say it needs 250psi firing pressure. So your LP(450) is reduced down to 250 and your gun goes bang. But your gun then needs to recharge it's pressure ready for the next shot and if it only has 450psi filling the gap where the last shots gas used to be. Then it will fill that gap slower than if it had 850psi filling it. On modern guns with capped bps rates this is not so much of an issue but you could experience shootdown off of the break when your firing consistently. This basically means that your 450psi cannot refill the gun quick enough so your shot pressure will fall 250, 240, 230, 220, 210 etc etc until you stop firing and the gun fills itself fully again.
The reason they recommend HP is really just to prevent this but if your not having problems then don't bother changing.
Hope that's right as it's 12.30am and i'm nearly asleep:cool:
 

Devrij

Sex-terrorist
Dec 3, 2007
1,341
2
63
38
Bristol
I whacked the dwell up a couple notches to compensate. I just gotta fire a few shots before I hang the flag in case that first one's a bit hot :eek: Cheers