Troubleshooting for Dummies and Common Solutions

[Flatlander]

My gun doesn't fire. OMG!

Motor/mechbox won't cycle all of a sudden???

First determine if it's an electrical problem or mechanical problem:

- Check the fuse (if you have one)

- Plug battery in and pull and hold the trigger with the battery in hand - if it starts getting warm LET GO OF THE TRIGGER IMMEDIATELY: you have a mechanical problem - SEE A GUN DOC.

- If you hear a 'clicking' sound when you pull the trigger, this usually means there's not enough juice left in the battery. Charge it up and try again. If that doesn't work, you're mechbox is most likely locked up - SEE A GUN DOC.

- If the battery DOESN'T get warm and no sounds, or anything happens you most likely have an electrical problem.

- Another quick test is to take out the motor and test it OUTSIDE the pistol grip (so under no load). Make sure you know what you're doing in terms of running the wires properly in the pistol grip! This is mainly for M4's and MP5's as their motors come out the bottom of the pistol grips and don't require the mechbox to be pulled out.

Common Electrical Problems:

- Check fuse like mentioned before (if you have one)

- Use a different battery.

- Check all your wiring to ensure there is no breaks in the connections especially at solder points and joints where they commonly fail. Also check the MALE end of tamiya (aka mini/large) connectors as they contain a FEMALE style contacts inside each pos/neg 'hole' thingy-ma-jig. Over use the female contacts inside sometimes get pushed out and loose ((insert dirty joke here)) and lose contact with the other end when plugged in. Find something small and point to bend them back together.

- Motor connectors fall off. I see on a lot of M4's (mostly) that sometimes the motor connectors work their way loose as there's no motor cage to keep them from wobbling around inside. Take the motor plate off and check this. Take special note how the wires are run in the pistol grip - do it wrong and the motor won't seat right and cause things to jam and lock up.

- If you're comfortable getting at your mechbox, check the 2 little 'finger' contacts which are on the trigger assembly, which protrude outside and make contact with the selector plate contact. Some times those fingers get pressed down and don't make contact anymore. Simply pry them up gently with a small flathead screwdriver.

If none of these work, GO SEE A GUN DOC.

No BB's coming out. WTF!?!?

If your gun is miss-firing lots or no bb's are coming out at all try this:

- Use different mags (brands and types if possible) to determine that it's not a mag issue.

- Put a couple drops of silicon oil in your empty mag, load it to spread the oil around then try firing it. Sometimes the springs and BB's get stuck in the winding passage ways of the mags and the oil helps things slide nicer/faster allowing for the mag to keep up with the gun. This is an especially bad problem I've found with midcaps as they wind around a lot, so there is a lot of direction changing and chances for them to get stuck. Note this may cause your hopup to go a bit wonky for a bit but it should settle down.

- Put a couple of drops of silicon oil through your hopup loading tube (located at the top of your magwell). Sometimes the hopup rubber just gets a bit dry. This may cause your hopup to go a bit wonky for a bit but it should settle down.

- KING ARMS MAGS - I've sometimes found on my metal m4 mags that the little retaining lip that stops the bb's from flying out is a bit too long. File it back slighly until it feeds nicely but not too far or else your BB's won't stay in. I've also heard this is a common problem on their M14 mags.

If those don't work you may have a serious problem - SEE A GUN DOC!


My GBB mags leak gas. Son of a bitch!

First off, you were probably a dumbass and didn't leave a bit of gas in your mags. If you don't, the orings tend to dry out. So here's what you can do:

- First, find the leak! Get some soapy water and put it on your mag. Fill your mag up with gas and look for bubbles forming (from the soapy water)...this is how you can find your leaks.

Fixing Leaks:

- Fill valve seal. First make sure the valve is actually tight...ie. tighten it with a screw driver or hex wrench (whichever it takes). If that does work uscrew the valve and soak the o-ring in silicon oil over night (or longer) then reinstall oring and valve. This sometimes works. Try tephlon (plumber's) tape on the threads of the valve also.

- Baseplate leak. Another common area to leak is where the main 'shaft' of the mag meets with the 'baseplate'. You'll have to figure out how to seperate these two pieces (different for most mags). Then go to crappy tire and buy some silicone adhesive. Run a small, continuous bead of this where the two parts meet and create a gasket of sorts with it (discard the old gasket/oring). It works great and I've heard of some guys doing this to their brand new mags before they start leaking! You can also try soaking the old oring/gasket in silicon oil first if you're more comfortable with that.

My gun is jammed, what do I do!?

Another sort of common problem is BB's jamming in the barrel/hopup. Tightbores are particularly prone to this and you may find your gun likes/dislikes certain brands of BB's.

You can tell if your gun is jammed by the fact when you pull the trigger and nothing comes out but the gun cycles and there is also a distinct lower pitched 'thud' rather than a 'snap' when you shoot.

- Clearing Jams: Fire the gun upside down in SEMI AUTO several times to try and clear the jam. Upside down so that gravity helps feed the BB. Semi auto slowly so that the air has time to leak out and the piston has time to return to the forward position. If it doesn't unjam in several shots you'll probably need an unjamming rod to clear the BB. I always take the mag out trying to clear the jam, not sure why I started doing that but its just what I do, haha.

- DO NOT TRY TO CLEAR IT IN FULL AUTO! Here's why:

- BB jams in barrel
- Air is now trappped and/or cannot escape fast enough therefore the piston is now stuck mid-stroke
- The gears now come back around and try to rack the piston teeth but don't always mesh properly causing wear on the piston and a gross grinding noise.

If you get frequent jams and you've oiled the hopup, switch to a different brand of BB's immediately.

[Dao]

Hey Mark thanks a lot for putting this up.
Very useful info and helped me to get my King Arms mags working properly again

[hattrick]

good post. Not too specific, but it handles a majourity of the common problems.

[theguy]

very useful, never would i have thought that my fuse would be dead,
I know its a common problem, just totally slipped my mind.
Thanks for your effort...I think this one should be... stickyed

[Dao]

+1 for sticking this

[demco11]

If you dont know what your doing... STOP right away. Better to let a gundoc take a look and save you the headache.

And also, if you mess up while trying to take apart your gun or doing some mechbox work... remember that gundocs charge double if you give them an AEG in a ziploc bag.

[-=WILL=-]

I have the following problem
- If you hear a 'clicking' sound when you pull the trigger, this usually means there's not enough juice left in the battery. Charge it up and try again. If that doesn't work, you're mechbox is most likely locked up - SEE A GUN DOC.

And my battery is fully charged. Seeing a gundoc is not an option for me. I have taken apart my mechbox and reassembled it 5 times now with no success. I have dont everything that I could think to do.

Help =[

[KNIVEZS]

have you tried using a different battery?
what gun/ brand is it?

[Flatlander]

Originally Posted by -=WILL=-

I have the following problem
- If you hear a 'clicking' sound when you pull the trigger, this usually means there's not enough juice left in the battery. Charge it up and try again. If that doesn't work, you're mechbox is most likely locked up - SEE A GUN DOC.

And my battery is fully charged. Seeing a gundoc is not an option for me. I have taken apart my mechbox and reassembled it 5 times now with no success. I have dont everything that I could think to do.

Help =[

The more info the easier to diagnose (type of gun is a big help!)

- I'm assuming your gun cycled previously; did you switch pistol grips or mess around with the motor height? Too high and it will jam and be unable to turn.

- You may have installed your motor backwards...try turning it 180 degrees or simply reverse the wires on the motor leads if possible. I've done that a few times, haha.

- Could be shimmed to tight.

- You could be running the wires improperly in the pistol grip (for certain guns).

If you wouldn't mind, it'd be better if you started your own thread and include as much detail as possible (gun, parts, work done, things tried to narrow down the problem, etc). Right now you're much to vague to narrow down the problem effectively.

[-=WILL=-]

Its a V2 mechbox. And I have managed to get it working again. Turns out the anti reversal latch spring had bent so it looked ok when i closed the box but when I put any pressure on it it came off. I have installed a new spring and its working fine now. And I did wire the motor on the wrong way as well haha x]
Thanks for the help anyway