Yep, that's the other problem--complexity. You need to have a system to pump both chambers (and you can't pump the same thing--it's air and water), and you need the piston inside.

A Precharger does have slightly reduced dropoff, but it does waste space. Consider this:
In a conventional soaker and in a Precharger, you don't start out with the same pressure. A conventional soakers starts with a pressure of 15; the Precharger starts higher, let's say at 30. To get to a maximum of 45 PSI, the conventional soaker's PC is filled 2/3 of the way. The Precharger's PC is filled only 1/3.

Then you fire off 1/6 of the PC's volume worth of water. The conventional soaker is now at 30 PSI because it's half full; the Precharger is at 36 PSI because it's only 1/6 full.

You fire again, and the conventional soaker is down to 22.5 PSI, with 1/3 water left. The Precharger has no water left, but is still at 30 PSI by the end.

So the PreCharger does has slightly less dropoff. But it does sacrifice water capacity. It's a perfect tradeoff--less dropoff = less capacity, and more dropoff = more capacity. In contrast, a CPS gun can fill its entire PC case with water, and it has absolutely no water.

It is a matter of choice as to whether or not a Precharger is for you. If you tap/pump, you might be a little better off with a Precharger as the capacity won't be an issue. There's definitely a lot of potential here--if they increased the size, that would be beneficial. Also, any air pressure gun can outperform a CPS gun, but only if you have a small pump diameter so you can attain greater pressures.

Still, CPS is my favorite system. It's more powerful than conventional air power--although I'd like to try an APH with a 3/8" pump--and CPS has no dropoff and is very space-efficient. It also has linear flow and can be cheap and light--for homemades, at least.

CPS is my fav system, too.

However, for the pre-charge system, part of me wonders whether a pre-charging-less-pre-charge system would be possible; that is to have a gas-impermeable pressurized chamber that pushes on the piston (or perhaps don't even need a piston at all and just have a "bag" fitting inside the PC).

Your example on the pre-charger isn't quite accurate; conventional soakers start at 0 pressure (unless pre-pumped). Drop-off falls off much more quickly for non-prepumped soakers. Of course, pre-chargers sacrifice available pressurized water volume, but as noted, that is the trade-off. A CPS bladder can fill its case, but its max force is purely dependant on the elasticity of the rubber. From my understanding, to get more force from a CPS-system, it typically requires thicker bladder walls (or multiple layers) such that the system can have more potential energy from the same amount of expansion. The current pre-charger design, to me, is not optimally maximizing its potential within its space. However, I can see means of improving it to be on par with CPS-tech, perhaps even exceeding if things are done well.

Granted, our current discussion is WAY off topic for this thread. When it boils down to it, I don't care so much on how the water is pressurized, I just want my soakers to be able to hose others down!

Side thought: CPS-systems do have a drop-off; the drop-off point is just quite short compared to standard air-pressure soakers. Give any CPS-soaker a single or partial pump and its stream will not fire as well as it does with a few more pumps to properly expand the bladder. Air-pressure-based soakers continually lose power throughout the whole shot (unless there is a device compensating for the air-pressure-loss), thus drop-off seems more noticeable. Pre-chargers have CPS-like stream performance thanks to their higher starting pressure; pump them just with a half-pump and they can fire quite well. However, they also have a marked loss of PC capacity in their current form as noted already.

B)

I wasn't referring to the pressure differential; 15 PSI is the atmospheric pressure, or what is already inside the PC. If the pressure was 0, there would be no air inside at all and it would fill itself.

A bag has been suggested for the PC in a Precharger, but the problem is that it would expand as it increases in size. An increasing surface area + an increasing pressure = a ton of dropoff because the force increases very rapidly

Air pressure definitely can be more powerful, we just need smaller pumps so we can pump in more water and increase the pressure.

Alright, enough off-topic...

Oh.. silly me.. I'm thinking in pressure differentials, not absolutes. For firing, I prefer to highlight pressure differences than absolutes since pressure difference is what allows our soakers to fire in the first place. You're absolutely right that if the PC pressure were absolutely 0 PSI, it'd be sucking in water as opposed to firing. That said, in your example, the normal soaker is left with a differential of 7.5 PSI while the lowest pressure differential for the pre-charger would have been 15 PSI. Less drop off for the pre-charger at the cost of shorter shot volume. But we've beaten that fact to death now.

As for the bag in a pre-charger, not sure I quite follow what you're saying. The bag would fill the entire PC and be compressed as water is pumped into the PC. The total PC volume is fixed due to the casing. The bag would be pre-filled with a higher pressure than an atmosphere; compression would push it up higher. Minimum stream pressure would be equal to that of the full pressure within the bag. Not sure where the major drop-off arises in this case.

Argh... back on topic... uh... there's no conspiracy; there's just a general lack of interest in higher quality water blasters by the public, thus no reason for manufacturers to push the boundaries of what is possible just yet. For a long time, people have been more than happy with dollar-store soakers. Sure, the Super Soaker has been around in 1988, but water warfare as something more than just general soakfests has not caught on as something needing better soakers than the current average stock soaker. If more can be shown the fun of organized water wars and the advantages of better performing soakers, there will then be a market for bigger, more powerful soakers. However, until it is profitable for a company to make bigger soakers and for the retailer to sell them, the more potent soaker will remain in the realm of modders and builders for the time being.

B)

Oh, I thought the bag expands inside the case...but nevermind.

What I don't understand is why they can't make small, powerful guns, like the CPS 1000, 1200, or 2100. Even a smaller air pressure gun with a small pump diameter would be fairly powerful. That said, the Flash Flood and Blazer are improvements.

I'm wondering how Hasbro/Larami did the patents on CPS. How do you patent just a latex rubber tube/balloon? What if they used different materials and different systems and designs to improve stream lamination, triggers, etc.? I'm also unsure of how the Max=D triggers are patented, is it just the system of pieces it has to go through to open up quickly? Ball valves have been around for a while.

It was rather strange today when I went to Target. In my area, it's still snowy and cold and is going to stay like that for quite a bit, but Target was already selling a bunch of water toys and pools... and no water guns of any kind of course.

I have a feeling that the design for the pre charger is similar to Supercannon II. The PC fills about halfway with air, then you pump in water, increasing the pressure of the air, as shown in m15399's animations on his site. Pre chargers need a pressure gauge, either PSI, electronic or Max-D 6000/XP110 style. You need to know how much pressure is in the system, and you need an emergency PRV. It may just be too expensive to create powerful PChG

With SuperCannon II, you can't pump in water. You just pour in water and then pump in air. Basically, it's a pressurized reservoir gun on steroids.

The closest Precharger is <a href="http://forums.sscentral.org/t3824/" target="_blank">joannaardway's SPCgH</a>. It's a really cool idea, and if you do it right it can be very powerful. If you had a standard PCgH, with an actual piston, with a 1/2" barrel and linear flow, as well as a 4" PC, you'd have something as powerful as SuperCannon II. Of course, it wouldn't be as perfect (not as linear), and its capacity would be reduced, but you'd have a powerful cannon nevertheless as well as a PCgH.

EDIT: Sorry for hijacking the thread. Almost like there's a conspiracy between us off-topickers...