Mega dart (and more!) drop in replacement barrel for Dart Zone Max Solo Pro

prusaprinters

Basic overview:This is a drop in replacement barrel for the Dart Zone Solo Pro that is designed to allow it to fire mega darts, but I designed the model in a way that it can not only also still fire half darts, but fire rival ammo too! It shoots Mega darts a bit better than stock Nerf Mega performance and it shoots short darts and Nerf Rival at about N-Strike performance. This kit is basically designed to turn your blaster into a last ditch swiss army knife of a blaster that fits in your pocket, so you can use just about whatever ammo is scattered around. The barrel keeps all of the break action functionality of the stock barrel while allowing it to fire multiple ammo types. You only need to fold the blaster when loading short darts, but because it keeps the folding ability, its great to keep in your pocket during a Nerf war, just in case. Operation:When using Mega you just unfold the blaster as you would normally and muzzle load a single Mega dart in the front as you would with a Nerf Bigshock. Note that the blasters performance with Mega will vary depending on the condition of the dart, but it wont be very noticeable unless your using a really messed up or old dart.When using Rival balls, it's pretty much the same as Mega, except you only load the Rival ball part way in. The barrel has staggered diameters with a front section being the widest, ideal for most Rival balls, and the middle section being tighter, best for softer knock-off ammo. The last section of the barrel is too tight for any rival ball and if you load the ball that deep, you will need to fire the blaster 2 or 3 times before the ball will exit the barrel.When using short darts, you operate the blaster as you would in its stock form. You just fold the barrel down to rear load a single round, and than unfold it, prime, and fire. When firing, the latch for the barrel may come loose because of how short the barrel for half darts is, just as the Solo does when dry firing on the stock barrel. This is because the dart doesn't give much resistance against the air from the plunger head for very long, causing the plunger head to slam forward faster, knocking the latch loose. This could be fixed by using a stronger spring for the latch but it doesn't really matter. Leaving this here as a warning: because the barrel is so short, use with half dart on this barrel probably isn't the best for the health of the blaster, but the internals are pretty robust so it should be fine. Because of how short the barrel is, the blaster does not benefit at all from bamboo darts and actually fires them worse than regular darts, although they are still perfectly usable as a last ditch effort in a Nerf war.Printing: I made sure to design this file to be as easy and forgiving as possible for all printers. This file requires no support whatsoever! so you can just take it off the build plate and install it! I did most of the testing for this file on a Bambu Labs P1P but made sure to test it on an Ender 3v2 Neo with stock cooling fans to make sure that most, if not all printers would be able to handle the overhangs with no support. The print should be oriented muzzle down and printed with no support unless your printer has a particularly awful cooling setup. I printed this at 10% infill with 2 0.4mm walls at 0.2mm resolution and needed no post processing before installation. If your printer is not properly tuned you may have some issues with tolerances and need to do a bit of filing on the latches, but if your printer is, you should be fine. Note that if your printer tends to leave gaps in your print walls, you WILL end up with an awful air seal and worse performance.Installation:Installation is incredibly easy as it takes less than two minutes. The blaster has 5 screws in the main body (YOU DO NOT NEED TO TAKE APART THE ORANGE BARREL, JUST THE BLUE BODY). Once you open the blaster up the first thing you should do is take out the safety which is resting in a slot on the side of the plunger tube and set it to the side, as it is really easy to lose. From there, you basically need to take out all of the internals because of the way everything stacks inside the blaster. Just remove the plunger tube and the top barrel lock should come out with it. From there take out the barrel and trigger, but take note of how the barrel retaining lock that holds the barrel in place when folded rests inside the trigger. Set aside the old barrel and replace it with the new one. Be sure not to lose any springs in the process. There should be 3 springs (not including the main plunger spring, not sure how you would lose that one), a short thick on for the top barrel lock, a longer thick one for the folding barrel lock in the trigger, and  a thinner long one for the catch. Just re-assemble everything exactly how it was but with the new barrel and your good to go. It may help to take a picture of the internals before taking everything out so you know where everything goes. Once the blaster is all buttoned up, your good to go! This mod is entirely reversible so if you decide you prefer to use the stock barrel, you can just change it out as you did before.WARNING: BY MODIFYING YOUR BLASTER, YOU ARE RISKING BREAKING IT. YOU LOSE OR BREAK SOMETHING WHILE USING OR INSTALLING THIS PART I AM NOT RESPONISBLE FOR THAT.If you have any questions or feedback, let me know, and thanks for checking out my design!