The app calibration. - Yes the same one if you change powders. However I never changed powders.
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AutoTrickler V4
- Thread starter adamjmac
- Start date
I haven’t paid too much attention to this thread since I sold my V4. I kinda thought I was crazy for not liking it. Too slow, too finicky and narrow envelope to get it performing well. I didn’t mess with shimming the back b/c if that’s what I have to do to get a finished product to work I’m out. Avg charge time was 15sec with a +25sec throw pretty frequently. Went back to a V3.
Thank you for clarifying. This is the first Auto Trickler I've owned and so far its been working well. I'm very happy with it
Hi,
I'm just reading some of this thread, not all of it, and I really don't understand all the negativity. Everyone that has been emailing me has had nothing but good things to say about V4. Any confusion about tilt angles and calibrated flow rates is dealt with easily through an email explanation and a little passing information back and forth. I have NOT been receiving a flood of negative emails. Emails are the primary method of communicating with me about the AutoTrickler.
There was one person yesterday who asked if I have been making progress sorting out my "issues" which led me to try and understand what he was talking about.
Ensure the panel is level. Set the housing on the bumpers normally without any shims or trickery. The front will be about 0.1 inch above the back. Press Slow and let the tube prime for a few seconds. Run a calibration. Check the calibrated flow rate. It should be somewhere between 0.1 and 0.25. Set the sliders to 5 and load. Adjust sliders if needed to improve large tube / small tube ramp down speeds.
Adjusting the tilt should only be needed to fine tune the calibrated flow rate into a specific range for a specific powder if the standard tilt angle is not right. Which is not common. For example N570 usually works best in my experience with 0.1 to 0.15 so a slight adjustment in the scale feet can tilt the scale a little to reach that and might improve performance if it's dropping 2-3 kernels at the end. Whatever the reason to adjust the tilt there should be a good reason. Not for everyone.
Page 14 through 18 explain all of this as best I could in the format of a user manual.
One person two days ago was saying it was overshooting by 3 grains but the solution was simply to calibrate again because something had changed since he last did. Problem solved.
There were a couple of people last week having overshooting issues which turned out to be that the scale response mode was set to SLOW. It needs to be FAST.
There was one person who was having overshooting issues with N570 and asked for a refund in his first email, citing common problems discussed on forums must mean the product is poor. I explained how to approach N570 with V4 and he wrote back and said it was perfect now, +/- 0.02. I said that's not really possible with N570 but he sent me videos showing that's what he was getting. OK then, he's happy.
There is no one constantly emailing with issues getting good performance. It's always sorted quickly whatever it is.
I don't engage on forums after having too many stressful situations in the past but this is reaching a threshold where I have to say something. Just email me if you have a problem. I always answer my emails. Every one. Unless it goes to my spam. Just email me please and ask your question so I can help you.
I received this email this morning from a customer:
Got the V4. Tried it with 43g of Varget. Not sure what people are complaining about. i let the system calibrate and did not touch it. Most charges took anywhere between 12-15 seconds - with a few here and there taking longer but very few and probably having to do with how the small tube is charged. I can imagine this diminishing the longer your session is. All my charges where either spot on or +- .02. I could not be happier. Can I make it run faster - sure. But leaving it be. Plus if I count the cleaning and calibration time - so much better than the V3.
Settings were
Large Tube 15.8
Small Tube .16
Large Tube 5
Transition Weight 2.19
Small Tube 5
Thanks again - great piece of equipment.
I'm just reading some of this thread, not all of it, and I really don't understand all the negativity. Everyone that has been emailing me has had nothing but good things to say about V4. Any confusion about tilt angles and calibrated flow rates is dealt with easily through an email explanation and a little passing information back and forth. I have NOT been receiving a flood of negative emails. Emails are the primary method of communicating with me about the AutoTrickler.
There was one person yesterday who asked if I have been making progress sorting out my "issues" which led me to try and understand what he was talking about.
Ensure the panel is level. Set the housing on the bumpers normally without any shims or trickery. The front will be about 0.1 inch above the back. Press Slow and let the tube prime for a few seconds. Run a calibration. Check the calibrated flow rate. It should be somewhere between 0.1 and 0.25. Set the sliders to 5 and load. Adjust sliders if needed to improve large tube / small tube ramp down speeds.
Adjusting the tilt should only be needed to fine tune the calibrated flow rate into a specific range for a specific powder if the standard tilt angle is not right. Which is not common. For example N570 usually works best in my experience with 0.1 to 0.15 so a slight adjustment in the scale feet can tilt the scale a little to reach that and might improve performance if it's dropping 2-3 kernels at the end. Whatever the reason to adjust the tilt there should be a good reason. Not for everyone.
Page 14 through 18 explain all of this as best I could in the format of a user manual.
One person two days ago was saying it was overshooting by 3 grains but the solution was simply to calibrate again because something had changed since he last did. Problem solved.
There were a couple of people last week having overshooting issues which turned out to be that the scale response mode was set to SLOW. It needs to be FAST.
There was one person who was having overshooting issues with N570 and asked for a refund in his first email, citing common problems discussed on forums must mean the product is poor. I explained how to approach N570 with V4 and he wrote back and said it was perfect now, +/- 0.02. I said that's not really possible with N570 but he sent me videos showing that's what he was getting. OK then, he's happy.
There is no one constantly emailing with issues getting good performance. It's always sorted quickly whatever it is.
I don't engage on forums after having too many stressful situations in the past but this is reaching a threshold where I have to say something. Just email me if you have a problem. I always answer my emails. Every one. Unless it goes to my spam. Just email me please and ask your question so I can help you.
I received this email this morning from a customer:
Got the V4. Tried it with 43g of Varget. Not sure what people are complaining about. i let the system calibrate and did not touch it. Most charges took anywhere between 12-15 seconds - with a few here and there taking longer but very few and probably having to do with how the small tube is charged. I can imagine this diminishing the longer your session is. All my charges where either spot on or +- .02. I could not be happier. Can I make it run faster - sure. But leaving it be. Plus if I count the cleaning and calibration time - so much better than the V3.
Settings were
Large Tube 15.8
Small Tube .16
Large Tube 5
Transition Weight 2.19
Small Tube 5
Thanks again - great piece of equipment.
Thx Adam. My V3 worked great, V4 no issues; Varget, H4895, H4350.
Quick throws, V4 very convenient for load ladders. Interestingly, V4 seems to splash less powder than my V3 and my scale drifts a lot less.
Finally, I run the calibration twice in a row. Seems to work well and then I dont even mess with priming the tubes. Just fill hopper, calibrate, dump, calibrate again then off to the races.
Sometimes the swiss cheese holes line up and a customer has a bad experience.
Thanks for all the work on a product I am very happy with.
ZY
Quick throws, V4 very convenient for load ladders. Interestingly, V4 seems to splash less powder than my V3 and my scale drifts a lot less.
Finally, I run the calibration twice in a row. Seems to work well and then I dont even mess with priming the tubes. Just fill hopper, calibrate, dump, calibrate again then off to the races.
Sometimes the swiss cheese holes line up and a customer has a bad experience.
Thanks for all the work on a product I am very happy with.
ZY
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I agree with @adamjmac. I read here about people shimming to get their V4 to work better. I shot him an email asking where to get shims because my H4350 was not coming out of the trickler that well. He was very fast to respond back and forth and recommended adjusting the feet on the scale. After a quick minor adjustment to the scale feet I was running perfect and have had no issues since. The V4 is awesome and throws +/- .02 every time. Adam has an amazing product and great customer support!
For all of us that had a V3 and went to a V4 you know you had to "tune" the trickler with the adjustment screw on the bottom of the trickler. This is no different
Unfortunately no matter how great something is people will still complain...
For all of us that had a V3 and went to a V4 you know you had to "tune" the trickler with the adjustment screw on the bottom of the trickler. This is no different
Unfortunately no matter how great something is people will still complain...
While the reply is much appreciated, it doesn't change the fact that a few of us continue to tinker with the product to get it to work (level, tape shims, calibration, whatever, etc.). Myself and a few others who use the V4 have overthrows that never existed on the V3. The issue is the small tube causes kernels to clump and then suddenly drop with slow trickling. This is not ideal. I regularly have 20 perfect throws followed by a few throws that are over by 0.5+ grains, for example. The speed of the V3 is significantly faster than the V4. I can post a video to demonstrate this easily.
I mean, a previous poster demonstrated developing a tip to prevent this issue. So, yes, the issue still exists and persists. I know many local shooters that have similar issues with no solution other than increasing tilt, though it appears to be a temporary one.
I am no stranger to your units and have used them for years. Not stirring any trouble, just giving some honest feedback.
I’ve been I communication with Adam in regards to the tips since I wanted to help get a fix the stall with the small tube. I didn’t make it to make a profit just to help the system be better, though I don’t mind selling them until Adam can get around to testing the tips and implementing them to the V4 if he chooses. I think there’s more to this production than we see/realize.
Note:
I’ve already sold one to one member here and he said it helped a lot and others I sent this out to for testing have said the same.
I understand not everyone has perfect results out of the box. This is a new design with new adjustments to think about. There is no reason to believe that one unit will perform any different than another or that problems are not solvable.
Instead of tinkering to the point of frustration and criticism, ask me for help. If the things being tried and reported on are not actually solutions it is only going to make it worse, and also for others who come to forums looking for help. You'll need to describe the problem and maybe send me a video but please let me have the chance to understand, potentially recreate the problem here, and then we learn from it.
If there is a major design flaw or limitation I will say so but so far I have not found one. If there is something very difficult or confusing I can rewrite the manual and/or send out a mass email with clarification.
Instead of tinkering to the point of frustration and criticism, ask me for help. If the things being tried and reported on are not actually solutions it is only going to make it worse, and also for others who come to forums looking for help. You'll need to describe the problem and maybe send me a video but please let me have the chance to understand, potentially recreate the problem here, and then we learn from it.
If there is a major design flaw or limitation I will say so but so far I have not found one. If there is something very difficult or confusing I can rewrite the manual and/or send out a mass email with clarification.
Regarding the tip, if it helps, I will seriously consider making it a standard part of V4, hopefully with no added cost. I haven't had a chance to evaluate it but I did have some prototypes made in aluminum.
This past week Adam notified me that my order was ready and it was time for me to pay. Based on the recent comments here I was hesitant to move forward. I reread as much as I could and decided to pay my invoice. The slower speed of the V4 is not a big issue, but overthrows and underthrows are my main complaint with the RCBS Chargemaster. Hopefully the V4 I receive will not be problematic with the powders I use.
BTW, my reservation was April 22, 2021 and my place came up this past week.
BTW, my reservation was April 22, 2021 and my place came up this past week.
I would say just run it. You will enjoy it.
Given my complaints... I'm a picky SOB (comes with my personality and job, per my wife). So the V4 and V3 work fine. I just give my hat tip towards the V3 in overall performance. The ease of powders is better for the v4. With that said, I ordered another V4 awhile ago given the wait times... It would be my third Autotrickler added to my bench.
I did not blink an eye when they asked for my money.
My V4 is in route, I took my old chargemaster and dandy trickled off my reloading bench today; I hope to never use them again.
The only reason I hesitated was due to the comments here on Snipers Hide. They made it sound like there was a major issue with the operation of the V4 that needed a fix.
Mine is shipping this week.
Got my v4 all setup. Loaded some ammo and didn’t have any overthrows. Set it up following the instructions and zero issues at all
My V4 has been running like a champ, and I was one of the first to receive one... so it's been working well for as long as they've been out. The V4 is so much better than older autotricklers, the old units aren't even worthy of a mention.
Some people can mess up a 1 car parade.
I have been using the @jthor tip here recently, and it has seemed to add a bit of speed. I'm going to fire up a live stream on the Primal Rights youtube channel in a while. You can tune in to see it in operation with a variety of powders.
Some people can mess up a 1 car parade.
I have been using the @jthor tip here recently, and it has seemed to add a bit of speed. I'm going to fire up a live stream on the Primal Rights youtube channel in a while. You can tune in to see it in operation with a variety of powders.
Anything you own that doesn't work less than perfect?My V4 has been running like a champ, and I was one of the first to receive one... so it's been working well for as long as they've been out. The V4 is so much better than older autotricklers, the old units aren't even worthy of a mention.
Some people can mess up a 1 car parade.
I have been using the @jthor tip here recently, and it has seemed to add a bit of speed. I'm going to fire up a live stream on the Primal Rights youtube channel in a while. You can tune in to see it in operation with a variety of powders.
Nope, because if it doesn't work perfectly, I sell it to someone that doesn't care or throw it in the trash. Why would I keep something I was unhappy with? They get some effort to get right... then they go away.
Labradar is headed back to them on RMA today. Labradar screwed up on the stream yesterday, and the FX120 was drifting like crazy. That certainly isn't the fault of the auto trickler... but if I can't get it sorted out, they will go down the road together, scale and trickler. My Prometheus makes the auto trickler kit wear a dunce hat... so it won't bother me if I have to get rid of it. However, so far it's been working just fine for my purposes. I can throw 100 charges and only have 3-5 over throws. That's not bad with this kind of setup. Even if it's a bad session and there is 3-5 per 50... its still a clean and useful unit to keep around.
It isn't like I don't put this all out there for people to see. I have more live rounds loaded with an autotrickler than anyone on the planet. You can watch for yourself how it behaves. I notice there aren't many other precision rifle folks running live streams. I wonder what they are hiding?
I'd really like to pair the autotrickler up with a specialized digital scale in the $5000 price range and eliminate some of the stupidity a $500 scale brings to the table... but for now this will suffice.
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I dunno.Nope, because if it doesn't work perfectly, I sell it to someone that doesn't care or throw it in the trash. Why would I keep something I was unhappy with? They get some effort to get right... then they go away.
Labradar is headed back to them on RMA today. Labradar screwed up on the stream yesterday, and the FX120 was drifting like crazy. That certainly isn't the fault of the auto trickler... but if I can't get it sorted out, they will go down the road together, scale and trickler. My Prometheus makes the auto trickler kit wear a dunce hat... so it won't bother me if I have to get rid of it. However, so far it's been working just fine for my purposes. I can throw 100 charges and only have 3-5 over throws. That's not bad with this kind of setup. Even if it's a bad session and there is 3-5 per 50... its still a clean and useful unit to keep around.
It isn't like I don't put this all out there for people to see. I have more live rounds loaded with an autotrickler than anyone on the planet. You can watch for yourself how it behaves. I notice there aren't many other precision rifle folks running live streams. I wonder what they are hiding?
No one really wants to watch someone livestream someone using an Autotrickler... Talk about the most boring thing to watch in the world. A 10% overthrow is a significant issue to address. Would a 10% miss rate be okay with most folks? I think not. Too busy competing to livestream anything.
Well considering I average about 50-60% hit ratio, yeah I’d shit myself if it was bumped to 90%.I dunno.
Too busy competing to livestream anything.
I dunno.
Too busy competing to livestream anything.
What do you compete in? 10% miss rate would win a person a lot of PRS type events.
I just got notice that my v4 will be here next week. This is my 1st AutoTrickler so I am sure it will take me a while to learn how to use it right
Just got my first one. Took about an hour to set up, learn, then begin loading. Not too difficult
No matter what I purchase or how familiar I am, I always read through the instructions and follow them. I set the unit up, calibrated as dictated by the instructions. I ran a few throw tests with different powders and everything worked as expected. I did not experience any of the negative issues as listed in this thread although this is my first auto trickler and had no expectations other than precision as compared to my chargemaster lite.
Nope, because if it doesn't work perfectly, I sell it to someone that doesn't care or throw it in the trash. Why would I keep something I was unhappy with? They get some effort to get right... then they go away.
Labradar is headed back to them on RMA today. Labradar screwed up on the stream yesterday, and the FX120 was drifting like crazy. That certainly isn't the fault of the auto trickler... but if I can't get it sorted out, they will go down the road together, scale and trickler. My Prometheus makes the auto trickler kit wear a dunce hat... so it won't bother me if I have to get rid of it. However, so far it's been working just fine for my purposes. I can throw 100 charges and only have 3-5 over throws. That's not bad with this kind of setup. Even if it's a bad session and there is 3-5 per 50... its still a clean and useful unit to keep around.
It isn't like I don't put this all out there for people to see. I have more live rounds loaded with an autotrickler than anyone on the planet. You can watch for yourself how it behaves. I notice there aren't many other precision rifle folks running live streams. I wonder what they are hiding?
What’s this $5k scale you speak of?
Got my V4 yesterday and I am very pleased. I am upgrading from a charge master I have had for 10 years so the difference is night and day. The unit is easy to clean out and I was able to get it calibrated relatively easily. It always helps to read the instructions 1st.
How often do you need to balance the scale?
How often do you need to balance the scale?
From what I understand it’s good to turn the scale on and let it warm up for 20 to 30 minutes then zero with the cup on. It’s not really necessary to calibrate often since the scale goes off the zero.
I calibrated the scale once just to see how it’s done. Since then I just rezero as needed
I finally tried to set mine up tonight. It is way under on the small tube flow rate. I’m disappointed in the design. It’s not obvious to me how to shim the back, nor does that seem like a reasonable design. I’m not interested in another tedious hobby, I want a device that just works.
You can tap a screw wheel. Or, like me, use blue painters tape...
Currently testing reducers for the small tube.
The latest release by Ingenuity Precision is quite a nice upgrade to the V3.
Where exactly do you shim it with painters tape? Do you have a picture that you can share? ThanksYou can tap a screw wheel. Or, like me, use blue painters tape...
Currently testing reducers for the small tube.
The latest release by Ingenuity Precision is quite a nice upgrade to the V3.
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And the reducers. I used one on the funnel too. Trimmed the nose back and now I do not get any splashing at all.
Made my reservation July 7 got my notice today.
Why not just use the scales feet. It already has a bubble level built in and the scale really doesn’t care if it’s not perfectly level, as long as you leave it that way. I’ve had no problem with minor adjustments using the scales built in feet.
Yes. I was an early adopter of the V4 and no amateur to Autotricklers. The solutions presented have worked for some and not for others. If you follow the "other" precision rifle forum, Reddit, etc... These problems are not isolated to just SH.
And there is no bitching going on... There is a discussion about solutions: shims, reducers, playing with straw speeds, adjusting scale height, etc.
sorry. that was too harsh.
So, I should reconsider and get the V3 instead perhaps? Esp since I've given up the N570 barrel burner powder logs?
