RS187 Luchadora: A Word from the Designer
The RS187 Luchadora has proven to be a hit! After a successful soft-launch last month, and the fanfare of videos and announcements last weekend, we're more than excited to start seeing the blaster pop up in gameplay.
To continue the fanfare, I'd like to give the floor to the designer that created it: RadioSilence187. Take it away RadioSilence!
• • •
I’ve been modding stock Nerf blasters and designing remixes based on 3D-printed community blasters for several years, and I wanted to create my own personalized purpose-built blaster. My inspiration for building the CAGEFIGHTER came from our local Bay Area Ultra Stock (250 FPS cap) games and Ragnaroktoberfest (130 FPS cap) events. It’s easy enough to sketch ideas and draw sci-fi foam blasters, but after considering constraints like ergonomics, component footprints (such as batteries, wiring, motors, and flywheel clearance), the physical dimensions have a way of shifting the overall look. I also have a print production limitation, as my 3D printer’s 6”x6” bed requires the parts I design to be reasonably compact. With this in mind, my personal blaster’s key features would be a unique compact design, competitive FPS and DPS, easy to build, and ready to dual wield.
The RS187 CAGEFIGHTER was a fever dream that started with a simple dual-stage cage and a grip with a dual-stage trigger. I added a yolk pusher, battery, and magazine receiver while keeping in mind where wire channels would interact and how thin the walls would be. I made sure to choose parts readily available through NIC hobby shops, such as Kuryaka Daybreaks, FoamBlast motors, and accessories, OutofDarts spanning boards and electronics, and metric hardware found just about everywhere. I stylized the CAGEFIGHTER body in a way that exposes the moving components, presenting a visual demo of how the flywheel blaster operates. There’s a skeletonized ergonomic grip for the power switch and trigger system, a fully visible N20 yolk pusher and disk that connect to an exposed Talon short dart magazine, which feeds into Kraken motors spinning Daybreak flywheels visible under a thin-walled top cover before the dart finally exits through the short barrel. I sliced the design in a way in which sporty, solid lines accentuated key components and gave users options for color-blocked schemes.
After launching the CAGEFIGHTER on Thingiverse, feedback started to pour in. To me, it was a very interesting trend: people needed something a little less intense. In response, I designed the Clover (dual stage) and FlyFox (single-stage) cages to give users options for lower FPS situations. Following Luke’s (OutofDarts) coverage of the CAGEFIGHTER, more requests started popping up on improvements. I decided it would be a great chance to start rolling out new features I had initially left out, transforming the purpose-built blaster into a real modding platform.
Most 3D printed flywheel blasters are dedicated to a specific motor and flywheel combination. Upgrading to new flywheels and motor sizes usually meant redesigning or reprinting a new cage, new covers, possibly a new blaster entirely. I wanted this next blaster design to keep people interested in modding to the next level without losing elements of the blaster we already have on hand. Thematically speaking, a cage fighter is a no-nonsense close-quarters brawler. The luchador is cut from the same cloth, gloriously styled, with even more flexibility and spiciness.
The RS187 LUCHADORA Platform is leaps and bounds beyond its predecessor, maintaining a familiar silhouette while catering to various flywheel build combinations that have emerged in the hobby over the years. The key to the LUCHA’s flexible design is a larger motor area which would serve as clearance for a variety of brushed motors sizes, brushless motors, spanning and standalone MOSFET boards, Arduinos, ESCs, and other electronic components. Now we can start with a single-stage cage, upgrade from 130 to 180 size motors, upgrade to dual stages, upgrade to select fire, even upgrade to brushless motors. Whichever way we wanted to modify our kit was made possible without ever needing to reprint the entire blaster.
I wanted the LUCHADORA Platform to be a real crowd-pleaser, touching upon requested design elements and accessories, but never straying from its humble origins: a unique compact design, competitive FPS and DPS, easy to build, and absolutely the most important of all -- ready to dual wield.
• • •
RadioSilence187 is a nerf warrior, modder, and designer located in the San Francisco Bay Area. He's known for such designs as the Artemis stock attachment point, the FPV Bullpup FDL3 with night vision, and more! You can find him on social media at:
- Instagram as @radiosilence187
- YouTube at youtube.com/radiosilence187
- Discord as @RADIOSILENCE187#3092
- J Perry Heun