The Last Week (and a Half) In Review: Mk-3 Edition
Many of you have been asking in the YouTube comments for a new warehouse tour, and a look at our operation behind-the-scenes. While we are still planning on doing that, in the meantime I wanted to take you through the last week we had. And what a Week!
Note: We will have a separate blog post about the mod parts and accessories we've designed; we will only briefly go over some of the big ones that are available in our shop.
In anticipation for the Dart Zone Pro Mark-III dropping on e-store shelves on Friday, October 1st, Prime Time Toys and their PR company sent us the blaster early for review in late September. We went straight to work testing, filming and designing with the intention we would have at least 5 compatible mod parts ready to sell by the time the video dropped at 9:00 am PDT the Wednesday before.
It was a mad push to get the video uploaded in time. Once we received the blaster, Friday and Monday were reserved for filming, with the rest of the days a marathon of editing as cleanly and concisely as possible. We wanted to make this one of our most thorough reviews ever, and with how many different types of batteries this thing takes, It certainly was.
TALON INCOMPATIBILITY
Magazine compatibility is where the Mk-3 caught us by surprise. Luke swears that he tested with Talon mags at home before filming on Friday, but it ended up taking the weekend to diagnose the problem we were experiencing: that darts occasionally stick on the pusher and jam the mechanism when the spring returns it.
And that wasn't the only problem. A combination of factors made the pusher assembly experience uneven wear where the Talon feed lips clamped around the pusher track. Our friends over at FoamBlast fortunately showed how to fix that in their video.
CORRECTION: BATTERIES THAT FIT
The Mk-3 is unique in its use of an XT-60 behind a AA battery tray. Not only does this make it the most versatile blaster battery-wise. You can even use the battery tray as a low-current pack to test wiring in other blasters
In the video we mentioned that most 3s batteries don't fit without an extended battery door. While we still made one of those for massive battery packs people might have for the Proton Pack or other larger builds, we found out we actually have three batteries on the shop that are compatible with no additional parts needed.
Of course please be careful and read our lipo safety guide and all the materials that came with your battery and charger, and use a LiPo alarm when plugged into the blaster.
WAS THE HYPE WORTH IT?
WE put a poll out, like we do every Monday, this time asking was the hype surrounding the DZP Mk-3 worth it? Was the juice worth the squeeze?
Most of you said some variation of yes, though with only 5 options allowed on YouTube community posts, there is a limit to the granularity of the poll.
I believe much of the hype was warranted. Even with some of its problems, centered mostly around its innovative magwell and full-stroke pusher design, The Mk-3 was a comfortable primary-class flywheeler, and at $130, it seems priced well enough for a newcomer without a blaster, mod parts, battery, charger, and additional tools to put it all together. It's a great platform to get started, and it leaves plenty of room to get into modding eventually without making a 150 FPS flywheeler unobtainable from the start.
NEXT WEEK
We finished filming the mod guide and individual product overviews for all the mod parts on the shop. You should expect to see all of those videos on YouTube and the listings here on the site by the end of next week.
In the meantime, check out our initial testing of a pusher motor upgrade we did after filming the mod guide. We got up to 17 darts-per-second on 3s with a Kraken, and we'll spend the next week abusing the pusher to ensure what we recommend in our mod guide will not damage everyone else's blasters.
Lots more to come. Check back next week for more details of the 19+ different mod parts we have available on the shop. - J Perry Heun