300 Round Upgraded Nemesis Hopper, Now Available! (Limited Time Only)
reddit.com/gallery/rdckqs
reddit.comPosted Dec 10, 2021, 4:36 PM UTC
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reddit.comWas an alpha/beta tester for this project, the hoppers work beautifully and are incredibly well designed. Designer is also a really cool guy as well. Definitely look into this if you want a beautifully built extended hopper
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Wow 300 rounds. How much extra weight does it add to the nemesis fully loaded?
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Not too much more, surprisingly!
It does feel somewhat chonkier. As a full-grown adult, it still feels reasonable, but I might not be able to say the same for smaller nerfers.
Didn’t want to go above 300 rounds in order to keep the upgrade practical. The Nemesis is already front-heavy as is, and I didn't want to make that an even bigger issue with more weight.
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Actually, I was curious too, so I weighed them just now. Here’s some nerdy stats!
(Weighed with Stock Nemesis + Recharge Pack)
- Original Hopper + 100 rounds: 2355g
- Upgraded Hopper + 300 rounds: 2845g
- Increased weight: 490g
If you want a feel for it, take a Nemesis with the original hopper, no rounds, and strap two cans of coke on. That’s basically what it feels like.
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Empty or full cans tho ? XD
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Full.
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Looks nice. Sadly not $95 nice. The purview of that price bracket are items requiring a large array of non-printed hardware, or a more complex mechanism. It would at least be slightly more believable if this was like, SLS printed nylon and not PLA.
Appreciate the effort you put into it! Maybe figure a means of reducing cost, or just selling files/hardware kits like other creators do. At the end of the day, however, there is no 'exclusivity' or limited time creations in this hobby. Doesn't benefit anyone.
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DireCyphre, gave a response on the price and limited-time nature of this in a follow-up comment to u/torukmakto4!
tl;dr: These two are due to personal circumstances, my bad for not being clear this was the cause!
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It really shows how much time was put into getting all the shapes and dimensions just right so that this is a drop-in upgrade. Very nice work!
However, as a maker myself, I'd only consider it if I could purchase the files.
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That looks so clean
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Thanks! Glad you like its looks!
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dang
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Would buy it if it came as clear, not solid colors.
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That's fairly difficult to achieve with anything 3d-printed that is also thick enough to withstand any normal abuse, unfortunately. If he had used something translucent, it would have looked more like privacy glass which I think would be pretty cool but I understand sticking to just a few for a run like this.
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3D printing with clear filament is generally hard to work with and can't get you window-level visibility, unlike injection molded parts. At best, FDM 3D printing gets you foggy/translucent parts.
I'm sure others have made 3D printed clear filaments work, but that also requires a heck-ton of time to polish everything down, and this extra labor means the price would triple or quadruple.
As well, despite the solid colors, the hopper still lets you see inside with the speed holes. Perhaps less well than clear, but still visible.
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I understand what some are saying about this being PLA and rather expensive. On the other hand, though, I can definitely tell there's at least $95 worth of work and material in these so don't feel bad about your price. It's not going to be everyone's preferred option and pricepoint but there's still some who will buy and be happy and. in the end, that's who these are for.
Does the hopper door lock into place in the closed and/or open position?
I am also curious, have you drop-tested these?
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Locks open and closed. I would've felt silly having no locks, a step down from the original hopper.
Drop-tested a few prototypes after reading this comment yesterday, ~1.2 meter height. Carpet, only did one drop, but no problem. Pavement, cracks after a few drops, but that's to be expected with most plastic parts
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These are some beautiful looking hoppers it looks like you've put a lot of thought and time into them. Could I simply ask where you are shipping from?
And I will say to those others if you don't like the price stop being nasty and move along don't object to another creators personal self value. Free shipping depending on where that's from that could be a a huge chunk of the price. This creator seems to know his worth doesn't want his worth swollen like many in the hobby have by those who only look to capitalize on someone else's hard work. Then they sell a cheaper less heartfelt product.
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Thanks! It's a year's worth of effort, but felt like five.
Shipping from Canada! But I'm providing free shipping to the US and Canada.
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They look amazing I only wish I had the extra to order one from you I'm building a Loki inspired nemesis at the moment and seeing your creation just put me in awe.....
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Simple, just license it.
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The 300 round beast of a Nemesis upgrade is finally available! Purchase link here: etsy.com/Gyrosoft/listing/1065853635/expanded-hopper-for-the-nerf-rival
LIMITED AVAILABILITY:
- This is a limited initial run of 100 units
- Available until Dec
2124. After that, it won't be available for a really long time. They’ll probably go fast! - Explanation of limited availability in comment for this post
HOPPER FEATURES:
- 300 rounds of total capacity
- Available in red or blue
- Wider loading door to speed up reloads
- Fixed notch on bottom to allow firing with open top door
- Slanted inside surfaces toward the center hole for better feeding
- Drop-in replacement, installs in the exact same manner as the original hopper, no glue required!
- Picatinny top rail and two side rails
- Sized exactly to replace the original clear hopper
- Note: Fixed open hole on bottom, unlike original’s spring-loaded doors
- For everything else, functions identically to the original hopper
SHIPPING NOTES:
- Free Shipping to USA and Canada
- Lead times of up to 4 weeks as quantities decrease.
- I can’t guarantee pre-Christmas shipping.
edit: added available colors in description
edit 2: Added note for explanation of limited availability in follow-up comment
edit 3: Whoever the mod that corrected the flair from "Completed Build" to "Commerce", thank you for doing that!
edit 4: Small availability extension!
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It costs more than I paid for the actual gun.
That's wild.
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Thank you! I don’t want to rehash my comment to u/NoUntakenNames (you can read it somewhere in the comments of this post), I simply can’t price it below the original blaster price (or lower, if you happened to thrift it!).
I'll add to that, though, it solves a lot of the problems the original hopper had! Notably the small loading door, sub-optimal feeding, and sub-Prometheus capacity. It makes the Nemesis a whole lot more practical, and now you’d never need to use the Prometheus ever again!
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Hey, it's your product and you're free to price it as you wish despite how others feel about it as you know it's value/worth. So I hope my comment did not come off as rude.
I 3D print, too (I sold my Ender last month and I'm actually in the process of building a Voron 2.4), so I understand the process.
When I first saw the price my first thought was "Damn! What kind of and how much PLA are they using to justify the price!?!?"
But then I considered the time that went into developing the design. I know that creating objects that attach to existing objects, ESPECIALLY objects that you yourself did not create, is time consuming and difficult.
It is a GREAT design, too! I can see that you put real effort into it.
I was just looking at it from a consumer perspective.
My niece is into Nerf guns so I bought 5 PERSES last week when they were only $50 on Walmart.com so I can go to war with my sister's whole family when I visit them. And now they're currently selling for $80/$84.
So, as a consumer it seems absurd to spend more on just a hopper than what you actually paid for the entire gun.
If I was into real nerf battles I would probably hop on it and just buy one. But as a hobbyist who only shoots around at family events it just isn't a feasible purchase.
I'm just saying, if the price was lower you'd more than likely sell a lot more. At the current price only a small subset of nerfers will find it feasible.
But if you ever want to sell the STL files let me know!
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Does it require any other mods to the Nemesis?
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Nope! Completely a drop-in mod, no shell-cutting or other modifications required!
Remove the original hopper, insert this one. That's it!
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Okay. Just making sure, as I'm pretty sure there's a lock in the Nemesis that prevents you from using it if the hopper door is open. And I wonder why your original comment is being downvoted when the post is not.
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Oh, also, I put a fixed notch on the bottom of the hopper to disengage that lock so that you can reload while firing
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Comment votes ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Edit: yes, I know typing this sounds tone deaf. Hopper good, limited availability questionable. Revised explanation is in the parent comment.
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Follow-Up Comment on Limited Availability:
This comment is here to add to my response on “limited availability” to u/torukmakto4.
The limited availability is admittedly entirely due to personal circumstances. I regret I can’t get into the details on these circumstances, and I could’ve perhaps titled the post for better phrasing as well.
Despite my personal circumstances, I still wanted to make this hopper available to anyone that wants a strong upgrade to their Nemesis, even if it’s only for a limited time, and for such a small quantity! Hence, I added the limited availability note and “long time” blurb here.
As a result of this small quantity, the relatively high price has to be present to keep up quality.
Again, this was due to personal circumstances! I apologize for not saying upfront that this was the cause!
Edit: Paragraph formatting
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[deleted]
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BOOOO
This. (Maybe a good idea here for some kind of community standard type thing is that if you want to not open source a part, you can't sell it in PLA. Not perfect, but getting there.)
Sorry to second this OP - the work is solid, and as they said on the old Nerfcast, I respect the effort (and I design stuff, so I know aspects of this would have been a pain and perhaps taken some trial and error and scrapped plastic to get right) but
...well first of all $95 for a passive hopper is ridiculous and un-nerf. Yes, I know, it's a lot of machine time - but if it comes down to an empty plastic box with a hatch on top costing $95, something here is wrong.
Second, regardless of if it's worth costing 10 times as much to be 10% more professional and 0% more functional than a stock hopper and a random container/some sheet material, that's chucked right out the window by using PLA.
Third, what's all this "exclusivity" stuff about?
This doesn't seem like it's solving a problem. By all means, I'm sure it's great design - I'm not criticizing anything about the actual design, but what's being done with it is questionable. Personally, I would not like to see in the hobby stuff like a limited production $95 container made of low-grade plastics.
Completely understandable, all valid points. I’ll answer them third and first, then second.
I know it’s a high price, and this is for a variety of reasons, mostly coming down to time constraints causing limited availability.
The limited availability is admittedly entirely due to personal circumstances. I regret I can’t get into personal details, and I could’ve perhaps titled the post for better phrasing as well. Despite my personal circumstances, I still wanted to make it available to anyone that wants it, even if it’s only for a limited time and for such a small quantity. As a result of this small quantity, the high price is present.
I know a comparable is 3DPrintedSolid’s Murder Hole Hoppers (large size, 300 rounds, same capacity as the upgraded hopper). His Murder Holes, though, make the blaster more unwieldy (top heavy), plus additional shipping fees. Yes, I know this upgraded hopper has a slightly higher price over even that, but I am making up for it with free shipping and other subtle upgrades over his, like better feeding (vs the stock hopper) and more even weight distribution. These small features do make a surprisingly large difference, as I’ve seen from testing!
Yes, I realize PLA generally isn’t regarded as high-grade, but even with PLA the hopper’s more than strong enough and robust enough as is (along with most Nerf applications in general), so I found other plastics like PETG are not necessary, and so I designed with PLA in mind (more on this below). For cost, PLA was necessary in order to get this out. There are plenty of other professional, yet small Nerf shops that use PLA but still offer great quality and strength, such as OutOfDarts’ Perses Hopper which does use PLA as well but still comes with amazing print quality and high strength.
One concern I know is it becoming abstract art in a hot car, but I admit it’s something to accept with the hopper. Under normal use, the flywheels aren't close enough to melt the hopper, as well. Along these lines, using PLA over PETG here comes down to design limitations. I would need to redesign it for PETG (bridges + steep overhangs making things ugly and highly inconsistent, among other issues), and due to personal circumstances, I can’t redesign it for that, and I wanted to get the hopper out in a timely fashion.
In a similar way, I can’t justify open-sourcing it, or selling STLs. I couldn’t design for every printer out there, in every calibration, and the way it’s currently designed, it does have a lot of specifics and tuning that make it unable to work for a large chunk of printers. Redesigning to accommodate this takes significant time as well.
I know this comment is ballooning unnecessarily, along with most of the comment section as well, my apologies. I'll also edit my original comment to clarify some of these. Feel free to critique more if I missed something, and I hope this clears up most of the concerns around the hopper!
Thanks for a civil and reasoned reply to criticism.
So the constraints are very understandable of course. But this seems like an all or nothing, artificially rigid approach to those constraints where if for whatever reason you cannot personally make these for everyone who wants one, then the work can only sit collecting dust indefinitely. I don't like that because I view the hobby as a system with finite resources, and that's a waste of those resources.
I would have very similar criticisms there.
What bargain basement tier PLA are you using that your PLA is actually any cheaper than comparable quality (not fancy brand) PET? Typically I see nerfers who use PLA "because it's cheap" paying as much or more than I am for filament.
Might be a market competition justification for it, but not an objective one.
I disagree with a probable majority of designers in the hobby about the material PLA being appropriate on the field. Generally, they come off as very salty and frustrated that I give zero weight to "But others are doing it so it can't be wrong, right?" arguments and expect actual logic and facts. I have also received a ton of improper discussion and unmitigated anger over holding that position and been banned from a server for what was definitely pure disagreement (fuck the rules, right). I'm pretty sure it is a normalized deviance. It's troubling for sure.
Similarly as with blasters. Results matter. Whether other people do it or think it's OK is not going to change the HDT of PLA. What matters here is that the first time some players get lunch and leave their blasters in the car trunk, which is absolutely an unavoidable thing every single time I have ever traveled with other HvZ players to some event, there is a significant risk of failure. I'm in Florida, but that's not the point - professional blasters are fit to be handled with no strange undue care anywhere on the planet.
Hmm... that shouldn't be the case? I default to PETG, have no issues of that sort, and I'm not really doing anything special. If anything, I have a harder time with those features with PLA, maybe because I don't have a PLA-specific high powered part cooling setup.
This is a line of thought that I see a lot, but it's actually a decision. Open sourcing something doesn't imply a warranty, handholding, fitness for x purpose, or anything else. Polished turn-key final product type projects are always cool, but it's a spectrum going from that to raw publication of ideas, there be dragons/figure it out yourself. In the case of printing, figuring out how to configure and slice something difficult and have it work and produce a nice part is an expected vexation. Perhaps there is a high expectation of good DFM and easy printing in the case of paywalled projects, but I don't like that idea anyway for many other reasons (related to restrictive non-redistributable licensing it tends to force).
If you really wanted to make it available to all you'd open up the files.
Decent PETG doesn't cost any more than PLA. See Overture, eSun, Yoyi, etc.
So you're aware that your product will be unsuitable for some portion of your potential customerbase, but are selling it anyway?
I'm pretty sure I can bridge almost arbitrarily long distances with PETG and I didn't even tune for that. The whole "PETG doesn't bridge well" story doesn't mesh with my experience.
You don't have to design for every printer or every calibration. It's not your job to make sure your user's printers are set up correctly.
All I'm getting from this is that you are new to printing and the market for selling STLs. Nobody needs a file to be made for their printer, unless you happen to have printed this with dimensions beyond the build volume of an Ender 3 or Prusa Mk3. Literally all the end user needs is the STL to slice for themselves using their own ideal slicer settings. Once again, unless you printed this in Nylon using an SLS printer (which doesn't require supports), ANYONE can print this.
Printing with PETG is really no different from printing in PLA, with very little mechanical difference between the two (at least in the use case of Nerf blasters). It might be difficult for people who aren't used to it, but those that are would have no issues doing it. No one is saying PLA is not a suitably strong material, but the glass-transition point for PLA is just not feasible for those of us in hotter regions.
At the end of the day, what sort of response were you expecting in this community under these conditions:
-$95 accessory, limited quantity for sale
-No files available whatsoever.
-No mention of specialized hardware necessary
The only time I've seen people not release files is when something is still in the prototype phase. Which is a fairly common and completely understandable condition.
#FLYWHEEL JESUS HAS SPOKEN
OP seems to think PLA is "strong enough", which honestly is a good example of the NIC's nasty Normalization of Deviance in regards to 3D Printing and 3D Printed parts.
Thank you for that comment!
I personally think it’s a reasonable price. At this point, the Nemesis Hopper has had over a year’s worth of development and testing poured into it (dev log + link trail starting here: redd.it/qt5291). Plus, it’s very much a small-shop operation, with a lot of labour, time, and effort used to ensure quality parts, so I think it’s a fair price (free shipping on top of that!). While I wish I could price as low as Hasbro/Nerf, Dart Zone, or even OutOfDarts, it's unfortunately not possible.
If you’re thinking about the fact it uses PLA, the hopper’s strong enough as is! PLA is sufficient for most abuse from in-war hardcore parkour.
As with all PLA-printed parts, just be careful not to leave it in a hot car! :)
When you print them, do you need supports at all or is PLA good enough at bridging to the point where you don't need them?
Custom supports for the picatinny rails!
And a few others here and there.
At least with PLA, supports are somewhat easy to remove. From what I've heard, PETG (the preferred filament type of many people on the subreddit) supports are incredibly difficult to remove.