Rayven Tenets

[Dr Remag]

After reading some of the other Tenets I thought I would do one on the Rayven. This is my first write up of this style so remember I am a bit of a n00b at this, but I can take criticism too.

Rayven Tenets

So you finally got a Rayven have you? Good, the Rayven can be a great addition to your arsenal either as a primary or as a secondary. There are many ways to run with a Rayven, the following is what I find works best for me. If you go on, you can see various additions added by people and their way at wielding a Rayven.

1. Stock and Mods

The Rayven is fairly good stock. The way it takes darts make it less likely to strip or destroy them like other blasters can do and the new white/glowing darts seem to be an improvement over the normal orange streamlines. That being said there are a few mods that I consider either a need or close to a need:

Removal of the Jam Door: The Rayven is easy to be unjammed even in the midst of battle, but it takes you a few seconds to open and close the door. This is best removed unless you find a use for the jam door. This brings me to the second needed mod.

Electronic locks: There are 3 in area where the clip goes. One causes the flywheels to turn off when the jam door is open. The one on on the side closest to the butt makes it so you cannot pull the trigger with nothing in the chamber, and the one closest to the barrel turns off the flywheels when there is nothing in the chamber. But there is good news (which doesn't involve a gecko), it is an easy mod to do. Simply using tape can cause these to be compressed and thus not interfere with you when you remove the jam door. The one involving the jam door can be put in the space behind it and the one closest to the barrel should fit back into it's pocket. I left the trigger alone as I find it is better to not be able to have the push level out when you load a clip as this can cause it to slowly retract.

Rubber skirt: This is the part that is between the flywheels and the chamber. This is easily removed/ripped out. I find that my Rayven is easier fired when this is removed, I also have had mild success with W screamers.

All of the electronic mods can be done with a rewiring if you so wish. You can also modify the Rayven to fire Stefans if you use a screw or similar item to elongate the push lever. Finally you can do a voltage mod. This one is easy to do (just get higher volt batteries). You can run the Rayven on two higher voltage batteries and 2 battery stand-ins (about normal power) or increase this to 3 or 4 as you see fit.

NOTE: Depending on your style you may also think about using a barrel as the increased power will work a bit better if the darts didn't fishtail or whirlee-bird. This however is up to you and your style.

2. Clips

Always  have more. That should go without saying. I personally like to use 35 dart drum for my Rayven. Using this however I have found something interesting. For the Rayven it is better if you do not try to over stuff your clips. You usually have about 1-2 more spaces to fit darts in clips, with other blasters you can simply be careful when you load the clip and still do it, but for the Rayven you cannot pre-prime your blaster so leaving space allows for an easier first shot and will not cause the push lever to slow down when retracting.

Now, onto the stock firefly clip. This is a bit more bulky then normal 18 dart clips but is fun to use because of the glowing darts. However this pretty much has to be done in the dark. I've tried it at dusk before and they didn't show up. Also, if you are using them during HVZ you have a bright blue light showing all zombies where you are at and if you are not in the dark you can't see the darts so you can pretty much ignore the light up unless you are having fun at night, otherwise it is a liability or useless.

Remember that there is no place to put extra clips onto the blaster and that you cannot attach a stock to it. So you are going to have to carry any clips you want to use with the blaster.

3. Tactics

This is not a Raider nor an Alpha Trooper. You do not have slam fire and the trigger pull is a bit hard to do. It can give you a good rate of fire and even quickly pulling the trigger can work, more so with a voltage mod, but you are not going to be getting the same ROF that you can on Raiders and ATs. That being said, the Rayven does have some really good perks to it. If you use a voltage mod and/or barrel you may be able to get better ranges which makes up a bit for the slower ROF. The biggest perk is that it is a single handed weapon. That means your other hand is free for another blaster or socks (heaven help the zombies if your school allows melee  ). The blaster is also compact which means that you can turn your arms and not your body in order to fire it.

As with some other blasters, you are going to want to use the buddy system. Now you are versatile enough to go it alone at times, but you are a skirmisher first and foremost. This is not the blaster for long range firing (unless you have a good volt mod) and because of the flywheel system, you are going to be loud or you are not going to have the blaster ready to fire, so you are not going to be good as a ninja. Using a buddy can help you over come this as well as using your other hand to hold onto socks or a different blaster/weapon.

So, you are not very good at sneaking with this blaster and you are not going to be super effective against a large horde alone (unless you have skills a blaster cannot give you) so remember this if the Rayven is your main. I personally feel that this is either a good secondary or with good mods could be a pretty good main, but I feel it is best at support and scaring off zombies with the flywheel (assuming you can).

But hey, you have two rails. So using a party popper or two for a shot gun effect or attaching a blow gun to the top can make you more versatile, just remember that this will limit what you can have in your off hand unless you are OK at dropping a secondary blaster.

4. Duel Wielding:

OK, so you can duel this puppy, which is more then a Raider or AT can do and is more easily done then a vulcan. However if you do duel wield you will not be accounting for any of the drawbacks of the blaster. Also, unless you train really well it can be hard to hold two in each hand as you will want to stretch out your arms. This is possible but is hard on your arms so you will likely want to use a strap. The draw back of using a strap or two is that you are going to loose a bit of maneuverability. If you do choice to duel wield two Rayvens, you can have 70 shots, but remember to not fire at the same time and try not to take on two targets at once unless you have to.

So there you go. My Tenets for the Rayven with a few modifications based on what other people have said. Remember that the Rayven can be changed based on your personal tastes so if what I have said is not your style, then experiment. There is a lot of things to do to the Rayven both easy and hard(er) so the sky's the limit.

I also wish to point out that this information is from Mini Games and not a full game of HVZ. Also, cold seems to affect the Rayven a bit.

[Mzzkc]

I don't know how many people know this, but the gap under the top rail holds clips extremely well. If you've got a pair of raider drums and cut away enough plastic around the jam door to make it top-loading, you can throw two raider drums on it and use the top one as an ammo repository instead of changing clips or having to fuss about with ammo.

[Boildown]

Rayven Overvolting Tenets:

A Rayven can be overvolted up to around 13v or so without any problems, and even up to around 17v with mixed reports... some people's have burnt out, others are fine.  An over-volted Rayven will have flywheels that spin faster, spin-up faster, and be a lot louder than using stock voltages.  This means it can shoot streamlines farther, and be ready to shoot after having been turned off faster.  But its noisier.  My personally opinion is that the noise doesn't matter ~99% of the time, and in fact can intimidate your opposition if they are used to hearing quiet Rayvens.

So what's the best way to over-volt your Rayven?  Some people solder in extra battery holders (in series, there's no need for parallel wiring with the Rayven).  Others use RC-type battery packs.  Me?  I use Lithium-Ion batteries, specifically 14500s (i.e. AA size).

Here's what I buy with links to where I buy them:

$3.59 / pair 14500 unprotected Li-Ions (buy 3 pairs so you have extras and get a bulkorder discount)

$2.40 Plastic Case for AA size (because you don't want them shorting out in storage)

$2.30 AAA to AA converter case (for dummy batteries (explained later))

$11 UltraFire WF-139 charger  (This charger gets decent marks for safety, unlike some other chargers I often see recommended)

$12 Digital Multimeter (i.e. DMM)  (out of stock atm, just get another one, you DO need a DMM if you have Li-Ions)

If you total it all up, its ~ $39 shipped for six 14500s, a DMM and a charger that got pretty decent reviews on the Candle Power Forums (an internet forum that is focused on things like batteries and chargers).  I think that's pretty hard to beat, and the batteries are flexible enough to be used in other electronic blasters, like the Barricade, Stampede, Swarmfire, and whatever Nerf is going to come out with next.  Pre-built battery packs are much more expensive and less adaptable to new uses, and NiMH rechargeables are just as expensive, weigh more, are less convenient because of added holders required, and are a lot more voltages to measure and keep track of.

Regarding keeping track of voltages, I listed a Digital Multimeter (i.e. DMM) as one of the things to buy because you should always keep rechargeable batteries in the same circuit at the same charge level.  If you can't measure the voltage, you have no idea if one battery is stronger than another.  Which is bad because the strong battery can do bad things (like reverse-charging) to the weak battery, causing Bad Things (tm) to happen to your blaster, to the person holding your blaster, and to your house.  So get a DMM and measure your batteries, and if you take my advice and use Li-Ions, read the Candle Power Forums link at the bottom of this post (which will tell you, among other things, to never discharge your Li-Ions too much, which you will know you haven't done because you measure the voltage of your Li-Ions with a DMM).

About the "dummy battery": You can build something like this (courtesy of SGNerf) using the AAA to AA converter linked above, and a 40mm Pan Head Bolt (50c each at Aces Hardware).   Or a #8-32 x 1.75" Machine Screw that I found at Wal-Mart that was much less expensive and works better: Machine Screw 8-Pack.  You simply place the dummy battery in place of one of the regular batteries, and that allows you to run your Rayven on three 14500s instead of four (or with two dummy batteries, on two 14500s instead of four).

Speaking of which, for HvZ using stock Streamlines, I think four 14500 Li-Ions are too many, because the darts go so fast they tumble out of the blaster with worsening accuracy compared to three 14500 Li-Ions.  Some people say adding a "faux barrel" from another Nerf blaster helps with the accuracy, but my limited testing with a Spectre barrel on my Rayven gave very inconclusive results.  I have read that a Longshot or Longstrike barrel might work better than a Spectre barrel, because the Spectre shoots Whistlers and Taggers, not Streamlines.

By the way, Deal Extreme, where I linked everything above, is based out of China.  They ship for free or nearly free, but it takes ~ 3-8 weeks to arrive (usually about 4 weeks).  So plan your purchase far enough in advance.  You can alternatively find these items on Ebay or Amazon or elsewhere near you and get them a lot sooner, but you pay a lot more.  Other than a DMM for the most part they can't be found in regular stores.


One last important thing before you decide to buy Li-Ions for your Rayven.  Li-Ion batteries are potentially dangerous.  They don't behave like the typical dry cell or Alkaline single use or even NiCd or NiMH rechargeable batteries we're used to.  You need to understand how to treat them, or they'll "vent with flame" and burn your house down.  Here's a good thread, the author calls it a "beginner primer", but in reality its fairly technical.  Either way you should read and understand it before you proceed, for your own safety:  http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?329321-Li-ion-beginner-primer .  Note that the author recommends protected batteries.  All mine (including the ones I linked above) are "unprotected", which makes them even more potentially dangerous than the protected ones.  This makes it doubly important that you know how to treat Li-Ions.  Read and understand that link.  You may be able to use protected batteries in the Rayven because they do work in the Barricade which is very similar, but I have unprotected because protected don't work in a Stampede, and I want mine to work in a Stampede.

[skullface1818]

Something was missed. A great deal of the plastic around the jam door has to be dremmeld off and removed (As well as some of the green plastic that partially covers up the dart pusher) to enable top loading of clips.

why is this important? because it means that you do not have to remove the clips to reload them. It basically makes the Rayven a semi-auto quick 16.....except its more reliable, shoots harder/further, has a larger capacity, faster reloads, and is smaller and more comfortable.

It basically makes the Rayven the best nerf blaster their is for HvZ.
Pics ^^:


By skullface1818 at 2012-03-19

[Shade]

Actually, I've found that I can load darts into the clip if I just remove the jam door. I do have to be a bit careful about doing it though. Cutting away part of the shell would make it easier, but I can't see myself doing that.

[skullface1818]

Actually, I've found that I can load darts into the clip if I just remove the jam door. I do have to be a bit careful about doing it though. Cutting away part of the shell would make it easier, but I can't see myself doing that.

I can understand that. its a pretty easy mod if you have a dremmel, but it is very hard to do with nothing but a hobby knife.....

you might end up cutting off a portion of your finger if you had to go it with that.........tho a hacksaw would probably get the job done pretty easily ^----^

[Vigilante]

Hmm, this sound very interesting. Could you put up a video of you doing it?

[Dr Remag]

That is actually something I did not think about doing, I pretty much just removed the jame door.

Do you have any problems with darts calling out? For me, If I leave darts in for a long time the first one tends to get pushed out. I might just need to remove one though.

I am going to second my Rayven for our game and primary a Berserker.

[d4rk354b3r]

So, you are not very good at sneaking with this blaster and you are not going to be super effective against a large horde, so remember this if the Rayven is your main.

I don't agree with this. If you end up volt modding the blaster you only need half a second to spin up the flywheels before firing, so you still have the element of surprise if you're sneaking up on zombies. Additionally, how effective you are against a large horde depends upon how much ammo you have and if you are with any other humans (who can provide cover while you reload).

Rubber skirt: This is the part that is between the flywheels and the chamber. This is easily removed/ripped out.

Have you done range tests comparing with and without the Rubber Skirt?
I am currently using a cade motor and flywheel swapped Rayven with three Ultrafires (12.6v total) and have roughly the same range as an OMW spring modded Longshot (though I'm probably not going to hit anything at that range).
Additionally, in the last game I played (which happened to be 7 hours long) I went through about 7x 18 round mags and only had four misfires and zero squibs. If the skirt removal provides an improvement in reliability, how significant is the improvement?


I'm a bit skeptical about trying this new mod that allows you to reload without changing mags. First, it completely removes any possibility of doing this mod (which is something I've been considering as well). Second, I have done an ammo counter mod to my Rayven and am unable to convince myself that completely removing the jamdoor and surrounding plastic would still yield a fluid-free and safe environment for the internal electronics.
Then again, my alternative is to refill the empty mags on my vest and then change the mags in the Rayven...
What are your guys' thoughts on this?

[Masturcief42]

ammo counter mod
What are your guys' thoughts on this?

i think it's badass that you have an ammo counter on your rayven. you mind telling me how you did it?

[SpookyLucaZ]

Then again, my alternative is to refill the empty mags on my vest and then change the mags in the Rayven...
What are your guys' thoughts on this?

First of all, it was a 6hour game (JK)
I was in awe of how effective your rayven was against the horde d4rk354b3r, and it literally only took about 1 second for it to fully rev up. The ammo counter is awesome and very effective(I'll be stuck doing my ammo counting ghetto style) since you only used 18's in it!
I do agree it can be a sneaky blaster, and a horde shredder. The rayven(volted of course) is one of those blasters that in a split second tags the zombie(s) as (t)he(y) rush you and not be a debatable subject. If it even touchs them, its a no contest 'who got who first'.

[d4rk354b3r]

I think I've been stricken by some strange forum bug, hang on...

[EDIT]: Kind of a repost because of the aforementioned forum bug. I posted this earlier but it seems to be hidden? It's still viewable if you scroll down when replying though...

Thanks. Sorry that this is brief, but I did not mean to hijack this thread.
I'm still thinking about how to do this speedloading mod without compromising or interfering with other mods and would like to receive input.

Materials Needed:

• Arduino Nano (or any microcontroller you know how to program); This is what drives the display
• Lots of spare copper wire with insulation; Stranded wire is preferred
• Breadboard; Mine is about 8 pins x 20 pins in size
• 9v Battery and 9v Battery terminal
• Electrical Tape
• Two SPDT switches; These can be salvaged from the preexisting safeties in the Rayven. They are used to detect if the magazine is inserted and when the trigger is pulled.
• One DPDT switch; This is for changing the ammo counter mode from 18 rounds to 35 rounds. If I used the pulldown resistors in the Arduino, then the center off position for a DPDT switch can be used for 6 rounds mode.

Tools Needed:

• Dremel; There are a ton of cuts necessary
• Soldering Iron and Soldering Tin and Solder-Sucker; A must for any electronics work
• Wire Cutter/Stripper; A must for any electronics work

I'm not going to give you a primer on basic electronics or how to program a microcontroller. It would take too long to write up for a single forum post.

I based my work off of this article, but the display she uses is a very different 2 digit display (The one she linked is incorrect for the article, last I checked). If you can comprehend the article, then this mod should be easy to figure out from the information I'm posting here.

This is the display I'm using: https://www.jameco.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product_10001_10001_1955781_-1?avad=21273_b29680b5 I just alternate the two digits in the display about 100 times a second.

Here's a (VERY) rough sketch of my circuit: http://i.imgur.com/gBRiM.png
Note that I've changed some of the analog pins around since I sketched this.
It's fairly obvious which I changed and so forth by looking at the code.

Here's my code: http://pastebin.com/Z9JBM7AC

A shot of my internals from two weeks ago: http://imgur.com/a/BR39M
I have since wrapped my solder joints with electrical tape to prevent shorts, though I have never experienced any problems with shorts before I added the electrical tape.

[Boom]

(Please ignore if not new to forum)
That would most likely be our spam filter/blocker. It acts up some times . . . yea
It seems to be more suspect of noobs on the forum(low/no post count can = sleeper spambot kind of logic), It does happen to the vets as well though.
. . . . It's a Welcome to the Forums type of thing. . .

[hawkdanop]

I think I've been stricken by some strange forum bug, hang on...

[EDIT]: Kind of a repost because of the aforementioned forum bug. I posted this earlier but it seems to be hidden? It's still viewable if you scroll down when replying though...

Thanks. Sorry that this is brief, but I did not mean to hijack this thread.
I'm still thinking about how to do this speedloading mod without compromising or interfering with other mods and would like to receive input.

Materials Needed:

• Arduino Nano (or any microcontroller you know how to program); This is what drives the display
• Lots of spare copper wire with insulation; Stranded wire is preferred
• Breadboard; Mine is about 8 pins x 20 pins in size
• 9v Battery and 9v Battery terminal
• Electrical Tape
• Two SPDT switches; These can be salvaged from the preexisting safeties in the Rayven. They are used to detect if the magazine is inserted and when the trigger is pulled.
• One DPDT switch; This is for changing the ammo counter mode from 18 rounds to 35 rounds. If I used the pulldown resistors in the Arduino, then the center off position for a DPDT switch can be used for 6 rounds mode.

Tools Needed:

• Dremel; There are a ton of cuts necessary
• Soldering Iron and Soldering Tin and Solder-Sucker; A must for any electronics work
• Wire Cutter/Stripper; A must for any electronics work

I'm not going to give you a primer on basic electronics or how to program a microcontroller. It would take too long to write up for a single forum post.

I based my work off of this article, but the display she uses is a very different 2 digit display (The one she linked is incorrect for the article, last I checked). If you can comprehend the article, then this mod should be easy to figure out from the information I'm posting here.

This is the display I'm using: https://www.jameco.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product_10001_10001_1955781_-1?avad=21273_b29680b5 I just alternate the two digits in the display about 100 times a second.

Here's a (VERY) rough sketch of my circuit: http://i.imgur.com/gBRiM.png
Note that I've changed some of the analog pins around since I sketched this.
It's fairly obvious which I changed and so forth by looking at the code.

Here's my code: http://pastebin.com/Z9JBM7AC

A shot of my internals from two weeks ago: http://imgur.com/a/BR39M
I have since wrapped my solder joints with electrical tape to prevent shorts, though I have never experienced any problems with shorts before I added the electrical tape.

My second to last dart is white, all others are orange. This is my counter. When zombies find out my trick, my fourth last dart is now the white one. Lol, I love the counter idea, its awesome but gess thats a decent amount of work.

[Dr Remag]

I don't agree with this. If you end up volt modding the blaster you only need half a second to spin up the flywheels before firing, so you still have the element of surprise if you're sneaking up on zombies. Additionally, how effective you are against a large horde depends upon how much ammo you have and if you are with any other humans (who can provide cover while you reload).


Have you done range tests comparing with and without the Rubber Skirt?
I am currently using a cade motor and flywheel swapped Rayven with three Ultrafires (12.6v total) and have roughly the same range as an OMW spring modded Longshot (though I'm probably not going to hit anything at that range).
Additionally, in the last game I played (which happened to be 7 hours long) I went through about 7x 18 round mags and only had four misfires and zero squibs. If the skirt removal provides an improvement in reliability, how significant is the improvement?


I'm a bit skeptical about trying this new mod that allows you to reload without changing mags. First, it completely removes any possibility of doing this mod (which is something I've been considering as well). Second, I have done an ammo counter mod to my Rayven and am unable to convince myself that completely removing the jamdoor and surrounding plastic would still yield a fluid-free and safe environment for the internal electronics.
Then again, my alternative is to refill the empty mags on my vest and then change the mags in the Rayven...
What are your guys' thoughts on this?

Yes, if you do a volt mod you can get this, but even then it is not the same as say a raider. And this would require you to have a drum clip. The tenets should work for people who have large collections of blasters and those who own only a Rayven. So the most that is guaranteed is 18, though most people likely have drumb clips.

In range I have not noticed a difference, but I have not done a side by side comparison. I do believe that removing the skirt does make it easier to rapid fire as there is less resistance. I can fire mine easier then a friend could that had the skirt.

What ever works for you really. You can leave the jam door on, I personally find that it is much easier to fix jams with it off then when it was one. The LED mod, while cool, doesn't add anything performance wise.

Now for your counter, if it works for you, then by all means go that route. I can only speak of my own experiences and preferences.