[MadMax]

Woot! SystemA has given me permission to photograph their PTW, conduct an interview and test fire (test firing off site, not on ShotShow premises).

I'm excited as I should be able to get a press pass for their permission.

Their internals look really nice. I like the inclusion of both electrical units (control and FET switching) in the gearbox housing. I didn't like the strain relief issues with the wired FET assembly with the Armalite which also has very little heatsinking in the FET bank.

I'm not all that put off with the non planetary gears. It comes with a significant reduction in cost and well made step gears have lower rolling resistance than a platetary transmission. SystemA has a lot of experience with very high power assemblies (M170 springs w' torque up gears). A planetary arrangement and a step gear arrangement could have the same reduction ratio with lower rolling losses for the step gear arrangement. I don't see why the step gear setup would have any poorer reaction time. It looks like the detection hole in the sector gear could be useful for precocking the gearbox as it would like up with the optical gate just before the piston is released.

The selector switch appears to be a rotary switch or a potentiometer behind that unusual 4th gear in the mechbox. Manchovie pointed out a lack of clearance for the usual post that sticks out of an MP5 selector lever. It looks like the left and right selectors are connected to pinion gears which engage the two "4th" gears which are connected to a common shaft to synchronise the left and right selectors like a TM SIG 551. I think the common shaft is keyed and passes through a potentiometer or rotary switch. This simplifies the rack and pinion arrangement used by the Armalite. I've seen the Armalite selector go bad because the microswitch assembly is not very tolerant to slight innacuracies in manufacture or wear of the pips which are pushed down by the slider.

Too bad there are no shots of the mag tops or the hop up assembly. I'd really like to see if they fixed their designs there.

I think the Armalite cylinders will not be compatible with the MP5. I can see how SystemA could do a similar arrangement with a MP5 specific cylinder, but they'd need to cut a longer window to clear both the sector teeth and the step gear teeth (which are nearly the same height relative to the top of the gearbox). Still, I think the MP5 cylinders could be very similar to the Armalite cylinders with the exception of the length of the window cutout which means that the MP5 cyl's could be backwards compatible with the Armalite line, but not the other way. SystemA could be making their future cylinders to be compatible with both platforms.