Ion 1.0 / Electronics

Electronics

Vision (on/off switch) modes

The on/off switch doubles as your safety and mode selector, and its own LED — call it the power LED, to keep it distinct from the programming LED further down this page — shows which mode you're in. Tap the switch to cycle through:

Vision mode, ready to fire: continuous rapid blinking, four times per second.
Vision mode, no ball loaded: one blink per second.
Non-Vision mode (eyes off, marker will still fire): two rapid blinks, then a pause, repeating.

The Ion uses a transmissive (beam-break) eye system — an emitter and receiver on opposite sides of the chamber — housed on a small C-shaped daughterboard that wraps around the bottom of the breech and connects to the mainboard via a 4-pin wire harness. "Vision" is Smart Parts' branded name for what's generically called an anti-chop eye (ACE) system. This is generally reliable; the failure modes worth knowing are paint/debris fouling the eyes, a damaged wire harness, or bent pins in the connector. Removing the board itself is part of the standard Teardown sequence, not a separate procedure — see that page for the actual removal steps.

Vision eye board removed, showing its C-shape and the foil sticker in the body

Programming the board

A small gray button sits directly behind the trigger switch, at the bottom of the circuit board, with a second, two-color LED just above it — call it the programming LED, distinct from the power LED on the on/off switch above. It shows yellow or red, solid or blinking, depending on which setting is selected. With the marker on, press the gray button once to enter programming mode (the yellow programming LED goes solid — setting 1), then continue pressing to step through settings 2–6:

Power switch and programming switch, labeled, along with the power LED and both colors of the programming LED

Getting to the button: opening the left-side grip screws to expose the board is enough for quick adjustments. For programming the marker the first time, it's easier with the board fully out of the grip frame — the stock power button is stiff enough that repeatedly pressing it in place gets tiring, especially without a lot of finger dexterity.

Setting	Indication	Controls
1	Solid yellow	Dwell — up
2	Solid red	Dwell — down
3	Single blink yellow	ROF Delay — up (slower)
4	Single blink red	ROF Delay — down (faster)
5	Double blink yellow	Fire mode — cycle up
6	Double blink red	Fire mode — cycle down

Yellow always increases the register and red always decreases it — that pattern holds across all three setting pairs, which is why settings 3 and 4 are labeled as ROF Delay (more delay, slower rate) rather than rate of fire directly.

Once you've selected a setting with the gray button, use the on/off button itself to make the adjustment. The power LED stays dark throughout — the confirmation happens entirely on the programming LED. Whichever of its two colors isn't currently indicating the selected setting blinks once per press to confirm it registered: select a red-indicated setting (2, 4, or 6) and the yellow programming LED blinks on each press, stopping once you hit the floor of that setting's range; select a yellow-indicated setting (1, 3, or 5) and the red programming LED blinks instead, stopping at the ceiling. The two LEDs never blink together — only one color, opposite whichever is selected — and the power LED doesn't light at all during programming.

Fire modes cycle in order: semi, rebound, 3-shot burst, full auto.

Semi: one shot per trigger pull.
Rebound: fires more than one shot per pull if you pull the trigger at a constant, rapid pace — lets a fast trigger finger get automatic-like output without the marker actually free-running. Comparable to what modern boards call "ramping," though the Ion's version has no configurable ramp ratio — it's an earlier, simpler take on the same idea.
3-shot burst: up to three consecutive shots per pull. Release the trigger before all three fire and it stops early.
Full auto: fires continuously for as long as the trigger stays held back.

UK boards (green power LED, instead of red) skip full auto and 3-shot burst entirely. Semi and rebound are capped at 17 balls per second (BPS); full auto and 3-shot burst cap lower, at 10 BPS.

Dwell and ROF Delay apply across every fire mode, but not equally: dwell affects every single shot regardless of mode — it's what makes each individual shot fire properly at all. ROF Delay's effect is mode-dependent: in semi and rebound, your actual rate of fire is whatever the dwell + ROF Delay cycle time works out to, up to the 17 BPS cap — so ROF Delay genuinely changes how fast those two modes can shoot. In 3-shot burst and full auto, the board fires at a fixed 10 BPS regardless of your ROF Delay setting — tuning it in those modes won't change anything.

There's no way to change fire mode without opening the grips to reach the programming button — this doubles as an adequate tournament lock for fields that restrict certain modes.

Stock reference point, and finding your actual setting: factory dwell is 52 clicks and ROF Delay is 50 clicks (both counted from the bottom of their range), at 180 psi operating pressure — the calculator below has this same pair loaded as a one-click preset. The board has no numeric readout, so if you don't know where your settings currently sit, run the setting down to its floor first (confirmed once the LED behavior above kicks in — that known zero is 8ms for dwell, 25ms for ROF Delay), then count clicks up from there. There's no shortcut combo back to factory defaults, but a full manual reset is just this same process: zero out, then click up 52 times for dwell and 50 times for ROF Delay.

Tuning dwell: gas up with a barrel blocker in place, no paint or hopper, and Vision off. Lower dwell (red) until the bolt can no longer complete a full cycle each pull, then raise it (yellow) one click at a time, test-firing after each change, until you get a full-volume shot. Add 15–20 more clicks past that point for the best gas efficiency, rather than stopping right at the bare minimum — that minimum is a knife's edge, not a stable setting. Cycle-to-cycle variance (a slightly colder tank, thicker lube, more mechanical friction) can push a marginal dwell below what's needed on any given shot, and the first shot after the marker's sat idle for a while needs more margin than that, since static friction is highest right then. A weak or failed shot from running too close to the edge wastes more air (and a paintball) than the extra 7.5–10ms this margin costs you — that's the actual efficiency tradeoff, not raw gas per shot. If raising dwell causes first-shot drop-off (reduced velocity or a dead first shot after the marker sits, but fine after that), clean and lubricate the bolt assembly first and repeat the procedure — if that doesn't fix it, raise dwell further still.

Tuning ROF Delay: most players run it near the floor and let the Vision system alone gate how fast the marker can fire. Raise it if Vision is having trouble keeping up, or to comply with a field- or tournament-mandated rate cap — the calculator below will tell you exactly which ROF Delay click count, combined with your current dwell, lands at or under a target BPS.

Common misconception: upgrading the solenoid won't get you a faster rate of fire. The stock solenoid isn't the bottleneck — the stock bolt itself will cycle 20–21 BPS without a QEV, or 25+ BPS with one, well above the board's 17 BPS cap. The board caps rate of fire purely in firmware, and no other solenoid physically fits the Ion regardless. If you want a higher cap, that's a board swap, not a solenoid swap.

Dwell & rate-of-fire calculator

Dwell and ROF Delay together determine how fast the board can theoretically cycle. Adjust either one below to see the effect — useful for understanding the tradeoff before you start clicking through settings on the marker itself.

Dwell (clicks)

28.5 ms ROF Delay (clicks)

39.0 ms Fire mode

Cycle time 67.5 ms

Theoretical max rate 14.8 BPS

This is the board's electronic timing only — dwell plus ROF Delay, the two settings from Programming the board above. It doesn't account for mechanical limits (bolt cycling speed, air supply flow) or the board's own firmware cap — semi and rebound are capped at 17 BPS, burst and full auto at 10 BPS, regardless of how fast the calculated cycle time would otherwise allow. Useful for understanding why a given dwell/ROFD combination behaves the way it does, not as a guarantee of real-world rate of fire.

On stock values: the Ion 1.0's Version 2 manual publishes both stock figures — 52 dwell, 50 ROF Delay, the exact same pair as the Epiphany's manual — in its CPS table. The base (Version 1) manual only mentions the stock dwell value.

Stock board technical specifications

Component	Spec
Microcontroller	Atmel ATmega48V10MI (AVR), running at 5V off a National Semiconductor LP2981 voltage regulator
Solenoid FET signal	Normally high; drops for 4.04 ms, then pulses at 7.813 kHz
Solenoid	Manufactured by Humphrey, rated around 4-ohm, wound with roughly 60–70 feet of 32-gauge wire, enamel-coated
Trigger microswitch	Omron D2F-FL — a 25-gram lever switch, the lowest return weight available in that series
Wire harness connector	Shrouded, top-entry, 4-point JST eSH series
Eye wire harness	28 AWG wire
Power capacitor	2200 µF radial electrolytic, runs straight off battery voltage — required for the solenoid to fire correctly
Sealing	Solenoid and electronics are sealed and water-resistant, but not submersible

Specs via zdspb.com, used with permission — see the disclaimer for attribution terms.

Remove the battery when not playing. The power capacitor slowly drains battery strength over time even when the marker is off — pulling the battery between sessions avoids finding it dead the next time you pick the marker up.

Solenoid service

The solenoid sits right below the firing assembly, releasing air that's plumbed into both the body breech and the fire chamber. It gets fouled by the same grease/debris that affects the bolt — service it at the same interval. Smart Parts' suggested frequency is every few thousand pressurized cycles; running a QEV stretches that interval out, though it still needs occasional attention either way.

Not every solenoid that fits is rated the same: the stock Ion solenoid has no coil wrap. Two other wrap styles exist and they're easy to mix up, since they share the same two colors, just swapped:

Coil wrap	Solenoid	Safe in an Epiphany?
Red wrap, black Ion logo	Epiphany-rated (or Epiphany-rated Blackheart)	Yes — this is the one you want
Black wrap, red logo	Pre-Epiphany Blackheart	No
No wrap	Standard Ion/SP-8	No
Varies	Aftermarket	No

Per the official manual, running anything but the Epiphany-rated version "may not function properly" once operating pressure climbs — the manual specifically calls out staying under 280 psi and inspecting the solenoid valve if you suspect it's been overpressurized. That warning only runs one direction, though — it doesn't say whether an Epiphany-rated unit in a standard Ion is fine or just unnecessary, so don't assume either way without checking further. See Parts Interchange for the full rundown of what does and doesn't cross over between models.

Full solenoid and hardware breakdown, labeled with official part numbers from the Smart Parts Ion manual — banjo fittings, LP hose, Vision wiring harness, solenoid components, trigger microswitch, and 9V battery connector

Part numbers from the official Smart Parts Ion Operation and Maintenance Manual. Trigger microswitch identification (Omron D2F-FL) via zdspb.com, used with permission — see the disclaimer for attribution terms.

Two o-rings in that breakdown are hidden inside already-assembled parts — the solenoid head o-ring and the barb/banjo fitting seals. I pulled a few apart to show them directly:

Solenoid head (left) and 4-mm barb fitting (right), both opened up to show their o-rings — solenoid head o-ring (9/70 UR, size not manual-sourced but confirmed by direct measurement) and barb seal (ORN0401070BU, 1mm x 4mm BU)

Two banjo fittings opened up to show the banjo fitting seal (1.5mm x 3mm BU) — one per banjo: rear, front, and middle

Both photos are mine — see the disclaimer for attribution terms.

Never grease or oil the solenoid internals — this causes it to jam. Clean and reassemble dry.

Before you start: fully de-gas the marker, then separate the frame from the body the same way as Teardown — remove the barrel, open the grip and disconnect the battery, remove the grip frame screws, and work through the banjo fittings — to reach the solenoid.

Grip the sides of the bracket between your thumb and index finger and pull it straight off the back of the solenoid — this is usually enough on its own, though it takes a bit of finger strength, and not everyone can get a grip firm enough to break it free. If that's the case, use a 3/32" hex key instead: gently pry the bracket off, positioning the tool between the bracket and the upper black section of the coil, never near the red-wired section, which can be damaged easily.
Pull the solenoid head straight up, then tip the body over to remove the armature. It comes out easily, so don't lose it.
Clean the inside of the solenoid body and the armature with a cotton swab dampened in 70% isopropyl alcohol — no lubricant.
Reassemble: armature back in (bumper end first), head pushed back onto the body, bracket reinstalled with its bent section on the underside.

Solenoid head orientation: looking straight down at the body with the front (longer microline) to your left and the rear (short microline) to your right, the head is a slight trapezoid, not a plain rectangle. The narrow end points toward the electronics side — power button, LEDs, and programming button; the wide end points the opposite way. Worth checking this orientation on reassembly rather than assuming the head is symmetric.

While the board is exposed: worth a quick visual pass for anything pointing to a board that needs repair or replacement rather than routine cleaning — corrosion or a greenish residue around connectors or solder joints, a connector that's loose or not fully seated, and a bulging or leaking capacitor (the power capacitor mentioned above is the one to check).

Removing microline hoses from barb fittings

This is about pulling the flexible hose itself off a barb — for unscrewing a banjo fitting from the body, see Teardown. Cold microline grips a barb stubbornly. Warming it first — a hair dryer is the safer choice — softens the tubing enough to pull free by hand. A heat gun also works, but treat it carefully: even on its lowest setting, it heats up much faster and hotter than a hair dryer, and it's easy to overheat the hose or a nearby part before you notice. Slip-joint pliers are a reliable alternative to heat — grip with just enough force to twist the tubing free, not so much that you crimp it. Microline is fairly forgiving, especially when it's cold, so there's more margin here than it might feel like.

For the 5/32" microline, removing the solenoid head first (as above) gives much better access to the barb.

The 1/8" microline needs extra care. Its barb is molded into the solenoid housing itself, which is plastic — snap it and the fix isn't a replacement part, it's desoldering the whole housing off the board and soldering a new one on. Hold the barb fitting steady (a small wrench works well) while you work the hose free, rather than levering against the barb directly — this keeps the stress on the hose, not on the solenoid or circuit board.

Microline size comparison — 1/8" (black) vs. 5/32" (4mm, blue)

More than you want to tackle yourself? Check out the finished builds or get in touch to have your Ion serviced.