Sidewinder 7.5 overview and setup

Alright, today I'm going to review Sidewinder 7.5. The main difference I made with the 7.5 is that I changed the angle of the spring shelf here on the Armature Bar and as you can see when I push down it is a 90 degree angle from the Armature Bar to the top of the frame and this allows for a slightly easier covering of the toe and a sleeker hip. I experimented with changing these angles and doing all these things and I just went back to the way I started. with and I feel like it's the right way now the next thing I did was the impact pin and an impact screw here.

It used to have a little screwdriver slot in there that it fits with, but sometimes it's a little hard to find the right screwdriver for Those, so now I basically machined a bit of hex into these deals so you can fit with your small Allen wrench that I send with all machines. This is a 1.5 millimeter allen wrench and works for small set screws and everything too. You also have this side locking screw so that the impact pin is off at this angle, instead of directly on the side, it stabilizes this impact screw more and keeps everything more stable there, so there is less chance of this out.

Over time, if you use your machine very aggressively, now let's go over the basic settings. Basically, one of the most important things with these machines is to make sure you open the needle bar properly. If you have trouble spitting, you may not do it. You have some problem with spitting, but if you do it's because your needle bar is too tight, it used to be the entire needle bar. The loops were right at 3 16 inch and then they keep getting smaller and smaller and smaller and some companies are pretty good about not making them so small and staying true to the original intended size, so I made this little wreath here on the thumbscrew and it is to put the needle bar loop in, turn it and open it to the correct size and the reason you open it to that size is that it allows free movement of the needle bar and if you don't have That free movement when the Armature bar moves it up and down, is going to cause the needle bar to shake and not stay still and the elastic band can't hold it and then you may have to compensate with excessive tension of the rubber band, which is also not good, so I'm going to do that.

I had a nice A healthy little container that I also put on the needle bar and you'll notice when I put the rubber band here, it's just a slight arc, but it's still tilted like this and that allows the tips of the needle to lift the point. of the tube and when you lick the tip of the tube like that, you're going to have less chance of the ink coming out and dragging up here and having lice all over it, so that's the basic

setup

and now the What's up with the mix of V7, the V7 is a spring-loaded adjustment knob.

You can adjust the travel and stuff here, but it's like if you're a geek and you really want to dive deep into dialing this machine exactly how you want, if you don't like how I set them up, then you have some flexibility here to make this machine exactly what you want, but I think what this machine indicates is that you have a wide voltage range to be able to use it. shading or stippling and having a more predictable hit at lower volts and then being able to turn it up really high and um and use it as a fast line or a power line or whatever, so let's see, I'm going to go Plug this in here at those six volts and default settings and I could run them like a nine, maybe right there, like I like the line.

I'll let you go a little quick at six volts. I could run my nine if I want. Get a little more power and run a bigger needle. I could push that spring piston back a little bit more and know how much harder it hits your head or how soft it is when I increase the spring tension now by four and a half. volts is stuttering right there, okay, and that's because at less than five volts you need less spring tension, so I turned it down a little bit and you've got a nice little bump that talks, it's still smooth, you know, but a good stroke to say dotted or whatever and go a little bit more here I'm at four volts now if you get to four volts and you still need a little bit more strength you can always lift the rubber band up a little bit more and that will definitely give you that Added blow you're looking good now over time your impact screw can seat.

I do everything in my power to make it something that is not a frequent adjustment if you ever have to adjust it, but if you run your machines pretty hard. Every day it is inevitable that you know some things like the spring. Could you know to flex a little or does something stabilize so you will have to turn the impact screw? So let's look at this for the impact screw

setup

. You can see this line on the cam on a line right there on that side plate and when you push the bar down, it rolls on it, they should line up and if over time it doesn't line up, you know because it's sitting on I'm going to just simulate this.

I'm going to back this impact screw out a little bit and now you can see it doesn't match up and let's turn it on. Oh, that sounds horrible, so if your machine starts sounding like that, don't do it. I'm afraid you just need to reset the impact screw, so let's push the bar down, turn that cam up, you can see it's off, let's see that they don't match, they're obviously out of place and I'm going to try that. That was half a turn. I'm going to go a little bit more normally when I'm outside, you might only have to adjust this about a quarter of a turn to get it perfect, so now I'm pretty much right there and I'm going. to lock this side locking screw here and you know, I don't know if I just said this or not, but it's off that angle, so that secures this a little bit better because of what's going on there with the stroke spring and all right now let's go over polarity yeah so one last thing we're going to talk about now is positive up positive up lowers the bar a little bit faster and harder positive down is a little bit easier for the machine, it's a little easier to like it. it takes less energy to cycle everything because the cam comes counterclockwise and when it comes counterclockwise it's just that the bar doesn't come down as fast and then from down here, there's a little bit more give there compared to when you're here. above. there's no give so you know and then once it gets to the breaking point then there's the give but the attack when it hits the skin is a little bit slower here compared to the other side and I like the position positive if I'm running finer lines or softer shading or shading at all, I mean, because I don't really need it to just break up the skin super fast, I want to clog it up a little bit, so I prefer a positive down for those things and there you go.

It's The Sidewinder 7.5. I am very happy with this. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do, thanks for watching.