Hi, I’m Luke.
Today on Out of Darts, we are checking out another community design.
This one, I am beyond fashionably late.
This is the Lepus [Mk 2].
Let's get going!
This is the Lepus Mk 2.
The Lepus was a blaster designed by JackRabbitNerfer,
who's also responsible for the Bulwark.
I think his designs are really innovative and really interesting,
especially the Bulwark, which is another project that I never got around to.
These blasters both dropped about the same time we were moving; things have been a little bit busy.
I'm kind of playing catch up on some backlog of different
various community designs, but I love seeing more designs made,
and I feel like a lot of it needs more cross-promotion or just general awareness.
The Lepus is -- as you can see -- a mag through grip flywheel blaster.
It is a very simple, very minimalist design, and that can be either a pro
or a con depending on how you look at the blaster.
Ergonomically the blaster itself is reasonably comfortable.
It is a mag through grip, after all, so there's only so much you can do with a grip.
I think if you really wanted to go crazy, you could probably figure
out some rubberized grips to make this feel even better.
Up front, one issue with ergonomics you'll see is that these are exposed little
one-amp switches, and they are very easy to activate by
accident as you're picking up the blaster or holding the blaster.
Because of these embedded external switches here,
we really don't have the option to holster this very easily.
I do know that people have used a HOLD-ster or magnetic mount to put it on a hip or on a rig, but
this blaster, to me, really seems like it would shine in a CQB kind of game style -- similar to
what we've been playing a lot recently with both PewPew, and Luchadora, and a few other blasters.
I do hope to give it an actual chance at gameplay sometime soon.
If I got to do it by the time this video publishes, you'll see it in the video here.
The blaster is quite easy to print.
Most of the items print flat on the bed:
This top cover prints like this, the base here prints like this,
and the grip itself prints upside down -- or actually just like that.
The flywheel cage is similar, so the prints themselves were actually pretty easy to do,
and I think this is actually a pretty good candidate for a first-time build.
One of the downsides to this blaster is that it is very tight inside and that
kind of reminds me of Jupiter, which at this point is now a three-or-four-year-old blaster.
Inside we've got a 450-milliamp hour pack.
This is a Tatu pack, and we have both this and a
550 on the site that both fit in this battery compartment.
As far as the battery goes, those are really the only two options that fit easily.
And you definitely want the XT-30 unless you're going to grab one that doesn't have an XT-30,
and you want to use something even smaller like a JST connector.
This specific unit has a pair of Krakens inside, and the flywheels themselves are
the Worker Hurricane wheels that are used in the Hurricane blaster.
It's very simple.
You’ve got a reciprocating N20 pusher here that simply rotates and fires.
The wiring on this one specifically is wired so that the two are independent.
The reason for that is it's both easier,
and you're less likely to put too much load on this front switch.
These front switches are definitely my biggest gripe with the actual design itself.
I get what the designer was trying to do.
It is super minimalist; it is super tiny.
I can't think of anything much smaller than this beyond PewPew, to be honest.
If I grab that, it's not even really…
They're very comparable in terms of size; they're just different form factors.
One being the mag through grip, the other being sort of traditional with a magwell.
So, size size-wise, I think that's kind of a neat comparison.
But obviously, they are in very different weight classes as far as cost, where you know pew pews
definitely four- or five-hundred-dollar range whereas this you could build yourself print
yourself or buy it various sellers that have got them for around 100 I think.
So, it's much more affordable, and most of that comes down to pretty simple components.
You've got two flywheel motors, flywheels,
and an n20 gear motor, and that's pretty much the majority of your cost.
That makes this a really inexpensive blaster for someone that just wants to try something
out in their first 3d printer -- and due to the size, you don't need a very large printer.
Anything that fits within here, which is definitely smaller than 150 millimeters.
Even the smallest printer I ever had would actually be able to print this blaster, which
I think is a really nice way to design something because it makes it very universally approachable.
Another interesting bit is that there is no mag release or mag tensioning.
It's actually done solely based on these the part of the talon lips,
the feed lips that actually protrude outside from the actual mag itself.
Those line up in here and actually hold the mag in, and that's actually pretty clever.
The only downside there is that my Tachis, unfortunately
(as cool as that looks), they do not fit.
It will function for the most part, but you literally have to hold this in there because
it will fall right out the bottom because our feed lips here are completely straight.
But let's do some firing here!
So, here's a regular 15.
And it just barfs darts.
There’s no other way to say it.
Ah, we've got just a little bit too much pressure on the mag.
That one went so quick that the mag actually didn't even keep up there for a hot second.
However, this is with a mag extender,
so it didn't have quite as much pressure on the darts at the very end there.
It's worth noting that you're never going to want to overload your darts with this blaster because
especially at the high rate of fire like we've got in here…
To me, that sounds like that's between 30 and 50.
I cannot remember for the life of me whether we put the 30 or the 50 in here.
If I figure that out, I’ll put it on screen here as far as the rate of fire.
Now one interesting bit is, because of how the pusher works,
they all use the same base motor that's on the gears; it's just the gear ratio that changes.
So, the higher your rate of fire,
the less reliable the pusher is going to be; it's going to have less torque.
So, if you drop this down to like a 1 500 rpm instead of a 3 000 or…
I think it's 3000 yields about 50 rounds a second.
We've got that on the listing itself, but…
Given the high rate of fire with my current setup,
I can't really see using this as even like a primary, but it would be a great secondary
in the terms of just like run around a corner and just hose darts on people.
And that's really I think its sweet spot is a secondary thing:
That you somehow have rigged on your body where you're not going to activate
these triggers (because obviously, they are very easy to activate).
Overall, I think this was a really cool design. This came out several years ago; I want to say
two-plus years at this point.
We've had this here for a while,
but projects just pile up, and we're working on getting through our backlog.
I'd love to hear what you think on this design and what you wish it had,
and any other questions you have about the blaster.
We'll put all the information in the description on how to find JackRabbitNerfer.
From my understanding, he's not really making any other designs right now, but I do think there are
some shops online that have got this available. So, I will put those down there as well.
One quick question for you before I go:
What other blasters from the community would you like to see us take a look at?
This one was obviously really fun, and there are a lot more out there.
We're having a hard time even choosing
what to take the time to print, test, and get on the channel here.
So, if there's something you'd like to see spotlighted that hasn't been
on *every* channel that exists so far, I’d love to hear from you in the comments.
Thank you so much for watching!
Until next time, I’m out of darts.