When looking for electronics to power one of our airsoft engines in an AEG to HPA conversion, there are two main components: The trigger board and the FCU (Fire Control Unit). We offer two options: The Spartan Electronics board is a trigger board and FCU all-in-one design. While limited to only V2 gear boxes, the design enables the Spartan to take up less space and makes the system more cost effective and easier to set up. Our Gen 2 Premium FCU is a standalone FCU that connects to a separate trigger board. The Premium FCU allows for more options in fitment, tuning, and fire modes. Check out the information below to see which is right for your needs.
The Spartan Electronics board is a trigger board and FCU all-in-one. The key advantage of the Spartan Electronics board is it’s simple and robust design and lower price point. Settings are primarily manipulated with use of the trigger.
3 Available Fire Mode Presets • Semi / Full Auto • Semi / 3-Round Burst • Semi / Semi *Additional modes available in MTW version.
8 Quick / Easy ROF Presets Select a preset from 10RPS to 33RPS by holding down the trigger as it fires three-round bursts until desired ROF is reached.
12Quick/Easy Dwell Presets Set dwell by holding down trigger as it fires once per second until drop in FPS is noticed, then double-tap to step back up one preset.
The Gen 2Premium FCU is a standalone FCU and requires a separate trigger board. The key advantage of the Premium FCU is a greater variety of available fire modes, more precise setting values for dwell and rate of fire, and an intuitive LED menu with tool-less button style programming.
Set any of 7 fire modes to for each selector position • Full-auto • 7-Round Burst • 5-Round Burst • 3-Round Burst • 2-Round Burst • Single Round • DMR Mode (Semi-auto with 2 second delay between shots)
Precise ROF Setting Set rate of fire to any integer value from 1 to 63 RPS.
Precise Dwell Setting Set dwell precisely from 3 to 20 milliseconds in increments of 0.25 milliseconds.
Additional Features • Short detection • Improved stiction and trigger-reading algorithms
You can find full instructions on how to remove/install the MTW Spartan Electronics board in the MTW Spartan Electronics Owner’s Manual, or you can follow along with Rich in this video. If you’re installing the new board with optical sensor, see this article instead!
Video transcript: on today’s edition of what the tech we will be showing you how to install water-resistant electronics as well as just do basic maintenance on the electronics in your MTW so let’s get started so today we’re going to talk electronics we’re going to show you how to remove the electronics from your MTW how to swap them out or and we’re gonna talk about some of the basic features how they’re designed how they work all that kind of stuff alright so first thing we’re gonna do is we’re gonna separate upper and lower receiver pop the two pins if you need to use if they’re a little tight you can use something like the back end of a screwdriver that isn’t gonna damage the surface to help get them started we’re just gonna completely remove the upper from the lower right if you have a battery installed go ahead and unplug the battery always unplug the battery before doing anything with the electronics so before we go any further let’s talk about a few tools that you might want some of these are necessary some of them are will make your life easier but you may be able to get by without 1.5 millimeter allen key is essential you’re going to need this you will also want a set of needle nose pliers of some sort and a flat head screwdriver first thing we’re going to do is we are going to loosen the screw holding the trigger on to the trigger pin this is just a set screw right in front of the contact block here you’re just going to loosen it up about a turn or so and we should find that now we can move that pin okay before I remove it I’m going to disengage the spring from the trigger and once it’s out I’ll show you how this is put together you’re going to disengage the spring that’s attached to the trigger and then you should be able to easily push that pin right out maybe a little bit of friction on it but it should come out fairly easily okay for the front pin what on the real gun is the hammer pin there are two possible retention methods but this one has on it is what we started with and it just has an o-ring that has it gives some friction I to keep it in place so that way if you have that it can just be pushed straight out all right what we switch to pretty early on just to give a little bit more positive retention in this area is one of these little hairpin clamps this is a very small clip but what it does is it snaps into the groove on the on the pin this is where your pliers come in handy it snaps into the groove right there okay so that’s where it’s going but we’re going to put it there inside the gun just so you can get a picture though of where it’s going when we reinstall it it’s going to sit basically right like this so this is clip is going to sit right on the inside edge and it’s going to retain the the pin in there so it doesn’t slide you know okay but for now we have that pin out so we can remove our electronics pull the wiring out and we’re going to gently remove the electronics don’t just yank them out kind of wiggle them up and I’ll show you why in just a second okay here’s our electronics bar on this board there’s a little spring here this spring helps keep the board located but it is attached to the board it’s it’s glued onto the board and we want to be careful that when we’re removing and installing it that we’re not pushing a lot on the side of this spring and kind of shearing it off the board so just want to be gentle in that area this what we have here is our water resistant electronic so it has a special coating that helps mitigate water damage so it’s pretty effective we have not yet had one of these destroyed events merging it but we don’t recommend it and certainly if you do get your gun wet even with the water resistant electronics you need to go through and clean everything and dry everything just to avoid corrosion and other issues like that from occurring but this is our board and let’s talk about a few basic features this is our selector switch back here if will fire in semi if the selector switch is held down if it’s released it will fire in auto this is your trigger switch it is a clicky switch this is your empty mag detection so that’s what the lever on the magazine indicates on and this is your bolt release switch so your contact points here and these are replaceable so if you loosen this screw here if these get damaged too badly you can see this is a demo gun and has gotten beat up a bit but the spring has gotten a little bit distorted it’s actually still working just fine so I’m not going to worry about it right now but you can easily replace those if they do get damaged you can loosen the screw slide your contact springs out drop the new ones in and tighten it back down okay but that is the basic overview of the board let’s go ahead and take a look at the trigger on the trigger we have two screws on the production version this is a this is a set screw I apologize this is a set screw this is where it is on the production but they use both use a 1.5 millimeter allen key this is what clamps down on the trigger pin so that it won’t slide out and this adjusts the travel of your trigger so you can adjust the pre travel on your trigger this spring when it’s installed in the gun this arm sits along the bottom of the trigger pocket and this arm see if I can hold on to it here hooks right there so when I said disengage that spring what I’m doing is I’m going in there and just popping the spring up and off of the off of the arm here that it’s caught on so let’s go ahead and reassemble everything here first we’re going to put the trigger back in I put the selector in auto position makes it easiest to do this so it can be done in any position drop the trigger back in and we want the trigger to be sitting over on the left side of the gun we’re going to take our electronics the wiring should go around the spring and pin position here and this will slide in again I’m going to make sure that I push in on the spring and get it inside the trigger pocket there as we slide it in and this will sit the board actually sits right beside the the trigger and then we’re just gonna position it get everything right in place where it goes okay now I’m going to install the trigger pin it doesn’t matter which direction you install the trigger pin but we’re gonna Center it up on the gun and then I’m going to tighten down this screw that holds on to the trigger pin so now we’re going to show you how to install not with the o-rings but with the little clip here which most of you probably is what you will have okay first of all we’re going to install the pin from the right side of the gun to the left side of the gun but sorry we’re going to we want the pin to end up in this orientation there are two grooves on the pin we want the groove that’s closer to the end to be on the left side of the gun we’re going to I again get this installed you may need to make sure the board is scooted all the way forward tap it gently you shouldn’t need a lot of force on this a gentle tap should be all you need if you need more than that check that everything’s lined up properly okay so at this point my pin is installed and I need to do the clip alright so for the sake of this video so that you all can see it we have an assistant holding it what we’re gonna do is we’re going to hold on to the clip like so you’re gonna hold the head of the clip in your pliers now to install this the clip needs to be going straight down not at an angle it needs to be going straight down like this so what I’m gonna do is I’m gonna use my flathead screwdriver just to pull that spring just a little bit away from the edge inside wall and then we’re gonna clip the clip down in place make sure it’s seated completely and there we go and now you see the spring is retained or the the pin is retained so it can’t slide either direction okay last step is we need to engage our trigger spring now what we’re going to do is use our flat head screwdriver and we’re going to push down on the arm of the trigger spring using the angle of the head of the screwdriver to hold this spring up against the wall there’s a gap between that that block on the trigger that we’re trying to catch on and the wall I’m going to push it down past the block and then again you twist the screwdriver so that it snaps over and up against the wall I’ll do it one more time just so you can hopefully see I know it’s going to be a little dark in that trigger like it but I’m hopefully you can see what’s going on so I’m using the angle of the screwdriver to hold the spring up against the wall once I get it underneath twist the screwdriver and an old pop into place now we’re all set wiring needs to go to the back and you can reassemble upper and lower as normal so we’re going to tack these on at the end and just as things to things to keep in mind one your spring for your bolt catch here it’s this small spring you may it may come out of position while you’re working on your electronics so just be aware of that it drops down into a little cutout right underneath the arm so just keep an eye on it and make sure it’s positioned properly before you reinstall your electronics that’s easy enough all right the second is what to do if you if the spring attached to the board pops off first off don’t panic this is not the end of the world basically this is the the adhesive we use to hold this on is essentially just an assembly guide or an assembly aid if you will so that it makes it easier to assemble but if we pop it off there you go broke they broke the glue that was holding it on there we can still reassemble it it’s oh it’s a little more tedious but I’m going to show you how to do it you can attempt to redo it if you want a little bit of superglue is okay just make sure if you want to wreak Lou it that you don’t get any glue in the inside the Nepean area where you go through here because that’ll that’ll obstruct the pin but I’m gonna go ahead and show you how to do this I if you break the spring off because if you install it and uninstall it enough times sooner or later it’s gonna happen again it’s it’s made to aid with the initial assembly but you know if you’re and if you’re gentle with it generally it holds up pretty well but if you’re doing you know if you’re tearing your gun down quite a few times doing different things trying different things sooner or later you’re gonna you’re gonna pop it off so let’s take a look at how to install it all right so what I’ve done to get us ready is I have gone ahead and reinstalled the trigger tighten down the screw and that just gets the electronics kind of held in position where they are supposed to be the next thing I’m going to do is I’m gonna get the pin started and I’m gonna set the pin just it’s a little hard to see down in there just so that it is sort of flush with the front side of the board and this is just making sure the board is actually in position where it needs to be before we track them before we put the spring in okay next thing I’m gonna do is I’m going to grab the spring with a pair of pliers here okay and you can see I’m grabbing about three coils and just kind of squeezing it together this is gonna compress the spring let me drop it down in and I’m gonna line it up with the with the pin then go ahead and press the pin through okay and there you go so you can see it’s not it’s not a big deal we just put it on there to make the installation a little bit easier as we’re assembling them if it comes off don’t freak out it’s not that difficult to get in just takes a little bit more doing so that’s it for the electronics today if you have any questions before be sure to shoot them over to us and as always we appreciate your support and we’ll see you guys out on the field
Instructions on tuning the dwell, rate of fire, and burst mode for Spartan Electronics can be found in the Owner’s Manuals, or you can refer to this video.
Video transcript: what’s up guys this is rich with Wolverine airsoft and we are live at Wolverine airsoft headquarters here in Kingsport Tennessee today I’m what the tech we’re going to take a look at the Spartan trigger board how to tune it what you need to know this will also cover tuning for the quake recoil stock since it uses our Spartan system so let’s jump right in so to get into programming mode the first thing we need to do is get to the battery with the Spartan it’s generally housed in the grip especially when you’re running the recoil stock there’s no room in the buffer tube so let’s go ahead and pull the battery out so with the battery out we’re ready to go into programming mode but before we do that we want to make sure we have everything else set up so we’re going to grab a chronograph now if you don’t have a chronograph don’t worry too much you can test this just like always setting the dwell you can just watch the BB trajectory and you can see when the trajectory starts to drop off major dwells too low next we’re going to load a mag and finally we’re going to get our air tank set up with the regulator set to pressure that we want to operate at before we jump into this this is what we call live-fire tuning with all that because we’re actually shooting as we tuned the gun so put on your safety glasses and let’s get started to boot into programming mode what we’re going to do is unplug the battery and now we’re going to plug in the battery with the trigger held down easiest way to do this is just kind of get it started but not push it in hold it down if so line clicks when you pull the trigger you push the battery in too far now push it together that should put us in programming mode the first thing we’ll notice is that when we pull the trigger nothing happens but when we were released to trigger the system fires so that tells me I’m in programming mode now there are two things we’re going to program in programming mode first is dwell if we are set to the semi-automatic position you’re setting dwell if we switch to the full auto position that will set rate of fire for the rate of fire I don’t really necessarily need the air plugged in but we’re going to go ahead and do it anyway you will be firing the system here so make sure you’re pointed in a safe direction if you’re wearing your safety goggles if I just pull the trigger and release it so our current rate of fire if I hold the trigger down it will modulate in this case the rate of fire it’ll do the same thing with the dwell when we get to that setting but I’m going to do it going to wait until I get to the right fire I want you can see once it got to the highest rate of fire it kicked back down to the lowest rating in the menu and then started back going back up all right I like that setting so I’m done with my rate of fire setting now we’re going to go to dwell and here’s where you want your chronograph if you have one this is where the live fire part of it comes into play what we’re going to do is we’re going to put a magazine in once we’re ready to shoot and then we’re going to go shoot into the chronograph but just like with the rate of fire as I hold the trigger down you can about once every second and a half the system is going to fire a shot with each shot it is reducing the dwell if I wait long enough all right you heard the duck out there the DoubleTap means you’re back at the maximum dwell value just throwing numbers out there let’s say it starts at you know the highest number is 12 lowest number is 3 it’s going to start at 12 right as when you double tap that means you’re 12 then you’re going to step down to 11 10 9 8 keep going down and what looking for on the current event graph is we’re looking for the velocity 2 to start to drop off a little bit that means the dwell is as low as it can be but first we get to the highest setting so I just went through had it tapped quite now I’m at the highest setting and we can go step up to our Chris graph and we can give it a shot all right so we’ll go ahead and put in a magazine and now we are ready to set our dwell so I’m just going to hold the trigger down all right so the last two shots I was right about 315 317 somewhere around there the last two shots went 308 300 that tells me my velocity is starting to drop off so you can just go all the way back around the menu if you want or you can double tap if I double tap quickly it will back me up a step so now I’m back up at 308 309 with this type of system leaving it 5 to 10 FPS below is going to give you maximum efficiency we were 315 though and for maximum accuracy we like to go back up to right before we drop off there we’re at 313 313 so we’ve set our dwell we’ve set our rate of fire all we do is unplug the battery or just leave it sit for a minute or two and it will timeout now we go back in that’s the Spartan programming system live-fire tuning let’s head back in finish up now there’s one other thing you can set on your Spartan FCU and that’s your burst now if you have one of the original Spartans which is the vast majority of the ones out there you have two bursts settings you have full auto and three round bursts with the new Spartan MCU that we’ve just started shipping with the quake and that will soon be shipping with all of the Spartan editions there is a third option which is your is semi auto only so you have for your select fire positions you can choose either semi auto 3 round burst or full auto now we don’t program this in programming mode I am back in normal fire mode and you’ll notice that the battery is inside the gun there’s no need to remove the battery to change this setting all we’re going to do is switch the gun into semi-auto and hold down the trigger for 10 seconds now when we release it we are now in three round burst mode if we do it again for ten seconds go back into full-auto now am i right so now we semi semi if we do it one more time all this dead time Latin and Counting you’re back in full auto that is how you set your burst mode if you don’t know which one you have two easy ways to tell one is just try it and see whether you have three settings or two and the other way you can tell is any Spartan board that was shipped with the quake stock will have the third semi only setting and if you don’t know whether you have the new board or not because you didn’t get the quakes stock then you can look at the board the new version with the three settings has an extra connector on it an extra connector port for the output for the quake stock if you only if you only have the one output for the solenoid then you have the original board so that’s it guys that’s this bargaining edition from Walter yourselves we love this system this is our best-selling system and honestly it’s our favorite for all of our shotguns the majority of our shotguns are on this system it is super simple very very easy and reliable to set up since there’s a process that you can follow it’s very very simple takes like 30 seconds to get set up once you know what you’re doing in addition to that your battery is well protected you don’t your FCU is internal so it’s protected from water damage there’s not a wire harness like you have with an external MCU that you can damage super robust system we love this well like I said our favorite system for all of our shotguns that we run on the field and put through abuse so I hope this was helpful as always if you have questions drop them in the comment section below and we will see you guys out on the field you
Rich demonstrates how to install the new MTW Control Board / Trigger Board Black Edition with optical selector sensor and modify a selector barrel for use with the sensor.
Video Transcript: so today we’re going to take a look at how to replace your mtw control board now this will work whether you are dealing with the spartan style control board that we have here today or a premium style standalone trigger board that works with our fcu we have selected for our test piece here the oldest version of the mtw electronics if you have one of the newer versions that already has some of the updates things will be a little bit different but they should be easier and they’ll just be a couple steps that you can skip to start with we’re going to press out the hammer pin next we’re going to take a one and a half millimeter allen key and loosen the set screw that holds the trigger onto the trigger pin then we’re going to remove the trigger pin now the board and the trigger and spring should all come out now since we are using a board that still has the spring on it here and the replacement board does not we’re going to go ahead and pop that spring off just grab a little piece of pair of needle nose pliers grab the spring at the bottom you can pop it free from the glue holding it to the board there we go now the next step is going to be to remove the grip you’ll need a 3 16 allen keyset the grip aside with the screw and then you’re going to have a small spring and the detent for the selector switch that will come out the bottom now at this point we can simply remove the selector switch so let’s talk for just a second about how the optical sensor on the board works the optical sensor sits right here and looks down on the top of the selector switch as it sits in the gun and then the selector switch rotates around for the gun to fire in semi-auto mode we need the optical the optical sensor to see a a reflection so we need something that’s bright or white for it to read in select fire we need it to read not to see its reflection so to see something dark now with your optical sensor board you’re going to get two little stickers here this is a white one this is a black one now there are two different styles of selector switch which you may have one is the carbon steel version which has a black oxide finish on it the other is a stainless steel version that has this bright finish on it now what you’re going which dot you’re going to use is going to depend on which version you have we have the carbon steel version here so we’re going to work with that today and we will put a white dot on the top side of the selector if we look at it here it’s going to go on the top side right here where the side is going to be facing the optical sensor when the gun is in semi-auto if we were using the stainless steel version we would put it put a black dot on hold this in an area you can see right there black top black dot on sort of the forwards if the gun’s in semi-auto would be on forward side of the gun and when the selector is flipped to select fire it’s going to then the dot’s going to be on the top and we’ll use the black dot now before we do either of those we’re going to grab some isopropyl alcohol and we’re just going to give that surface that we’re going to attach the sticker to a quick cleaning just in case there’s anything on that surface now we’re going to take our white dot carefully peel it off try not to touch the sticky surface too much and we’re going to apply it right on the top surface of the selector switch like so and you’ll see it extends over this edge a little bit you can just kind of fold it over that edge press it carefully into place to make sure that it doesn’t come free there you go now we can go ahead and reinstall time to install the selector switch flip the gun upside down take the detent and drop it into the detent hole then we’re going to take the spring put the spring in the hole in the grip flip the gun on its side put it together take our 3 16 allen key tighten it down and check that it actuates correctly now we’re going to double check we’re going to see that when the gun is in semi-auto the white dot is facing the top when it’s in select fire the black surface is facing the top and that’s what we want now since the optical sensor boards have the new slot style that makes the installation and removal easier right here you can see the board has a slot in it that goes over the trigger pin we’re going to go ahead and reinstall the trigger pin first put the trigger in place install the trigger pin and then we can go ahead and snug down the screw on the trigger pin with the trigger pressed over to the left side of the gun snug that down now what we can do is we can take our electronics and drop them down into place like so run the wiring back into the buffer tube now if now if you have one of the newer boards that does not use the spring and that’s what you’re replacing at this point you would simply press your hammer pin through and you would be done however we have we’re using this spring so what we’re going to do is we’re going to start the pin from the right side of the gun until it extends just a little bit past the board get the wiring out of the way then we’re going to take our spring grab two coils with your with your small needle nose pliers hook it on the visible part of the pin that we just pushed through once it’s in place we can then work the trigger pin or the hammer pin the rest of the way through the hammer pin should just go straight through the middle of that spring then there we go the last step is going to be to re-hook the trigger spring which i recommend a small flat blade screwdriver but i’m going to use pliers instead there we go so that is how we swap in one of the newer style optical sensor boards into an older mtw that has the traditional mechanical selector switch i hope that was helpful guys and we will see you guys next time
MTW Fire Mode Select Demonstration. See the instructions below for AEGs.
The Spartan Electronics board can be cycled through several different fire modes as listed below. To advance to the next fire mode, set your gun to semi mode and hold the trigger. After 5 seconds (MTW version) or 10 seconds (AEG Version), the board will advance to the next setting.
MTW (Hold 5 seconds to change modes) • Semi / Full Auto (Default in US) • Semi / 3-Round Burst • Semi / 2-Round Burst • Semi / Semi (Default in UK) • 2-Round Burst / Full Auto
AEG (Hold 10 seconds to change modes) • Semi / Full Auto (Default in US) • Semi / 3-Round Burst • Semi / Semi (Default in UK)
*Boards sold in Germany are locked in Semi / Semi mode.
If the optical select-fire sensor on the MTW Spartan Electronics Control Board is giving inconsistent results, it may be necessary to clean the contacts on the board. After removing the electronics from your MTW, remove the electrical tape from the back of the board to reveal the sensor contacts. Clean them thoroughly with 70% or better isopropyl alcohol. After allowing the contacts to dry, re-apply the electrical tape and reinstall the board in your MTW.
For instructions on removing/installing the control board, see this video.
