HALO-B vs eVLution II (Y-Board)
 

Well, my house is covered with an inch of ice, so I can't go anywhere, and I just got off the phone with Odyssey Paintball, so I figured I'd do what I had been threatening to do.

I used to be a staunch HALO-B supporter, but after using and owning more than 4, I turned to EvoIIs. I am going to try and present everything in an un-baised format as I can.

HALO-B

Pros:

• Feedrate of 22bps
• Constant spring pressure on the balls, for instantaneous feeding before the hopper actually activates
• Very tough shells, made of high-quality polycarbonate
• Standard hopper shape - Aesthetically pleasing

Neutral/Facts:

• Holds roughly 165 paintballs
• Feedneck is intentionally designed too large, so before you play, you must spend time sanding down the feedneck to fit your feedtube. I suggest using a dremel tool, sandpaper takes far too long.
• Push Button On/Off - To turn on, push the button once. (button press must be between 0.2 and 1 sec.) To turn off, hold the button until the LED illuminates red, then let go.

Cons:

• Requires 6 AA batteries to work. This contributes a significant amount of weight to the hopper, in addition to being rather expensive. Now, to those of you who (like me) wanted to cut costs by using NiMH Rechargeables... DON'T. HALO-B Loaders require fully charged batteries, with an output voltage of 1.5V (each) to even function normally. NiMH and NiCD Rechargeables have a rough 1.2V output, so sometimes your HALO-B will turn on, other times it won't, other times it'll just shut off in the middle of a tournament (speaking from experience). To emphasize this - HALO-Bs are extremely picky on batteries, always have 6 brand new AAs on hand.
• The battery cover is held in by a screw. This requires that you have a smallish screwdriver on hand with those extra 6 AAs. This gets rather irritating, having to spend over a minute just messing with your loader's batteries (at the least).
• Battery pack only fits in one way, and it's not apparent which way it fits. You have to keep reorienting it until it fits in enough for the battery cover to fit snugly, so your screw doesn't cross-thread and ruin your shells. Once you know how to do this, it's fine, but until then, (and sometimes you have to fiddle with it even when you DO know) you need to fiddle with it until it works.
• The HALO-B has a very powerful motor and feeding device. This results in double-feeds on nearly all guns unless they have special "HALO-B" ball detents. This nearly eliminates the need for a fast loader if you're still going to chop, BECAUSE of the loader.
• The HALO-B won't work well (or at all) with dark paint. This includes (but is not limited to) half-black shelled paint, black shelled paint, and black or dark swirled paint.
• Pretty heavy when unloaded. When fully loaded, it is within a few ounces of how much an EvoII (fully loaded) weighs, though the EvoII can hold 45 more paintballs.

Customer Service, Warranty and Response Time:
Odyssey used to have excellent customer service, and excellent warranty, and less than a week turnaround.

Then National Paintball Supply bought Odyssey.

Now, they are impossible to get a hold of, so you just send in your HALO-B with all your info to their address. I sent in 3 HALO-Bs exactly 3 weeks ago today, and I just now got a call back from Odyssey. The agent who called me was not only surly, but he acted as if I had the intelligence of a fence post. He was rude, not helpful, and though I am a pretty calm person, able to take a lot of abuse, I had plenty of urges to reach across the line and slap this guy back into the Stone Age. Their warranties suck. 90 days for electronics (don't you expect your $115 loader to last longer than 3 months??) and 1 full year for plastics (shells, etc.).

Conclusion:
For the price and all the hoops you must jump through, this definitely is not the way to go. But, as one of my best friends, said, "when HALOs work, they work well, and they are nearly unstoppable."

I came back and said, "Yeah, let me know when that happens more than once every two or three weeks."

Some people have had excellent times with HALO-Bs, but I think that I can have a fairly good idea how they work under pressure, having taken my experiences into account, as well as all of my teammates, and several of the Bonebrake Factory players, and some other Bonebrake sponsored teams. Essentially, I had the benefit of 15 or more experienced players using HALO-Bs.



eVLution II with Y-Board

Pros:

• Feedrate exceeding 19bps (PaintballCOW shot 23bps using a Bonebrake Signature Series Bushmaster)
• Very tough shells, made out of high quality polycarbonate
• Easy to use toggle switch, in a recessed slot, so it doesn't get bumped.
• Economical on the batteries. I have shot over 9 cases through mine so far, and I'm still on my same original two batts.
• Easy to change batteries - The battery compartment is accessible without using a screwdriver, but it still holds the batteries secure. The EvoII also comes with a battery spacer, since 9V batteries differ from manufacturer to manufacturer, so sometimes it's necessary to insert that spacer to ensure a tight fit. I've never needed mine, but it's nice to know that I would have that if I ever did.
• Does NOT require special ball detents just to work with your gun. The EvoII does not double feed unless your detents just plain suck

Neutral/Facts:

• Holds 195 paintballs.
• The Lid - Some people view this as a con, I view it as a pro. It opens downward, and locks into place at the bottom. This is so it will act as a funnel when you're pouring in paint. I just know that it's easy to use, and easy to shut. When you've dumped your pod, just hit the lid (you have to know when you hit it) or squeeze the sizes, and it'll snap shut. Even if it doesn't snap all the way shut, the springs will hold it "closed" so no balls will fall out.
• The Egg Shape - It's becoming more and more prominent, so I wouldn't really say that it's odd anymore. Much as it looks like it would increase your profile, it really isn't much higher than the HALO-B. The feedneck, in addition, can be cut down for ultra-low profile, and for those of you with no-rise bodies.
• Segmented - The Raceway (feedneck), Lid, Battery Cover, Right and Left Shells are all separate, so that if any ONE of those breaks, you can easily and cheaply replace them without having to buy a full new set of shells. (PaintballFirst eBay or PaintballFirst) For instance, if you break the feedneck on a HALO-B... you're out of $30-35 just to replace that.
• Farther Back Profile - This allows you to be closer to the bunker without your hopper hitting the bunker. You can essentially stick more of your barrel out of the bunker before your hopper limits this movement.
• Lid needs to be broken in. When you first get your hopper, practice opening and closing the lid several dozen times, until you have the hang of it, and it's smooth. When I got my first EvoII, it was very stiff for the first 4-6 times. After than it was much smoother. You may, if you desire, lightly sand down the ridges at the top and bottom of the lid to make it easier, but be careful. If you oversand, then you may not be able to keep your hopper lid open.

Cons:

• Doesn't keep a constant pressure on the balls. This means that, for the first 3/hundredths of second (0.03 sec) or less, the ball will be fally purely on based on gravity. However, the feedneck sensor is very quick and notices movement before the first ball has fallen even half of the distance down the feedtube (which is a mere 0.03 second), and it'll activate the motor and spin at a rate of 19bps (or more). So, when you're shooting fairly consistently or in a string, the loader will feed at 19bps, but for that first fraction of a second, it's slower.
• Feedneck has shown to be weaker than it really should. I personally have had no problems, nor have any of my friends, but I have sold several EvoII feednecks (I manage a store), so I know that it's a slight problem.
• Lids have a tendency to break. Once again, I (nor any of my friends) have had any problems, but I have sold a few lids as well.

Customer Service, Warranty and Response Time:
I have not personally dealt with them for Customer Service, and I still need to look up the specifics of their warranty. However, I asked someone to tell me about their impression when recently calling VL. He said that he was placed on hold for approx 15 minutes, then he talked to a rep, who, while he was a nice, easy-to-talk-to guy, wasn't he MOST informed that he could have been. He did, however, get his problem solved (well, he got pointed in the right direction to get his hopper fixed), so I could that as pretty good customer service.

Conclusion:
Best loader for your money, hands down. This loader retails around $72.99 for black, a full $40 cheaper than the HALO-B. This loader is less fussy, holds more balls, doesn't require special ball detents just to work with your gun.

i have both an evolution(with Z-Board) and a halo-b (with Z-Code) and with rip drive and aftr using both in tournaments the halo b is way better.. it can keep up with about 27 balls a second and it is the perfect size for stickers and avoiding paintballs...the evolution loader's battery compartment keeps popping open and then the evolution loader keeps stopping...ad even with the z-board the evolution loader can't keep up..i have put both hoppers full of balls and recorded the time to empty the entire hopper. Halo B- 5.47 seconds...Evolution- 7.31....these are real results becuase like you i didnt know which was better...and another point is,,look at all the pros using halos over evolutions...

27 is doubtful...


Pros use what their sponsors tell them to use. They don't choose..

A4Boy, did you take into consideration that the Egg holds more paint so it would obviously take a little longer for it empty?...



The ONLY reason I use evo's now over Halo's is because the Eye in the Halo, flat out sucks. Sometimes it reads paint, sometimes it doesn't... The eye in my old halo somehow manage to completely shatter :| ... If they made a Halo with a break beam eye (rather than reflective) or some type of other sensor, I think it would be a great loader and is undoubtedly faster than an Evo... But until Oddyssey addresses that issue and makes a more reliable eye/sensor, you can keep the Halo's....


Nice post Bourne ;) ... Very good, fairly unbiased and informative comparison...

Go Ethan! :) ...

This should be Stickied because of the ridiculous amount of people that ask this question...

Wow about time someone finally wrote this. Not saying teuf's isn't good but this has the name directly in it and it's a little more in depth.

Not to mention now with the z-board you can get the same speed as the Halo B, and the board can be found still for less then $40 bucks. Even it is were $40 it'd be the same speed and hold more balls.

So overall I would take an eggy over a halo anyday.

One thing to mention is when sanding down the Eggy II feed neck be very careful not to make it too tight of a fit, to the point where you have to twist it to get it into the feed neck of the marker. This will make the feedneck weak and eventually snap like mine did.

Enter the Reloader B. Halo B with a vibration/sound sensor.

Ya, I know.... I can still see that possibly having some reliability issues as well. The problem is if the Halo forces on paint that is too brittle or on a seam, just once when it is not supposed to, it can break paint and make a mess for you. If the paint is already dirty (paint-coated) before it even makes it to your chamber it is obviously not going to shoot very well... Then you have to go and clean the hopper and your gun and try again. I haven't had either egg break a single ball yet the Halo broke more than a hand full (different kinds) in the few months I owned it...


I don't know, we'll see how it goes, that is definitely something I will be checking out, but I am not getting my hopes up over it...

And the fact that hand-timed drop tests are not accurate by any stretch of the imagination.

Not to mention that you highly doubt that you shot 27bps.


:) That's one of the perks of being a mod. It already is stickied.

Oh, sorry, didn't notice.... I never actually enter any forum, just "View new posts" .


Thanks for the informative sticky (maybe now we won't see any more of these threads, at least I hope...) :) .

Thanks Bourne, Although now I can't wait to get my egg.... should be in Sunday

yea i out 150 balls in each hopper.

HA! I wish!

I haven't had such a wonderful experience with my eggy2 w/ yboard so far.

It worked fine for most of a day, but during thel ast game it stopped working completely. No I dea why, I fiddled with it and eventually it started working for about 5 minutes, then the game ended.

Now it just randomly works for like 2 seconds then stops. I have no idea what's wrong.
Just letting you know

Are there fresh batteries in it and is the eye completely clean? ...

I think these problems usually happen because the battery does not fit. Some batteries are shorter than others and they do not come in contact w/ the connections very well. This has happened to me before and I just folded up some paper and put it under the batteries before closing the battery door. Solved all of my problems. Of course, the new Z-boards have new connections and I no longer require that folded paper.

Um, Bourne, i must have misunderstood your defination of "segmented" but, um.. Halo's have seperate Drive Cones, Left & Right hopper shells, and lids. Unless im just smoking crack or misunderstood your defination of "segmented."
http://www.odysseypaintball.com/sales-parts.html

i agree bourne. i just put a z board in my eggy and it shortens the wait a little bit so yeah now it rips about 20-21 bps. its not 23 like the product says but it is faster than the y board. i prefer eggys over halos.:D

:) I know, I've owned 4-6 HALO-Bs. ;)

What I meant by that was mainly in reference to the feedneck.

The EvoII has a separate (thus, easily replaceable) feedneck, whereas the HALO-B just has right and left shells.

Ohhhh, ok. NM then. :P

I read somewhere that the world record for bps (semi) was like 22.

So just get an evlution and z-board it, you'll never outshoot it, and it's smarter than a Halo B.

Good to see that Bourne has seen the light. :love: