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I got a cps 2500 for very cheap, but it has a few problems. There was a crack in the bottom of the resevoir, which I repaired with some Plumber's Goop. Likewise, there was a leak in the trigger valve, which I fixed with even more goop. But even after this, I'm getting horrible stream patterns. All three nozzles have no lamination and just blast out of the nozzle in every direction. I looked at the nozzle, and all the laminular guides appear to be in place. Also, the gun seems to be leaking blackish water out of the nozzle selector... could that be mold? This thing has so many problems... but I'm glad, cause I'm probably going to end up extensively modifying it. I'm thinking of making a JLspacemarine nozzle laminator and some endcap nozzles. Might this help?

Blackish water is a sign of mould; does the water smell foul? Poor stream lamination from the nozzle suggests that there are flaws/defects now in the nozzle pathway or that something is missing. You saw the lamination guides, but did you also see the end screen? As well, how do the walls of the nozzle look? Are they smooth or do they have damage? As well, are the nozzles properly aligning with the exit opening from the blaster? How does the blaster fire when you remove the multiple nozzle selector?

Pictures, if possible, could help us spot problems as well. If you can, post up some pics of the nozzles and laminators and definitely keep us informed of your progress, successful or not. Hopefully we'll be able to help you get this blaster working close to full potential again!

Soak on!

The water smells... a bit like rubber actually. The screens are there, the straws are there, but I can see that the interior of the laminator is a bit blacker than it should be. Methinks its a case of mould inside the nozzle itself. All the parts are sound & fitting well, but the stream still breaks up very early.

Sorry for the double post, but it's quite pertinant info. I took the nozzle selector off, and the mould was just a little bit around the bottom of the selector where some water was trapped. The nozzle laminator, however, was totally shot. I carefully sawwed it open and to my suprise, I found that every single "straw" piece was crumpled and bent, and the back screen was shredded. My trigger valve also leaks like a sieve when I hit higher pressures, despite my original patching with plumber's goop. I think I'm going to cut the whole orange portion off and replace it with one of Jlspacemarine's nozzle laminators, which might be better for finding an optimal nozzle size, and just cover the entire nozzle with plumbers goop.

Brutal. Could you take and post pics of the broker original CPS2500 laminator or have you thrown those out already? I'd suspect that the laminator got weaker due to mould, neglect, and debris, finally crumpling. I'd assume the mould ate away at the plastic, but I'm just guessing.

At any rate, good luck at rebuilding your blaster and keep us informed on how your repair/rebuild job goes.

Soak on!

See, thats really the interesting part of all this: there was no signs of damage inside the nozzle besides the crumpled laminators. Now keep in mind that these things are paper thin, the're actually flimsier than the drinking straws I've got. I think the culprit of this is the extreme pressure generated by the cps system. The cps 2000 and 2500 work somewhere around 42 psi I believe, which is certainly enough to bend straws and tear up a poorly assembled screen or two over a 10 year period. The blaster certainly looks its age, as one side of the plastic has yellowed slightly, although all the stickers are there and there's no fading on any of the colored sections. I've seen this yellowing of the originally grey parts on the entire '98 series, might it have something to do with the plastics used? I've got an alarm clock in my room from that same year, and although its done nothing but sit around on my nightstand for 10 years, its a nice shade of creamy yellow, versus the original white.

Major update: the nozzle laminator and leaks in the trigger valve have been (presumably) fixed! The Plumber's Goop has to sit overnight but it should work barring some unforseen disaster. I took pictures of my repair/mod and will post them when I can find a usb cable (I knew I shoulda just used my cell phone like I did before). A point of interest is that I used differently sized straws in the laminator. Instead of drinking straws like the original nozzle, I used cocktail stirrers. The aformentioned devices are the same size as coffee stirrers but with a much larger inner diameter, which won't reduce the flow like coffee stirrers would. Expect results tomorrow!
Edit: pictures and writeup:
I was browsing the wine section of my local Publix tonight, and I ran across these little jewels:

As I said previously, they're thin like coffee stirrers, but have a far thinner wall thickness.
To get to the laminator, I had to cut with a high-tooth-count hacksaw blade and a miter box. Anyone hoping to replicate this procedure would do better to just open their valve via the screws (all the screw heads on mine were coated with glue from the factory). Be sure to save the screens that are in front of and behind the straws:


Now that your nozzle is opened, one way or another, its time to go from this:

To this:

The pieces should be about 3.8 centimeters in length, although you may have to find the correct length through trial and error, since my screens were bent out of shape, affecting the size the straws could be.
When you've got enough stirrers that it looks like this;


then you are done.

As can be seen here, the two parts of my nozzle didn't quite fit back together. This can be avoided in one of two ways: don't cut the nozzle, or continue through trial and error. I chose option c: not worry about it. By this point I had been working on getting those straws perfect for three long hours, and I was fed up. I also figured that the gap would provide more area for the plumbers goop to grip, and the nozzle selector would already put pressure on this area.
Simply use copious amounts of this stuff
481e6844-8aa6-48c6-8b0f-dd78f08a1c61_4.jpg
and you'll be fine.

Plumbers goop saved the day, I suppose.

It sure did! It's the best adhesive I know of for pressure application. Anyways, I'm getting incredible results with these smaller laminators. Preliminary testing is showing incredible lamination, with or without a nozzle! All 3 stream sizes come out laser-straight, especially the 20x, which after looking at other people's shot pics, is not the norm. I almost recommend doing this as a mod rather than a repair, especially for soakers using a laminator wall rather than the tubular system like this. I'm going to try this out on my CPS 4100 next and see how it works.

Great job on the lamination rebuild and sharing pics of various stages of the repair! Think you might be able to take some shot pics sometime? I'd love to see how smooth the resulting stream is!

Don't worry, I'll get pictures as soon as the goop is dried. I had to apply another layer on the trigger valve since my testing popped the initial coat (I wanted to be sure everything worked before it set rock solid) so it'll be around Tuesday.

Just a little preview of the 5x:


More to come tomorrow.

Simply put, those streams look beautiful! Looking forward to seeing more shot pics! What are the ranges you're getting out of your CPS2500 now?

Wow! That's better lamination than my APH!

New developments: my 2500 isn't working right again. I don't know if it's the laminator or the nozzle selector, but it's leaking like crazy during the shots, and the 20x has taken on the appearance of a fan blast. This is a big difference from before, where the 20x stream was so laminated I was afraid I had somehow lowered the flow. (Interesting note on that, a 20x stream with perfect lamination resembles a 10x stream with stock laminators because it doesn't expand in diameter untill it's a good 20 feet away.) I'll be fixing these problems soon, expect updates.

Did the range increase noticeably with your better-laminated 20x stream vs the stock 10x that you say looks the same?