NOW INTRODUCING – The GEN-4J! J = Joust!

DartSmarts’ Official Acknowledgment and “Thank You” to our customers!

The GEN-4J has evolved in a very large part thanks to the feedback that we received from the previous users of our GEN product line (moveable point). Over the years, we at DartSmarts have received many “Testimonial Letters,” but we’ve also received many other letters explaining issues that our customers had been experiencing. These letters were equally important to us.

I have always felt that people have focused mostly on their eloquence when talking about their “communication skills,” but have neglected the grossly important “listening skills.” I feel that in product development, listening is paramount. If a company truly listens to their customers and is sensitive to their opinions, feelings and needs, only good will come to future products and to the customers themselves. This will now be evidenced by the new GEN – 4J!

Giving credit where credit is due, my grandfather, Bill Probst of Bay City, Michigan, always said to me: “Joe, you can’t listen to what people are saying if you have your mouth open.”

Around the year 2000, I began contacting every major and minor dart manufacturing company in the world, hoping to obtain a licensing agreement. What I met with was, to put it kindly, nothing more than a cold shoulder and what’s also kindly referred to by people in the darts industry as “mirroring.” Personally, I feel that “mirroring” is right up there with plagiarizing and thievery. What I experienced led me to form the opinion that many of these dart manufacturers were nothing more than machine shops. It is only because these machine shops don’t play, compete, like or love the sport that they can’t seem to do their own due diligence in product development correctly. What I find more alarming is the fact that they can’t seem to play well with others, which in darts is quite unnatural. It doesn’t make sense that a company would purposely mirror when they probably could make more money by teaming up with an individual via a licensing agreement and also gain access to other new innovative products, concepts and performance features. Hell, they don’t seem to share well either. I personally feel that companies like this are killing the sport of darts. The market is saturated with ineffective products that are laden with design defects.

Ask yourself this: how many darts out of a 100 dart catalog would you be interested in test-throwing? Answer: maybe 3 to 5 at best? Probably! So what chance does a newcomer or intermediate player to the sport of darts have in picking out the one dart that will give him a fighting chance? Answer: the same, 3 to 5%, which is not much at all.

As another example that I feel proves the fact that dart manufacturers are nothing more than machine shops, take a look at our new “Joust Dart” and the design defect that it resolves. Since the year 1908, dart manufacturers have been manufacturing their darts, leaving their dart’s barrel lip and nose exposed and prone to darts-on-flight deflections. We’re talking over one hundred years and until now, nothing was done about it. If these companies are supposed to be experts within their industry, they surely aren’t proving it. Watch their catalogs in the future. This will continue to go on, and on and on.

If you love the sport of darts, please support our efforts at DartSmarts because we are doing the job. We need your sales. If you don’t purchase for this reason, then please purchase only our darts for your own selfish reasons!

Thank you all!
Joe Sturtz
President

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Introducing …..

 

The GEN-4J Spring-loaded Joust Moveable Point Dart

by DartSmarts!

 

“A Superior Dart Produces Superior Results”

 

 

GEN-4J Tech-Specs Page                                       PATENT PENDING

DartSmarts’ Design Philosophy and Vision

 

Our darts are truly performance darts because every component of our darts plays an important role, whether it pertains to a greater responsiveness of control, consistency of flight, the minimization of error, as well as creating a wider margin of error, the preservation of points already scored, maximizing scoring opportunities or maintaining the longevity of its physical qualities.  We guarantee that you will never find a better quality dart than ours!

 

Please be aware that the GEN-4J dart is still a convertible dart.  In other words, just like the previous GEN-2 and GEN-3 darts, you can remove the moveable point system (point, collet and spring – totaling 2 grams) and screw in a 2Ba soft-tip point, and you can play soft-tip darts.  Another application, not recommended but you would and shouldn’t have a reason to, is that you can block the point internally so that it remains a fixed point dart at all times.  The Pros prefer using a fixed point dart when playing on diamond-wire dartboards.  There is no guarantee that you’re NOT going to experience bounce-outs on diamond wire boards.  We at DartSmarts believe that our moveable point dart will provide insurance for you in both applications.

 

At this time, I would have to say that I don’t see any possible improvements that we will be able to make in the future.  This dart gives the shooter every possible advantage as well as resolves or reduces greatly any possible situational problems that the dart will experience through regular normal play.  Not only are darts players going to be able to play with a moveable point, but now, with the same moveable point dart, they are going to be able to reap the benefits of eliminating ALL CHANCES of darts-on-flight deflections and with our new Nylon Shaft System, shooters will also eliminate ALL CHANCES of Robin Hooding!  Your next question to yourself should be: “How in the world are they going to get the Joust Point through the hole in the collet when the rear end of the Joust feature needs to be larger than the lip on the collet AND also, the rear end of the point also needs to be larger than the collet’s opening too?  Impossible?  Not really!

 

Many of you informed us that the GEN-3’s collet was shearing off small fragments of flights; tearing up a multitude of flights.  This caused us to turn our product development focus towards the issues of darts-on-flight deflections.  This directly led us to developing the “Joust Point/Dart.”  We discovered that it was the space between the point and the collet’s lip that produced a guillotine-like cutting action of the edges of the flights.  It was the sharp edge of the collet’s lip that was doing the dirty work.   The only physical solution to resolving these issues was to steer or deflect the flight away from this gap and lip area of the collet.  It was easy enough to realize that we needed to make the base of the “implanted cone” into the point wider than the lip of the collet but keep in mind that the problem remained that we ALSO, needed to have the rear end of the point wider than this same opening at the same time.  It was very easy to design a Joust Point for a fixed point dart but to figure out how it could be incorporated into our moveable point GEN product line was going to take some doing.

 

How did we do it?  Our collet is now a SPLIT collet.  It is in two separate and distinct pieces, a male and a female half.  This is done through die casting.  They are joined together initially by two pegs designed into the male half and those pegs fit into the female half.  These pegs lock the two halves together.  What really worked nicely, fitting like a glove, was the fact that we already needed an “O”- ring anyway to keep the collet from loosening from the barrel.  Now, the “O”- ring is doing double duty by keeping both halves secured together.  A minor drawback, but well worth the slight inconvenience, is that when ever you want to change the points on your darts, you will just need to remove the “O”- ring to do so.  This is easily done by using the small flat head screw driver that one uses to tighten the small screws that are on a person’s eyeglasses.  If someone is careful, they will be able to use the same “O”- ring without breaking it.

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GEN-4J DESIGN UPGRADES FROM GEN-3

 

COLLET:

1. Split Collet – The die casted split collet, with two distinct halves, now enables DartSmarts’ moveable point to also provide the benefits of the Joust Point performance feature.  The gold plated collet, when split apart, allows the Joust Point to be properly assembled.

2. We have redesigned the wrench groove to allow for more contact surface with the wrench itself, while at the same time allowing a clean exit channel for the edges of flights that contact with the collet in mid air.  These edges will be deflected out “the back door.”  Why?  Although the collets’ previous wrench groove’s concave shape was minimal and did function well, however, through normal usage the minimal contact surface was actually damaging the wrench tool and then scratching the gold plating surface on the collet.  Now you won’t have to replace your wrench tool at all and your collet will look brand new all the time.

3. We’ve redesigned the threading, plus re-shaped and repositioned the “O”- ring groove in order to accommodate any and all soft-tips that are currently on the market.  The GEN-4J is now user friendly, versatile and compatible!

 

4. Additionally, re-shaping the “O” – ring groove was also done for the sake of eliminating all chances of the collet loosening.  With the “O” – ring now totally encased, the possibility of its shimmying is eliminated.

 

 

                

PLUNGER:

5. We’ve eliminated the plunger entirely!  In the past, we’ve had many people call us, telling us that they opened up the movable point and somehow the plunger popped out and it became lost once it hit the floor.  I had this happen to myself on a number of occasions.  The circumferential movement of the point still remains in tact due to the pliability of the end of the spring and the oversized opening of the collet.  We’ve eliminated the plunger by redesigning the rear end of the point (previously looking like the concave top of a golf tee) to be exactly the same as the rear end of the plunger.  Simple and effective!  There still will be a chance that you will lose the spring in the same manner, so our stern suggestion is that when you must unscrew the collet, do so, but do it while you’re sitting at a table and make sure that you have a bath towel spread out on that surface.  It’s amazing how fast they’ll do a Houdini! 

 

BARREL:

6. We’ve reduced the amount of “speed bumps” to one “speed bump.”  This “speed bump” was redesigned and repositioned so that it is more effective in securing the “O” – ring/collet in place.  The only thing that is going to move this collet over the speed bump is our wrench tool and some good old fashioned human elbow torque.

 

7. The GEN-4J barrel design is exactly the same as our Joust Dart.  The previous grip that we had on GEN-2’s and GEN-3’s was at a 33 grooves per inch ratio.  To provide a more “responsive” meatier grip, we fine tuned this ratio to 25 grooves per inch which now enables the skin to penetrate deeper into the grooves for more control.

 

 

 

POINT:

8. Naturally the radius point and the self-securing spiral groove remain in tact, but we’ve incorporated the Joust feature into the point allowing enough space for the point to retract.  The Joust feature still works despite the in-flight gap (.036 of an inch) between the collet’s lip and the cones’ base surface.  The point below is in the compressed position.

 

 

SHAFT:

9. New!  This is the “DartSmarts Feathered Flight and Nylon Shaft System.  To see a more detailed explanation, please see the Joust Dart video on our home page and also go to the Tech Specs page for the current fixed point dart, “The Joust Dart.”  In brevity, the new shaft from DartSmarts provides:

• Use of Either Conventional Flights or Feathers (man-made plastic vanes)
• Smartly Secured Feathers - Quick Replaceable Single Vanes!  No gluing!
• Cost Effective Design – No need to throw away the whole unit!
• Feathered Flight Shapes - "FT" - "Standard" - Coal Cracker!
• Shaft Cap Eliminates All Chances of Robin Hooding
• Longer Extended Life – Structurally Stabilizing Cap
• Shaft Lengths - "Short" - "In-Between" - "Medium"
• Rotating Shaft!
  
  

FYI: The “FT” Performance Flight is unchanged both as a polyester flight & a plastic vane.  The GEN-4J comes with one set our highly recommended “FT” polyester Performance Flights and one set of our “FT” plastic vanes Performance Flights.  For your options, we’ve made an improvement on both, the standard plastic vane flight and the coal cracker plastic vane flight.  Notice the rear outside corner is now squared off on both flights.  The rounded corners on both standard and coal cracker flights today tends to produce some drag.  You personally will be able to notice a distinct reduction in resistance when throwing.