This review is from: Viper 777 Electronic Soft Tip Dartboard (Sports)
This is a great regulation size dart board for the price. It has plenty of game options and records points accurately. It has different tones for the points when scored. The darts stay in and there’s not very much bounce out. The darts that come with it are usable to play with right away but the flights fall off very easy. I would recommend getting a better set of darts.
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This review is from: Viper 777 Electronic Soft Tip Dartboard (Sports)
Have had this for several days now….and there have been over 50 games of cricket played on this so far. I figured that this was enough to toss up my review. If anything changes, i’ll edit.
Plenty of game options (all the games you’d want, several variations of cricket, 301, 501, all the 01’s, baseball, over/under, 26 games in total. I play cricket, 301 and 501 typically. Stylish.
Pros: 1) In 50 games of cricket (lots of games played on superbowl sunday)…which is between 3,000-4,000 darts thrown at the board. I don’t know that I remember a single bounce out. Yeah, like in real darts, once in a blue moon you’ll hit the metal around the bullseye and the dart will bounce back….same here (once in a very blue moon). This is GREAT and was my biggest worry in buying a new board.
2) There is a quartz lcd scoring pance in the lower left of the board. There have been very few scoring errors – and it is accurate. If you are getting an electronic board, I highly recommend getting a board with automatic scoring vs. you having to manually score. Additionally, with cricket, some boards have a different color light for 1, 2 or 3 darts. This board scores with the / X and O like you would on a chalkboard. Love it.
3) On the right side of the board just above the red buttons there is a little holder for all of the extra soft tips they include with the darts. This is great! On the flipside, see con #3 below.
Cons: 1) This is not a con of the board at all….but about the darts that come with the board – they totally s*ck. I’m going to guess that this is the case with most electronic dartboards though and I expected it. I’m solid in darts. I tend to use tungsten darts (figure 20 grams) on regulation dartboards… I haven’t weighed the soft tip darts that come with this board, but they feel like their weightless. I’m not kidding….I still can’t control them – and won’t bother trying. I’m going out and buying a nice set of 16 gram soft tip darts since the board works well. Will update review if the board can’t handle the new darts.
2) The AC adapter was not included (and is sold separately). That is actually not a con for me…but i figured it would be a con for other buyers. I’d rather use the 4 AA batteries as I placed my board where an outlet is not readily available…and either way – it’s a much cleaner look without having the wire dangling down, etc. I’ve not yet had to replace the batteries.
3) The board has a little cubby for extra soft tips. But there is no holder for your darts. Not a big deal…but it would have been nice to have a place to put them.
In end, the cons are really nothing when you think about it. The pros are big. That being said, i only give 5 stars when there are no drawbacks at all….and I’m not sure you’ll find a better dartboard in this price range. Sure, if you want to spend $169.99 or $249.99 you might get an a/c adapter…maybe better darts. Maybe (maybe) a slightly more advanced scoring screen. Better performance? Not so sure about that. Well worth the $50. Very happy about this product.
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This review is from: Viper 777 Electronic Soft Tip Dartboard (Sports)
Before buying I read many of the reviews on electronic dartboards and all seemed to have a fair percentage of duds chiefly in the electronics. The two main makers of home boards appear to be Arachnid and Viper. I wanted a regulation 15.5 inch board and purchased two Viper 777 boards for the dayroom in our seniors building.
On one board the 14 single, double and triple segments began to score 9 so I returned it for a replacement. On the other board a soft-tip dart poked a hole through the LED protective plastic and I returned it today for a replacement. I’m not happy that the hard plastic LED readout cover broke. I may end up installing a thin plexiglas/lexan cover over the readout. In the meantime I installed a piece of screen protector tablet/ipod film on the replacement boards.
As stated by nearly every reviewer, the darts that come with the boards are essentially kid’s darts they weigh 9 grams – great for kids, but not for adults. If you are interested in a better quality one-piece plastic shaft and flight dart, check out the “Fat Cat Highlander 16 Gram Soft-Tip”. I suspect the maximum soft-tip dart weight for these low end boards is 18 grams. BTW to remove broken dart tips from the board you need to purchase a “Dart Tip Removal Tool”. The tool pushes the broken tips into a cavity inside the board.
These boards consume batteries fairly fast (4 x AA) so think about rechargeables or finding a suitable AC/DC power adapter as it doesn’t come with the 777. Note that there appears to be two different specs for the Viper 777 AC/DC power adapter. The manual for one model states that the center/inside conductor is positive while the other model states that the center/inside is negative. Check the manual that came with your board or on the back of the board check for raised printing on the lower right corner.
It’s to be expected that the number of bounce-outs will be greater than with steel-tip darts so if you’re new to soft-tip, be patient it does improve. Some reviewers noted that it is often very difficult to remove soft-tip darts from electronic boards. I don’t know if it’s because it’s the same brand or not, but there was a significant improvement in ease of removal as well as fewer bounce-outs when we switched to Tufflex II Tips. Our seniors residence club supplies tips to our players so I buy a bag of 500 tips at a time.
Update Dec 23, 2014: Today the complete 11 frame of one of the 777 boards stopped functioning and I will now be seeking a third replacement.
Update Jan 2, 2015: Today the double, large single and triple 20 of the other board stopped working. When replaced it will be the 4th replacement.
This review started with 3 stars, then 2 stars, and now it will be one star. These boards are being used by 10-16 seniors (mostly women) once a week using 16 & 18 gram darts. These failures shouldn’t be happening!
I can only surmise that those reviewers giving good ratings to these boards have not been using them each and every week over a 2-3 month period.
Update May 6, 2015: The last two replacement boards have lasted longer than the previous four. Around the time when we installed these two boards we switched to Viper Tufflex III and Bulls Axx tips, however, I don’t believe that this had anything to do with them lasting longer. There is one change we made that I believe did – we installed floor carpet between the dartboard and the wood paneling we used as a backing board. I believe the carpet acts as an impact cushion lessening the impact of the dart on the board.
Now for a little technical stuff. Inside the board there is a sandwich of 3 layers of plastic sheeting. The outer 2 layers have conductive material bonded to the inner surfaces (making them flexible circuit boards) while the middle 3rd layer acts as an insulator. Each individual segment (double, triple, single, and bull) has 2 or 3 raised areas that line up with holes in the middle insulating layer. When a dart strikes a segment the raised area pushes an area of conductive material on one outer layer through the hole of the insulating layer to make electrical contact with the conductive material on the other outer layer. This contact is sent via a flat flexible cable to the processing and display circuit board which is recognized by the microprocessor chip glued to the circuit board and then the resulting score is displayed.
My guess is that because of the impact made by 18 gram darts and/or through wear, the conductive material and/or the plastic sheet on which it’s bonded becomes compromised causing the segment contact to malfunction resulting in no score for a dart or an incorrect score.
Because the cushioning effect of the added floor carpeting has significantly extended our two dartboards’ life, I’ve come to the conclusion that the Viper 777 wasn’t designed to handle the…
great board for the price,
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|Solid Electronic Dartboard!,
Plenty of game options (all the games you’d want, several variations of cricket, 301, 501, all the 01’s, baseball, over/under, 26 games in total. I play cricket, 301 and 501 typically. Stylish.
Pros:
1) In 50 games of cricket (lots of games played on superbowl sunday)…which is between 3,000-4,000 darts thrown at the board. I don’t know that I remember a single bounce out. Yeah, like in real darts, once in a blue moon you’ll hit the metal around the bullseye and the dart will bounce back….same here (once in a very blue moon). This is GREAT and was my biggest worry in buying a new board.
2) There is a quartz lcd scoring pance in the lower left of the board. There have been very few scoring errors – and it is accurate. If you are getting an electronic board, I highly recommend getting a board with automatic scoring vs. you having to manually score. Additionally, with cricket, some boards have a different color light for 1, 2 or 3 darts. This board scores with the / X and O like you would on a chalkboard. Love it.
3) On the right side of the board just above the red buttons there is a little holder for all of the extra soft tips they include with the darts. This is great! On the flipside, see con #3 below.
Cons:
1) This is not a con of the board at all….but about the darts that come with the board – they totally s*ck. I’m going to guess that this is the case with most electronic dartboards though and I expected it. I’m solid in darts. I tend to use tungsten darts (figure 20 grams) on regulation dartboards… I haven’t weighed the soft tip darts that come with this board, but they feel like their weightless. I’m not kidding….I still can’t control them – and won’t bother trying. I’m going out and buying a nice set of 16 gram soft tip darts since the board works well. Will update review if the board can’t handle the new darts.
2) The AC adapter was not included (and is sold separately). That is actually not a con for me…but i figured it would be a con for other buyers. I’d rather use the 4 AA batteries as I placed my board where an outlet is not readily available…and either way – it’s a much cleaner look without having the wire dangling down, etc. I’ve not yet had to replace the batteries.
3) The board has a little cubby for extra soft tips. But there is no holder for your darts. Not a big deal…but it would have been nice to have a place to put them.
In end, the cons are really nothing when you think about it. The pros are big. That being said, i only give 5 stars when there are no drawbacks at all….and I’m not sure you’ll find a better dartboard in this price range. Sure, if you want to spend $169.99 or $249.99 you might get an a/c adapter…maybe better darts. Maybe (maybe) a slightly more advanced scoring screen. Better performance? Not so sure about that. Well worth the $50. Very happy about this product.
0
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|Making Do With What’s Available,
Before buying I read many of the reviews on electronic dartboards and all seemed to have a fair percentage of duds chiefly in the electronics. The two main makers of home boards appear to be Arachnid and Viper. I wanted a regulation 15.5 inch board and purchased two Viper 777 boards for the dayroom in our seniors building.
On one board the 14 single, double and triple segments began to score 9 so I returned it for a replacement. On the other board a soft-tip dart poked a hole through the LED protective plastic and I returned it today for a replacement. I’m not happy that the hard plastic LED readout cover broke. I may end up installing a thin plexiglas/lexan cover over the readout. In the meantime I installed a piece of screen protector tablet/ipod film on the replacement boards.
As stated by nearly every reviewer, the darts that come with the boards are essentially kid’s darts they weigh 9 grams – great for kids, but not for adults. If you are interested in a better quality one-piece plastic shaft and flight dart, check out the “Fat Cat Highlander 16 Gram Soft-Tip”. I suspect the maximum soft-tip dart weight for these low end boards is 18 grams. BTW to remove broken dart tips from the board you need to purchase a “Dart Tip Removal Tool”. The tool pushes the broken tips into a cavity inside the board.
These boards consume batteries fairly fast (4 x AA) so think about rechargeables or finding a suitable AC/DC power adapter as it doesn’t come with the 777. Note that there appears to be two different specs for the Viper 777 AC/DC power adapter. The manual for one model states that the center/inside conductor is positive while the other model states that the center/inside is negative. Check the manual that came with your board or on the back of the board check for raised printing on the lower right corner.
It’s to be expected that the number of bounce-outs will be greater than with steel-tip darts so if you’re new to soft-tip, be patient it does improve. Some reviewers noted that it is often very difficult to remove soft-tip darts from electronic boards. I don’t know if it’s because it’s the same brand or not, but there was a significant improvement in ease of removal as well as fewer bounce-outs when we switched to Tufflex II Tips. Our seniors residence club supplies tips to our players so I buy a bag of 500 tips at a time.
Update Dec 23, 2014: Today the complete 11 frame of one of the 777 boards stopped functioning and I will now be seeking a third replacement.
Update Jan 2, 2015: Today the double, large single and triple 20 of the other board stopped working. When replaced it will be the 4th replacement.
This review started with 3 stars, then 2 stars, and now it will be one star. These boards are being used by 10-16 seniors (mostly women) once a week using 16 & 18 gram darts. These failures shouldn’t be happening!
I can only surmise that those reviewers giving good ratings to these boards have not been using them each and every week over a 2-3 month period.
Update May 6, 2015: The last two replacement boards have lasted longer than the previous four. Around the time when we installed these two boards we switched to Viper Tufflex III and Bulls Axx tips, however, I don’t believe that this had anything to do with them lasting longer. There is one change we made that I believe did – we installed floor carpet between the dartboard and the wood paneling we used as a backing board. I believe the carpet acts as an impact cushion lessening the impact of the dart on the board.
Now for a little technical stuff. Inside the board there is a sandwich of 3 layers of plastic sheeting. The outer 2 layers have conductive material bonded to the inner surfaces (making them flexible circuit boards) while the middle 3rd layer acts as an insulator. Each individual segment (double, triple, single, and bull) has 2 or 3 raised areas that line up with holes in the middle insulating layer. When a dart strikes a segment the raised area pushes an area of conductive material on one outer layer through the hole of the insulating layer to make electrical contact with the conductive material on the other outer layer. This contact is sent via a flat flexible cable to the processing and display circuit board which is recognized by the microprocessor chip glued to the circuit board and then the resulting score is displayed.
My guess is that because of the impact made by 18 gram darts and/or through wear, the conductive material and/or the plastic sheet on which it’s bonded becomes compromised causing the segment contact to malfunction resulting in no score for a dart or an incorrect score.
Because the cushioning effect of the added floor carpeting has significantly extended our two dartboards’ life, I’ve come to the conclusion that the Viper 777 wasn’t designed to handle the…
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