Planet Eclipse HQ Blog

Article number 10 in our history of Planet Eclipse focuses on yet another office move. Yawn. Yeah, we know, not as exciting as talking about guns or tournament wins, but as boring as it may seem moving our HQ to something a little more sexy (and bigger) made a huge difference to how we operate day-to-day. When we first moved to Praed Road from our original location in Manchester city centre , we took 2 units and knocked them through to make one bigger unit. As we expanded and started production of our own Marker (the awesome EGO) we took on a 3rd and then 4th unit. Luckily all next to each other (in a U-shape) so we could continue to work, but the bigger we got the more disjointed it became. When we took on the 5th unit which was over the road–not so convenient–we decided to start looking for something else. After some searching we found a new build that was only ½ mile away from Praed Road that would allow us to design and build the Planet Eclipse HQ for our future. The ...

Ok, so we're gonna take the foot off the gas a little and talk about something that was a huge deal for the growth of Eclipse, but not necessarily as exciting as things that go pew pew. We're gonna go into the decision to widen our horizons and expand our business into the good ol' US of A. As always, we grabbed Ledz and asked if he could remember any of it. I guess the decision to expand and open a US Office was a massive deal right?  Yes and No. Jacko had been working for us for some time and his wife (Jane) had been offered a job working in America. This meant they had some pretty big life changing decisions to make. Jacko approached Julian and Myself (Ledz) and suggested that he moved to America and sets up a US office for us over there. The timing was probably about 6-months too early but we grasped the opportunity and went for it. I think if we had said “No thanks” we would have lost Jacko as I think he would have moved to the States anyway. Jacko had al...

Yep. We're talking about the EBlade. At a time when paintballers were in awe of the speed of electro markers, but deep-down loved the feel and accuracy of the Autococker, the question was...surely you could have both? And guess what. You could. In the early noughties we released a product called the EBlade which kick-started the next level of our involvement with custom markers and re-ignited a passion for the Autococker that nobody had anticipated. This was a big deal for us, so we decided to dig a little deeper and ask a few questions (actually, a LOT of questions) to bring you a better insight into how the product came about and what the main protagonists thought about it. Are you ready to read a lot of stuff? Good. Here we go. The Nexus EBlade giving it some So, before we get into the awesome EBlade, you guys brought out your own Cocker didn’t you? I guess nobody brings out their own Cocker. Custom houses brought out different custom versions of the Worr Gam...

Ok, so Deansgate wasn't actually a conspiracy, we just wanted a cheeky title for the blog post. That said, there'll be a LOT of you guys out there who have never even heard of Deansgate before, so why don't you sit back, pour yourself a delicious beverage and settle in for some good old-fashioned story telling. Ledz, Speedy and Jules at the Paintball Planet Deansgate store. Picture the scene. It's 1991. It's Manchester (UK) and the paintball scene is booming and about to really go off. It's also the time when a humble paintball company called Planet Eclipse began to make waves. To hear the full story of how the band started, check out our 30 minute film 'Unemployables'  in which the guys talk about why and how they became Planet Eclipse. BUT, read this post first, obviously. We wanna talk about Deansgate. The place. We wanna know what it was like running a paintball store in a busy city centre location when paintball was going through it...

Following on from our previous '25 Years in the Game' post, #03 XSV to EGO , it was only right that we waxed lyrical about the launch of our very first Planet Eclipse marker. The Eclipse EGO . Thomas Taylor giving the first custom XSV EGO some hell For those who don't know about our history, here's a little recap. We, Planet Eclipse, have been in the paintball industry for over 25 years now (since 1991/92) and started life with a small store in Manchester (England) selling other people's paintball equipment, as well as playing with it. As time moved on we decided to use our expertise to design and manufacture custom parts to make other people's markers look cooler and eventually perform better, because like every other paintballer out there we used this stuff too. We understood the frustrations of inefficient equipment and had ideas about how we could improve this. We wanted to go out at the weekends, to the woods or the speedball field and focus on ...