Water cannon test results

[tjflory]

Thought I'd share my findings.

All tests were at 115 psi (air) with Orbit 1" sprinkler valve. Each had about 1 foot of tubing after valve, an elbow, and 1 foot vertical tubing.

I filled the tube about 1/2 with water and hit the switch...

1/2 inch tubing made a nice column, with a bit of spray at end. about 30 feet high.

3/4 inch tubing had less column and more spray. about 25 feet high.

1" tubing had no column but an awesome blast of spray about 20 feet high.

Pretty good bang for the buck!

Valves are 12 bucks at home depot. 15 bucks for a transformer that can run 2 valves. 5 bucks for the relay from automation direct. (This place has cool stuff... cheap!)

I will be catching the water from my fountains and letting it run into the cannons... Recycling! You could also put a valve on a LOR channel to run for a few seconds to fill.

Did I miss anything?

Enjoy!

[Richard Hamilton]

Hmmm, sounds unique. I'm sure we will all be looking forward to action videos some day.

[hdracer]

Thanks for sharing. Been looking into(reading) how I could use my existing sprinkler system to do something like this.. I just never use the automated system & would like to use the pieces I have. hmm may be tearing the solenoids off the system & doing some tricks.. Keep us updated with a video if possible.
Once again thanks for sharing your work!

[bretk]

Can we all say VIDEO please:cool:

[tjflory]

Uhhh... Newbie?

This is all just scattered thoughts at this time. It will take me a while to get it all built. I'm planning (and sequencing) 3 fountain channels with an additional pressure control channel. The catch water will then feed into the 2 cannons. Oh, and Ive got lighting for all these as well.
I'm sequencing MJ's Earth song as we speak.

Promise to get vid asap.

TJ

[tjflory]

Just in case... don't plug your transformer into your LOR. It'd be a waste of a channel anyway.

TJ

[plasmadrive]

I was thinking that you may want to consider copper pipe instead of PVC with that pressure, but I just looked up the PVC's burst rating and I was impressed.

Nominal Pipe Size
(inches) Required Minimum Burst Pressure
(psi) Maximum Operating Pressure
(psi) Schedule 40¹⁾ Schedule 80²⁾ Schedule 40 Schedule 80 1/2 1910 2720 358 509
Can't wait to see the video.

[plasmadrive]

Well that looked better in the box while typing it..
Here is the link...
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/pvc-cpvc-pipes-pressures-d_796.html

[tjflory]

Yup... schedule 40 is impressive stuff. the working pressure is written right on it.
Pay attention though... there is foam core stuff in the larger sizes that is non-pressure use only.

[Ken Benedict]

I designed and built three confetti cannons for a Nutcracker themed display and used air solenoids with a SCH40 PVC tank at 125psi. Ran the 120vac solenoids from a regular PC controller quite successfully.

Blew the confetti during the Mouse King fight scene and really excited the kids standing on the sidewalk.

Had to reload between shows tho.


Looking back, I could have attached an air hose to the tank and run it from a compressor in the back yard so when the valve closed, it would recharge automatically. If I added a small water valve, I could reload a water blast automatically every few minutes and blast it straight up.

Didn't do it tho.

This year will probably be a triggered CO2 from a deep siphon CO2 tank and a cryogenic valve (from alow-rider store on Ebay). Manual tests look like a fire extinguisher plume. Going under a wireframe locomotive (based on the Tom Hanks movie).

Mental squirrels running overtime, I guess.