Quadstrike design

Build a homemade water gun or water balloon launcher and tell us about it.
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VAJMH
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Quadstrike design

Post by VAJMH » Sun Sep 06, 2009 8:57 am

I recently got back into SSs when I bought back an old XXP 175 that I had hours of fun with as a boy, til the pump shattered. One of the things that often cost me in my old water wars was the recharge time of it, and I think that gave me a new perspective on what a lot of folks consider a necessary evil. I started work on a Quadstrike design recently based upon the basic design of the old air powered supersoakers.

The thing that I'm thinking of doing differently is to have multiple, (four) unlinked pressure chambers all feeding into the pump/firing chamber. There would be one tube feeding into the pump/firing chamber connected to a four way valve. I've seen one of these for a garden hose, but that wont suit my needs, I'd want a four way valve where only one valve is opened at a time, and its easy to change valves using a toggle or gear or something. Maybe just a tracked disc with a singly hole in it?

Anywho, the deal is you select a chamber, pump to fill it, then select the next, then the next, then the next until they're all full. Then you're walking around with FOUR shots! Fire once, then move the toggle or gear to the next tank and fire again. Once the four tanks were charged you could fill the weapon back up so you'd end up having eight shots. Fill all four tanks before a mission, but if you need to recharge quickly you could charge and fire just one tank at a time.

Is there anyone out there who would be able to help me create a functional prototype of this device? I'm quite interested in actually producing such a thing and marketing it. I think that with the demise of larami and the supersoakers being turned into toys, adults and teens who are interested in having fun with waterguns are going to need new sources for impressive weaponry. Even if the toggling system and multiple smaller tanks means it can't compete on the level of the heavy assault cannons for pure force and volume of shot, it would still be capable of firing far more water in a shorter amount of time.

Sun
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Re: Quadstrike design

Post by Sun » Sun Sep 06, 2009 2:10 pm

Wait, what do you mean by a quad pressure chamber design that's all linked together? The generic APH's pressure chambers are "all linked together" too.

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Silence
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Re: Quadstrike design

Post by Silence » Sun Sep 06, 2009 3:24 pm

Welcome to the forums, VAJMH.

It sounds like you may have to construct the valve assemble yourself. All you need are 4 ball valves and a few tees, crosses, or other suitable fittings. This will be bulkier and more costly, though.

The real question in my mind is: how is your selectable-pressure-chamber system superior to four pressure chambers all linked behind a single valve (as Sun mentioned)? More volume means that the dropoff in pressure, output, and range will be slower anyway.

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JuchTurtles
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Re: Quadstrike design

Post by JuchTurtles » Sun Sep 06, 2009 4:20 pm

Double_Y_fitting.jpg
71463h.jpg
You would need a fitting like this (left). Just with another Y. But I think you'd want a fitting like this, with valves (right). I've seen a piece like I just described at my local home-depot in the garden/hose area (four "Y"s with ball valves on each). I think that's what your looking for, and especially if you want less parts to deal with.

I'm not sure exactly how this would be pressurized. Do you just attach it to a hose to fill-it up. That probably won't work, because you won't be able to build up pressure unless you have a check (one-way) valve. The water would just flow out of the PC like a non-pressurized tank. Also don't you want a pump? That would help to get maximum pressures that take forever if you use a hose (i.e 40+ psi which would get you 40+ feet in range).

I don't understand the design. And you get more shots if you're tap shooting than four, and if you're using decent sized (about a quart in capacity) Pressure Chambers, you could get about 50 shots easily. I learned that in my last homemade, which has a tiny PC that fits less than a cup of water (tiny!!). It was basically pressurized tank, because a two gallon tank can shot for a looooong time (over 2 minutes weakly).

Good luck, and hope you and us alike learn something from this.
Last edited by JuchTurtles on Sun Sep 06, 2009 10:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.
The name's Juch, just Juch.
Also known as Commander JuchJawsTurtles, commander of the C0BALT TiDE team in The Ocean Volcano Union.
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VAJMH
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Re: Quadstrike design

Post by VAJMH » Mon Sep 07, 2009 8:52 am

Thanks for the warm welcome. My thinking may have been in error, but I figured that the advantages would be that the gun's firing chamber wouldn't constantly need to deal with the pressure of four tanks, that the gun would appear to empty its tanks after firing one of them, therefore causing an element of surprise when another tank was fully prepared, and moreover that rather than charging four tanks at once, which would be time consuming, one could charge them all, empty them, and then have the option to quickly charge and recharge a single tank during the heat of battle.

The quadstrike would naturally be pump driven, I fear I forgot to mention that concept. The other odd idea I had was to recess the pump casing inside the reservoir to better streamline the gun and protect the most important parts. Here's an image.

Image

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cantab
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Re: Quadstrike design

Post by cantab » Mon Sep 07, 2009 1:06 pm

Interesting idea with the pump. However, the shapes you're drawing would need specially moulding. I don't know if you have access to that kind of thing.

I think the idea has been discussed before. The advantage is, as you say, quick repressurisation time (of a single chamber), but a longer overall shot time. The drawback is complexity. The same goal - a large pressure chamber but a few pumps from empty to full power - can be met by an elastic pressure (CPS) system, or an LPD gun (pressure chambers with a piston separating air and water, the air is compressed even with the water at minimum).
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VAJMH
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Re: Quadstrike design

Post by VAJMH » Thu Sep 10, 2009 6:46 am

the complicated nature of the design did worry me, I can see it isn't quite workable, or at least practical. Thanks guys.

Think I'll avoid any talk of modding and just stick to repairing and repainting my new Monster X. The sun does horrible things to these poor guns!

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