Mistthrower (with two "t"s) (MT)

Build a homemade water gun or water balloon launcher and tell us about it.
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Silence
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Mistthrower (with two "t"s) (MT)

Post by Silence » Wed May 17, 2006 1:45 am

Recently, Duxburian's ITWC has been causing quite a stir. However, stopping to pump your sidearm for a few minutes, and then losing all or most of that on one crazy shot that has such a wide "wave" spread that it easily "kills" at least one person seems slightly pointless, and a more efficient way to get a spread would be better. In addition, there are some technical issues that I personally have concerning water balloon launcher and ITWC tech because I'm not too familiar with it. All this led to the creation of the Mistthrower (hopefully the abbreviation MT will be approved).

The MT is inspired, mainly in layout, by the ITWC version that I suggested and support--namely, using a U to have the air compartment double back on itself, making the weapon more compact and practical than the ITWC, which has a monstrous tower sticking straight out of the water chamber (Duxburian, this probably means I'll finally stop bugging you about the shape problem). The MT is also influenced by flamethrowers, because it essentially shoots a very thin stream of gas at high velocity; in flamethrowers, this is set on fire, but in MTs, water is simply mixed in. This creates a hard-hitting mist stream that can spread and actually soak large areas, at least in theory. Because much of the stream consists of air, which doesn't break up the stream but "dilutes" it, water conservation is quite possible--more so, at least, than in an ITWC. The air basically serves as a medium for propelling the water, as in most soakers, except it is purposely mixed with the water in this case.

How, you may ask, can the air be smoothly mixed with the water? How can you get a nicely-spreading stream of mist rather than a horribly turbulent stream of pure water? The MT uses Bernoulli's principle, like the old carburetors (now replaced by fuel-injection) of internal-combustion engines did. Basically, you have a tank of water (gasoline in the carburetors) that is connected by a narrow pipeline to the barrel. Because the barrel is somewhat narrow, the velocity of the airstream increases due to bottlenecking; Bernoulli's principle states that at greater speeds, fluid lose pressure. Thus, when air flows through the barrel at a great velocity, the water will be literally "sucked" into the stream due to the equalization of pressure. This creates a nice mist, like those used by carburetors.

Hopefully, the small barrel diameter will be made up for by increased velocity, which increases the range, especially the range at which the stream of mist is held together. In addition, the output won't be decreased too much, and more water can enter the stream if the velocity is increased; thus, using a narrow barrel with high velocity is preferable to the opposite.

NOTE: I wrote the above last night but had to go, and I couldn't post it, so I'll just wrap up now. I've lost the train of thought I had last night, so a few questions probably won't get answered immediately because the article won't be as thorough...

As I've said, the MT will act like a flamethrower, unleashing its payload over a wide area; by using its air conservatively in a narrow barrel, it can provide a constant, almost never-ending stream of mist. Five seconds of this in an enclosed area can soak multiple people at least to the point of a 1HK, and it can even be effective in a soakfest if the stream isn't stopped too quickly. Finally, this was originally, and continues to be, intended to be used as an "upgrade" to the CPS 4100, once again inspired by Duxburian's IT41 (ITWC in a CPS 4100, but his original abbreviation was 41WC). It uses a U and contains much thin hose tubing instead of PVC, as most commercial soakers do, and can truly only be contained inside another gun. This also disguises the weapon and makes it much cleaner all around.

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Post by CRAZY Homemade » Wed May 17, 2006 3:16 am

We will have to see how it turns out, but from what I can understand you would need to have a separate air and water chamber (still pressurized) to work well. This is similar to my base defense's (Trinity) riot nozzle effect. Though instead of a smaller nozzle, I am using a fine mesh to break up the stream. This way it is more reliable and still could have a high output. (I will post a topic about this)
You wonder why I am called Crazy Homemade...

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Silence
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Post by Silence » Wed May 17, 2006 8:36 pm

Yes, there are two completely different air and water compartments...and they're only remotely linked. I'll draw a picture when I can, though it will be too complex (with flexible hose tubes) to be done with Scavenger's PVC Designer.

The point isn't to unload as much water as possible, which would waste--and you can't carry too much for something like the ITWC. The point is to use as little as is required.

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wetmonkey442
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Post by wetmonkey442 » Wed May 17, 2006 9:36 pm

Unfortunately, you run into a bit of compromise with this design of gun. You need high pressure to give this thing any range (made even more important by the fact that it's not shooting solid stream water), however, if you use too high a pressure, your going to run ou of water fast, even if your shooting mist, thus defeating the purpose of this gun to deliver a long shot time, high coverage blast. Also, the stream won't last 5 seconds. I'll be interested to see how you'll be able to bleed air out of the PC over 5 seconds with enough pressure to shoot mist far at all. It will be tricky finding the right ratio of pressure to the amount of water, and I personally wouldn't use something like this, but it sounds interesting, and will certainly be a new design that will expand our knowledge of homemade design as well as be a good learning experience for you (if you've never made a homemade before).

Good luck, and please update us with pics when you start building it.

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Silence
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Post by Silence » Wed May 17, 2006 10:43 pm

Naturally, there are a few bugs to be sorted out. Since much of the space can be devoted to air, which must be contained in a CPS bladder made of LRT, and since little is needed for the water, I can hope to shoot for quite a while. However, at this point it's just speculation (this has even less evidence that the technology will work than the ITWC has, as that is based on WBLs), so I will take your point(s) into consideration. Thanks for the support, though :) .

One of the possible numerous things I forgot to finish talking about in the first post is that the MT will use a special valve--possibly not a ball valve after all, especially since those probably aren't required here--but I'm not sure. Basically, the valve will be able to let out different amounts of air based on how much you depress the trigger--and if anybody knows which types of valves allow this, that might be useful information, and I'm open to suggestions. This extra control will greatly increase the functionality and flexibility of the MT, allowing for both mass soakage at high output and conservation at low output. Naturally, it will have a nozzle selector in addition to the output control to allow for the mist to be focused on single targets, especially when low output is used.

I will put up the picture soon, but I might not be able to build this thing for a while (maybe the end of summer or later :eek: ). As wetmonkey442 has pointed out, I neither have built any homemades before nor do I have a powerful arsenal. As such, the priorities lie in unique/powerful standard homemade soakers that use mostly tested technology (ie PCgHs, CPHs, maybe a WBL, etc.).

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SSCBen
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Post by SSCBen » Fri May 19, 2006 1:15 am

I'm not seeing the value of this design. Shooting mist? There are mist nozzles on some garden hose nozzles. Those nozzles are completely ineffective when it comes to power and distance. More power would likely mean greater distance, but why waste effort making an extremely powerful water gun that shoots 20 feet at most when you could use a similarly powerful design to get over 60 feet?

To me, using a smaller nozzle on a more powerful water gun and doing some "sweeps" from side-to-side would get better shot time, better distance, and would be a simpler design.

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Silence
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Post by Silence » Fri May 19, 2006 1:47 am

The idea is to use as little water as neccessary to soak over a wide area, although at the expense of air. Clearly, this is really only suitable for (close-range) soakfests, but it can have application in blocking corridors and for defense. Of course, it's just some random design I created in my spare time, so there isn't much basis for its battle practicality--a big departure from what I'm used to designing :rolleyes: .

The concept broke off from Duxburian's APWL, as the major problem with that was water consumption. However, this is probably overdoing the conservation idea, so I'm still thinking of radical changes to it; namely, to address what the APWL was originally (at least to my knowledge) supposed to address--long-range or wide-coverage waves that cause complete soakage. It just turned out that my variation called for a mist, for better or for worse.

Now, I'm thinking more along the lines of what I've been aiming for: something that propels a "wave" over long distances. The idea would be to propel water in a wide but shallow shape rather than a narrow but deep cylinder. Basically, this thin film can easily soak anything over a wide area, and that objective is really what I have been talking about. How to do it is the question; maybe a very wide PCgH barrel with a thin film of water will do the trick, though a spring might be better suited for the job. I'll be thinking along these lines from now on...

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Scavenger
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Post by Scavenger » Tue May 23, 2006 10:20 pm

How exactly does this work? I understand Bernoulli's principle, but what keeps the water from coming out of the water chamber and out the barrel? Tech has been making leaps and bounds recently. :D

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Silence
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Post by Silence » Tue May 23, 2006 10:55 pm

First of all, I've somewhat given up with this--I've just started thinking about an improved (well, not improved, just a "SilentGuy"ed :p ) version of the APWL. The pictures at SM are making that look quite impressive, and this was more of a random query anyway.

The water reservoir actually lies below the barrel, and the huge velocity within the narrow barrel makes the water move through a narrow feed tube. Because the barrel is above the reservoir and because the feed tube is so narrow, gravity should hold the water there--but unfortunately, that's all there is to stop accidental leaking.

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Silence
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Post by Silence » Thu May 25, 2006 10:28 pm

I've decided to close this thread, and if anybody ever wants to have it opened, PM me or an administrator/moderator to have it opened. I am locking it simply because of the ineffective soakage, low range, and air (if not water) consumption, so the entire MT idea will be discontinued until further notice. As I've said, I'm still thinking of a less wasteful alternative to APWLs--but the next variation of mine will be better than the APWL in at least one way :p .

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