Cool Looking Homemade CPS

[Leprechaun71588]

Wow...I haven't been here in awhile. Has SSCentral always been .org? For the longest time, I was typing in .net and getting nothing. I figured the site had shut down. Then when I was looking on ISoaker, I found a thread with a link to here...man I feel stupid...

Anyways, I think I found the perfect gun for me...

It is lightweight, affordable and easy to build, looks very good for a homemade, and requires no pumping at all. Basically, you just put the bottom of the handle up to the hose nozzle (the one we have fits right into the 1/2" PVC), and it fills up the balloon. You turn the ball valve to fire. Right now I've got about 25-27 7" balloons on there and I'm getting about 17 feet of range with my smallest nozzle, not too great yet. I just used a 2-liter bottle for the CPS casing, I cut it and half and stuck it back together so I could get all the stuff in there easier, so it only holds about 1.5 liters now.

I was just wondering...how many more balloons should I add, and how good of range do you think it is capable of? I think if I add more balloons, I'm going to need to glue all the pieces together, something I don't normally care to do. Every once in awhile, the back will blow off and spray water everywhere now, so I know more balloons will definitely do that all the time.

Before you say anything, I'd like to make it clear that I don't plan on going out and spending more than $10 extra on the gun. If I could get 30+ feet with it, I would be happy. I'm not terribly worried about getting godly range, but I think 17 feet is looking a little sad.

[Leprechaun71588]

Hmmmm....SSCentral is a lot slower than I remember it to be...

Anyways, I came across a problem as I was adding balloons. I added 3 and I could tell there was an increase in power and range. However, after I added 10, the range never increased when I added more. I think the problem was that there is too much stream breakup, so I probably just need to find the right nozzle size.

My real problem is that after I added the whole bag of 30, the gun stopped working. I can fill it up and get about a half-second shot off, but then the rest of the water just drains out alowly.

I'm going to try taking off about 10-12 balloons and get it back to where it was shooting around 25 feet, but any other suggestions are always welcome.
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Edit: I had to take off all the balloons before I could find the problem. The 5 balloons that were on the very bottom had popped, so the water was getting out very slowly. A lot of the balloons tore when I was taking them off, so there's only between 25-30 on there now and it's getting about the same distance as it was before.

[Ben]

Super Soaker Central has gone through a domain change due to problems with the old one. Please tell anyone and everyone who doesn't know - I thought I fixed that problem by sending out emails to every member, but apparently no one read it. I'm working on getting us back in search engines and ranking better than before, part of why I say Super Soaker Central instead of SSCentral (and I would suggest you do to).

Here's your problem with the power: not enough balloons combined with a low-pressure filling method.

Do you just push that PVC against the hose nozzle? If you do, you're not making a good seal and the filling is low-pressure at best.

I would suggest getting some hose attachments that have a threaded 3/4" side and attaching that to your water gun. I also would suggest latex rubber tubing over balloons because you've already experienced what you definitely will see more of in a more powerful version of that water gun - breaking of the balloons.

[Drenchenator]

What did you originally use for the CPS chamber? I know Doom's Constant Pressure Homemade can easily get 60 feet or so, but he used latex rubber tubing from McMaster-Carr and then Collosused it.

[Leprechaun71588]

Alright! Some help! A few questions though...

Ben: How would that make it more pressurized? I mean...The same amount of water is still going in, right? The balloons are still stretching out the same amount, right? Also...if I added rubber tubing over the balloons, couldn't the ones on the inside still break?

Drenchenator: Ummm...I just used a 2-liter bottle to cover the balloons. I didn't think it was supposed to do anything other than hold the balloons in place. Yeah, I imagine that would work a lot better, but I personally think that is one ugly gun (no offense Doom). I wanted a small, compact gun that required no pumping.

Would I be able to get that tubing at a local ACE, Home Depot, or Lowe's? Also, if someone could give me a pic of what it looks like, that would help too. (That and an idea of price and where to find it in the store).

The cool thing about this gun, is that it requires no pumping. The only problem is that it doesn't hold a whole lot of water and requires filling fairly frequently. I need to buy more balloons since most of them screwed up when I took them off, so I'm thinking of going with 9 or 12" balloons. Any ideas of what I could use as a bigger chamber?

[Ben]

You can't find latex rubber tubing at a store usually. What you will find wouldn't be anywhere near as powerful. There are plenty of articles on this website detailing where you can buy it, but in short go to McMaster and get the highest PSI tube offered.

The same amount of water is still going in, right? The balloons are still stretching out the same amount, right?

No and no. Simply go and buy the hose attachments to make a good seal and you'll generate more pressure, and therefore the balloons with stretch more.

Any ideas of what I could use as a bigger chamber?

Latex rubber tubing again. This homemade water gun holds about 3 liters of water un a single short foot long tube (that expands longer). I even used hose attachments like I did before.

[Drenchenator]

Drenchenator: Ummm...I just used a 2-liter bottle to cover the balloons. I didn't think it was supposed to do anything other than hold the balloons in place. Yeah, I imagine that would work a lot better, but I personally think that is one ugly gun (no offense Doom). I wanted a small, compact gun that required no pumping.

I was talking about the actual chamber that the water goes into, the pressure chamber. Also, I would rather have a super powerful gun (such as Doom's Constant Pressure one), than a good looking one. If you had seen Doom's weaponry in action you would understand.

[Leprechaun71588]

No and no. Simply go and buy the hose attachments to make a good seal and you'll generate more pressure, and therefore the balloons with stretch more.

How does that give more pressure? It doesn't make any sense at all. The balloons would still be inflating the same size, but your way would just be a little bit quicker since there would be no water leakage when I'm filling it.

I was talking about the actual chamber that the water goes into, the pressure chamber.

I just used a bunch of 7" balloons wrapped around each other.

I would rather have a super powerful gun (such as Doom's Constant Pressure one), than a good looking one.

Well I guess I see things a little differently. His looks heavy and hard to use...what with the pumping and so on...I would much rather have a small, compact, easy to use gun.

[Ben]

Hard to use? You wouldn't be saying that if you saw it in action. It's pressure chamber most definitely this larger than your small one and it's more powerful. Also, it can and has been filled with hose attachments before, so no pumping is needed unless you would like to. :P

As far as I am concerned QFD guns are worthless unless they have a shot time over a half minute. With shot time that is too short, you will have to run back to the hose to refill. With shot time that is long, you will have a major advantage. Please read my article on SoakerMedia for more information on these beliefs.

How does that give more pressure? It doesn't make any sense at all. The balloons would still be inflating the same size, but your way would just be a little bit quicker since there would be no water leakage when I'm filling it.

Look, it has to have a good seal. Water can't just be poured into the balloons with the expectation that they will expand. With leaks, hose pressure is lost, and that pressure is the power needed to fill thicker (harder) chambers.

That's not a hard concept to understand. People always say that a QFD water gun is only as powerful as the water source used. I can guarantee that you will see improvements if you use better sealing parts. B)

[NiborDude]

Very interesting design. It falls under the SC and Splashzooka class soakers. I agree with doom/Ben. If you want as much pressure in the gun, you're going to need a good seel.

[Leprechaun71588]

Alright, I might not be thinking of the same gun as you guys are talking about.

I still don't understand it. We have a hose attachment that fits right into the 1/2" PVC perfectly, so I've got a pretty decent seal when filling it up, maybe I'll try taking a picture or something for you. The only problem is when you don't hold it up to the hoze nozzle tightly enough, some water sprays out since the seal is not as strong. Maybe what I really need to do is glue the entire gun together really well, it does leak just enough to be annoying after I've filled it up. I just hate gluing my guns together because I usually want to take them apart a few weeks later to try something else.

I'm not sure of the exact shot time, I'll have to check that today. All I know is that when it's completely full, it shots much longer than any of the other guns I've had.

[Ben]

The only problem is when you don't hold it up to the hoze nozzle tightly enough, some water sprays out since the seal is not as strong. Maybe what I really need to do is glue the entire gun together really well, it does leak just enough to be annoying after I've filled it up.

Those two would be your problems. The hose attachment I'm really talking about is the other side of the one you're probably using - the one that screws onto 3/4" threaded pipe. If you put that on, it will act like a check valve itself, and make filling faster and easier because all you have to do it put it in and pull it out when you're full.

I'd also definitely glue that water gun together. That would be another place to lose water and pressure when filling.

Then again, in my long-shot time homemade I didn't glue it together... but that was mostly because there wasn't any PVC to speak of (everything was threaded or clamped on).

[Leprechaun71588]

I timed it this morning to find my shot time, and got a little over 40 seconds. This is with my smallest nozzle I have made, but it is still a little bigger than other gun's I've had so maybe I'll try drilling a smaller one tonight.

The range is another thing I need to remeasure. After I added more balloons, it was shooting much better.

I also realized a mistake I made. I have been saying I used 7" balloons, but they were actually 9". If I have to take it apart again and buy more balloons, then I think I'll try 12". The only problem is that it gets more expensive as the balloons size increases.

I think I might end up installing my big backpack (about 4 liters) onto this gun eventually. The only problem with that is that I'll have to put a pump on, something I normally hate since I can't seem to build good ones.

[Leprechaun71588]

Wow...I took the backpack from my brother's old Super Charger Power Pack gun (it was having some problem with the gun leaking and we are missing the hose attachment to fill it.) and I attached it to the back of the gun where the balloons originally were.

I drilled a nozzle with the smallest drill bit we had, and it is getting as god of range if not a little better than the nozzle I've been using. The great thing about it is, with these new changes, I have a shot time over 2 minutes. Is that not godly? Of course...when I go back to the old nozzle, the shot time is about cut in half, but that is still a lot more than the balloons.

So yeah....it's much better...

[emperor_james]

Well, when you add the Power Pack backpack, then all it is is a nozzle for the backpack CPS chamber. It can't have great output on a nozzle with two minutes, either. Really I think is more of a mod if you just add a nozzle attachment to the backpack that already has a CPS chamber, not a homemade, though of course if it fixed the old gun then thats good.