Super Soaker Central

i have just created my first water balloon launcher it fires anything smaller than the barrel a long way, cant be more acurate projectiles leave visual range.
anyway while making it i found a great pipe site http://www.pipestock.com it sells pipe and some good valves pipe manages up too 16 bar or 232 pounds a square inch. postage + packaging is extortionate but you get the pipe in 1 day. Not sure if they sell in America but for English members is a good site.

pictures too come soon

Good to see another UK member.

It's a UK site - no American shipping, and they probably wouldn't want it (except for that 5" pipe that they do.)

I won't enter "Bad mod" (Good mod, Bad mod) mode, but I do need to give you a note about your grammar and spelling.

[Actually, your spelling is quite good. Your grammar could be improved by the virtue of capitalisation and a handful of punctuation]

I haven't yet managed to get round to building a water balloon launcher, despite constant building/repair of other launchers.

I suppose the pictures will answer these questions, but it would be nice to know:

What bore is it?
What type of valve did you use?
How long is it?

Welcome to the forums! I, too, look forward to seeing the pictures. Are you able to measure the speed of this thing? How much pressure do you create inside? A lot of questions must be answered...but I'm interested. Congratulations!

I put 100 pounds a square inch of pressure in the chamber, but i can put 232 in this particular piping. as for length is over 2m at the moment but i plan to downsize the chamber so it will be about 1m to 1m 50cm long. The width of the inside of the tube is 47mm just under 2 inches. I am planing to make a bigger one. I sadly have no equipment to measure speed.
i am having some bother with the pictures.

A couple of tips:

Use "psi" instead of "pounds per square inch" - it's shorter, neatens up the post, and everyone around here will understand.

2 metres is very long. A launcher of around 1m is a sensible length.

An overly large chamber is inefficent - you spend more time pumping/filling for very little gain.

Muzzle velocity isn't important really on these forums. Other launching forums will want to know how much damage you can do (so a larger number is better), but for a wbl, then you don't want life threatening speeds.

I wouldn't take that 16 bar pipe up to it's limits. You'll do fine with 100 psi, and it will be fairly safe.

A bigger launcher would be of little use for a water war, unless you intend on having 2 or 3 people to operate it.

I'm going to ask again: What type of valve did you use - was it a ball valve or something else?

Interesting proportions...it sounds like this would be great at long range, both for its range and potential accuracy! Also, it would be fairly hard to move it around the battlefield...

Is it an over-under design, where the pressure chamber and the barrel are parallel, or is it just one long length? Over-under would definitely be shorter.

Thanks for getting the basic conversions, such as from mm to inches. It's a bit weird, though, seeing all the different types of measurements. Hope all goes well with the design! Are there any other water war enthusiasts in your country, or do not very many people know about it?

You are right when you say it is too big but i am going to make it smaller. I use a 50mm ball valve. As the launcher is one straight length with a valve it looks quite a lot like a rocket launcher. It does a good riot blast if the barrel is filled with water.

I ripped apart a METAL launcher by loading the barrel with water. Don't mess around with water in barrels.

You might want to spring load that BV.

Link in a sec.

http://forums.sscentral.org/31929-post92.html

That post contains links to pictures of a sprung loaded ball valve, which can increase performance by a huge amount.

i don't have to worry about the launcher ripping apart because the barrel isnt glued in its just put in on a tight fit, so if i put to much stuff in the barrell it doesn't break the pipe, it just pushes the barrel out. I take the barrel out to reloadd anyway because its faster. Thanks for the advice anyway.

Thankyou very much for the ball valve spring idea.

Merged by Jo

You could also try greasing the ball valve and adding a long torque arm to increase the ease with which it opens. The spring-loaded valve is a good idea, but you might want to create a new torque arm as the Drenchenator did in his CPH, or the valve can't really open all the way--the vector in which the spring moves will be perpendicular to that of the original torque arm.

Please don't double-post unless you're giving an update after something like a day. Thanks. You can always use the edit feature for quick additions.

It takes about 150ms to 250 ms to open a typical metal BV. Someone on a spudding forum worked out that the projectile had hit the target before the valve was fully open.

I don't know about a 50mm PVC one, but the opening time is envitably more than the time the balloon spends in the barrel.

Even if a spring doesn't open the BV to 100%, then it will still be much more open than if it was hand opened.

My BV spring opening mechanism opens the ball valve some 5 to 10 times faster than hand opening, and even brings the valve into the power region of a sprinkler valve.

You really need a strong spring, and it helps if it's "preloaded" (i.e. it's still pulling firmly on the torque arm, even when the valve is fully open)

joannaardway wrote:You really need a strong spring, and it helps if it's "preloaded" (i.e. it's still pulling firmly on the torque arm, even when the valve is fully open)

Well, that's what I'm saying, unless I'm wrong. On your grape shooter, it looks like the spring would still be pulling, but in the wrong direction. Perhaps mounting the spring at a 45 degree angle would help.

What would be cool would be to rig a constant force spring or some other type of spring that twists such that it is in the correct position for this job. That would really be nice.

The grape launcher's valve opens almost 100% when opened by the spring, which is more than enough for the circumstances. Mounting the spring at 45 degrees would make it rather less convient.

The spring on the launcher is preloaded.

Experience with primitive piston valve designs has shown me something - Valve opening time is critical.

Spring loading a ball valve is one of the best things you can do to enhance a launcher's power.