I'm designing some electric circuitry for the Cerberus - this will perform several purposes - it will act as a trigger mechanism, a precise timer to open and close the solenoid valve, and a safety mechanism.
The trigger mechanism is timed based on the likely psi in the tank. The valve shuts to minimise pressure loss.
With a well timed solenoid valve, it should be possible to get a high powered and a lower powered shot per pressure tank.
Because each tank can be fired twice, the circuitry needs to remember how many shots have been taken with each tank, to time it correctly. Once two shots have been fired, it lights an LED to tell me to recharge that tank.
The design might be changed to use a solenoid valve per tank, but I suspect that I can manage with the one and some reed switches so the circuitry knows which tank I have connected up (the higher pressure tank will need a shorter solenoid opening time).
If I had three valves, I wouldn't need to switch the tanks myself, but the circuit would be more complicated (and the launcher more expensive)
The two shot per tank system will allow me to fire six shots before requiring a recharge - which is pretty impressive.
I have largely designed the breech loading system. I believe that a semi-auto system would be too difficult to design and make, so it will be loaded one round at a time.
The safety mechanism is fairly simple in concept but not necessarily circuitry.
Due to various switches and logic gates, the circuit will not open the soleniod valve unless all four of the below apply:
- a "round" (a short length of PVC that fits into the breech with the water ballon in it) is loaded.
- the breech is shut.
- the round has been changed since the last shot. (It can't define between rounds, but at the very least the breech must have opened and the round removed before the circuit resets)
- the pressure tank selected hasn't run out.
What do people think so far?
It's going to be very advanced and probably costly, but it will outclass almost all other water balloon launchers.
It will see quite a lot of use, but will be a bit heavy to lug around with a main weapon as it will be closing on a metre in length (weight unknown)