Air Cannon Firing Mechanisms
Posted: Thu May 21, 2015 10:16 am
Most of the time when you are building an air cannon you want some way of firing it from the pull of a trigger. There are tons of ways this can be done but the problem with most of the ways I have seen it done is the fact that it restricts the air flow so much that you get pretty crummy performance and you need a much larger air tank. Most people go with using a modified sprinkler valve witch is fine accept for the fact that they are hard to get in any size larger that 3/4 in to 1 in at hardware stores and just as I mentioned your performance is servery hindered by it. So how have I gotten around this? Well I have come up with a relatively simple mechanical system for very quickly opening any sized ball valve at the pull of a trigger. It can be scaled up or down depending on your project and it requires no permanent modifications to the valve. So how does this work? It is hard to describe through text but I have many videos on it on my channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdMbJJ ... w/featured
Basically it is a very strong string (I use 10+ strands of strong fishing line) some very strong 30-50 LB springs (depending on the build multiple) a sear that keeps the valve from opening once closed and a trigger to push the sear out of the way when you pull the trigger. Again it is very hard to describe the set up so watching my video on it will be helpful if you plan to duplicate this. Smaller build for my shotgun: Larger build for my air cannon:
Both of these examples use the same basic principle and show that this design is very flexible and can be used is pretty much any build. While building something like this is not as compact and it is much harder to build it is the only realistic way of getting the maximum performance.
Basically it is a very strong string (I use 10+ strands of strong fishing line) some very strong 30-50 LB springs (depending on the build multiple) a sear that keeps the valve from opening once closed and a trigger to push the sear out of the way when you pull the trigger. Again it is very hard to describe the set up so watching my video on it will be helpful if you plan to duplicate this. Smaller build for my shotgun: Larger build for my air cannon:
Both of these examples use the same basic principle and show that this design is very flexible and can be used is pretty much any build. While building something like this is not as compact and it is much harder to build it is the only realistic way of getting the maximum performance.
