SpudFiles

The valves that ya'll pointed me to in my last valve sourcing thread weren't quite what I was looking for given my specific requirements, but they were very cool regardless and I'd not seen such valves offered up before.

And so here I am with another odd request hoping that ya'll may know of some valves that I don't.

So what do I need?

Fast acting high pressure valves. EXACT requirements are still fuzzy since in this case I'm just trying to put together a proposal but....

3" (and smaller) oriface.
3000 psi rating.
Piston valve that can open and close quickly (like, air cannon type "quickly").

Application: A digital valve control system. Right now we've a 6" pintle control valve powered by a monster hydraulic system. I think it'd be cool to replace that with a handful of 3" and smaller piston valves. Thus, rather than controlling flow by putting a pintle in/out of the flow, you control flow by how many and which valves you simply open close.

Seems like such a system could be MUCH cheaper/easier to maintain. And so I'm trying to put together a low pressure, low cost demonstrator using off my shelves parts left over from previous projects. But if the demonstrator is to mean anything, I'll need to have some "real" valves in mind to scale up to the full system with. I know of none. Thus my request.

Note that valves linked to above would be PERFECT except that they don't have a prayer of holding up to 3000 psi.

Why not design one and have it machined?

roboman wrote:Why not design one and have it machined?

Because 99.99% of the time it is cheaper to buy something off the shelf than it is to design and build it yourself. I design (and have built) a lot of stuff. Heck, I've got two welders on staff full time building stuff that comes out of my head (and they can't keep up). But I only build stuff that I can't buy. It's ALWAYS cheaper to buy a production item than it is to design/build a one-off.

A fast 3 inch 3,000 PSI valve is not an off the shelf item. There is litttle commercial application to switch that much hazardous energy.

Technician1002 wrote:A fast 3 inch 3,000 PSI valve is not an off the shelf item. There is litttle commercial application to switch that much hazardous energy.

I would have guessed the same could be said of a fast 6" 200 psi valve, but you guys were kind enough to point me in the direction of one (even if it wasn't EXACTLY what I was looking for for that particular project).

I've gotten one lead via PM... We'll see where that goes.

All I've seen is 2" SS ball valves at McMaster. Some of their valves are rated as high as 6000 psi.

Every spudder needs one on those...