Hi folks,
I hope I can get some advice on a project I have to build an aircannon that can shoot a ball out using compressed air. Thanks in advance for any tips! The ball is 70mm and made out of light sponge rubber. I plan to put it in a plastic tube with inner diameter 73mm. I plan to connect an air compressor to the 73mm tube via a long quarter inch tube. Between the quarter inch tube and the 73mm tube will be a solenoid valve. The plan is to compress the air in the quarter inch tube to around 8 bar or less, and then open the valve to shoot the ball. The ball only needs to go around a couple of meters.
I have two worries, and I don't have enough engineering skills to work them out. Firstly, will there be enough air in the quarter inch tube to shoot the ball, without the tube being really really long? Maybe I need some kind of reservoir?
My second concern is flow rate. Solenoid valves that I have seen that are affordable only seem to have a flow rate of around 700 litres per minute. It seems to me that when I open the valve, I may get too slow a flow of air to get the ball really going. But I can't be sure. Any guesses?
I have no idea how to work out an optimum length for the plastic tube. Presumably, longer means more accurate but more friction so less far?
By the way, the point of the cannon should be that the ball should travel a quite predictable repeatable path. I figured compressed air should work well for this because the same amount of air will come out every time if the compressor is set to the same setting.
Any other tips?
Thanks a lot!
Ben