Concept: Air Wiz A10
Posted: Sun Mar 23, 2014 5:47 pm
Pumpless, pre-pressurized systems for launching liquids have been around for a long time. They are essentially giant pressurized reservoirs powered by a regulator and high pressure tank holding some sort of gas such as CO2 or high pressure air. (Thousands of PSI.) This is essentially the same concept as the SuperCAP. The problem with this traditional design however, is that you can't refill the water without venting and wasting a lot of air. Cleaner separation of the pressure source and water source are needed for versatility.
Here's my take on that problem. This design still has a problem: shot time. The maximum shot time is dictated by the regulator setting and by the size of the pressure chamber. Have a look.
Operation is a bit involved. Once hooked to your water and air source, press the trigger highlighted in blue to blast. To recharge the water chamber, open the orange valve and the air will vent to the WBL chamber. (Which can be charged directly using the green valve) To get the main pressure chamber completely empty, you'll need to vent it directly with the yellow valve. Finally, the trigger in front, highlighted purple, launches the balloon.
When venting, the push spring will automatically refill the pressure chamber. Of course, this leads to a problem of priming the internals without wasting air, where I haven't integrated a solution to the design yet. However, the problem seems easily solved by attaching a water pump along the water source line and priming the internals that way.
Overall, it's a convoluted and probably unworkable design. Realistically speaking, the traditional regulator to giant backpack reservoir solution is much easier to build. The air exhaust problem can be solved by attaching part of the backpack to a WBL, but it can only be used without wasting air when all water is gone from the backpack. By venting/wasting less air a a time, a WBL becomes more workable.
Of course, there's a whole separate discussion on whether anything that would require a regulator should ever be allowed in water wars anyway. Still, it's a fun concept to explore, except when thinking of all the money that could be burned to such a project.
Regardless, some design/concept critiques from our in-house experts would be nice to hear from. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like the air exhaust problem is possible to resolve, but it seems like most pneumatic systems have some degree of air waste anyway. (At least, if those air hisses I hear are any indication of it.)
Here's my take on that problem. This design still has a problem: shot time. The maximum shot time is dictated by the regulator setting and by the size of the pressure chamber. Have a look.
Operation is a bit involved. Once hooked to your water and air source, press the trigger highlighted in blue to blast. To recharge the water chamber, open the orange valve and the air will vent to the WBL chamber. (Which can be charged directly using the green valve) To get the main pressure chamber completely empty, you'll need to vent it directly with the yellow valve. Finally, the trigger in front, highlighted purple, launches the balloon.
When venting, the push spring will automatically refill the pressure chamber. Of course, this leads to a problem of priming the internals without wasting air, where I haven't integrated a solution to the design yet. However, the problem seems easily solved by attaching a water pump along the water source line and priming the internals that way.
Overall, it's a convoluted and probably unworkable design. Realistically speaking, the traditional regulator to giant backpack reservoir solution is much easier to build. The air exhaust problem can be solved by attaching part of the backpack to a WBL, but it can only be used without wasting air when all water is gone from the backpack. By venting/wasting less air a a time, a WBL becomes more workable.
Of course, there's a whole separate discussion on whether anything that would require a regulator should ever be allowed in water wars anyway. Still, it's a fun concept to explore, except when thinking of all the money that could be burned to such a project.
Regardless, some design/concept critiques from our in-house experts would be nice to hear from. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like the air exhaust problem is possible to resolve, but it seems like most pneumatic systems have some degree of air waste anyway. (At least, if those air hisses I hear are any indication of it.)