Hydro Cannons!

[Neptune]

So someone threw out two Hydro Cannons today, one's trigger is a little sticky but works great otherwise, the other has a messed up firing valve. It leaks when pumped and if you hold over the nozzle and let go it will spray at a downward angle. Here goes nothing on the repairs! (Provided the screws don't strip out on me)

[marauder]

I was really surprised at how slow the HC's ball valve is. The giant ball valve is what attracted me to it to begin with, but for some reason it's just doesn't work like you'd want it to. So I'm not surprised at all at those problems. Good luck repairing it. The HC has a ton of potential, it just takes a lot of work.

[HBWW]

Really? I'd imagine the HC's ball valve operates decently like the Flash Flood's when maintained properly, but it sounds like that isn't the case.

[Neptune]

One works but I'm not really a fan if this is operating properly... The stream comes out in one burst, it's like a max D valve, but the stream is too wide. I'd like to thin the stream some way, also I have to drill out the others screws... As Nerf likes to do it's overly full of screws though, so it will take awhile.

[HBWW]

A piece of 1/2" CPVC fits perfectly into the Flash Flood nozzle (once the screen is removed) and even seals. Perhaps you could do the same to get a nozzle on the HydroCannon, although there may be alternative (and potentially better) methods to doing this.

[SEAL]

I would use marauder's method. It seemed to work pretty well for the Arctic Blast.

[marauder]

The nozzle aperture is the same for the Hydrocannon, Flash Flood, and Arctic Blast. So, that will work pretty well if you want to be able to switch out nozzles.

[HBWW]

^ Good info to have. Thanks for verifying.

The CPVC method results in inferior lamination, but saves you money from parts.

[Neptune]

Could I put CPVC and then some mesh on it or would that hurt lamination?

[HBWW]

Not sure how you'd get the mesh/screen in, but if you can manage, it should help improve lamination so long as the nozzle orifice itself is smaller than the ID of the tube holding the mesh. I haven't worked with homemade laminators before though, so I'm not of that much help with them.

[soakinader]

Whoa, so someone threw out two hydro cannons?? Did you pull them out of a garbage can, or were they just lying on the road? Lucky you!
I know a house down the street with a hydro cannon sitting in a recycling bin in their front yard. It's been there forever. As far as I can tell, it hasn't moved since.. february.
I want some HC's to mess around with...

[ArColone]

Hydro cannons are a piece of crap. I had two and both broke. Put them things back where they belong... In the garbage. I can't understand how everyone sweats a blaster that you have to pump 30 times before you can get one shot off. The range is not even that good. I know everyone whats CPS technology in blasters but just because it has a rubber bladder doesn't mean it's good. Wake up people.

[martianshark]

It is the best Hasbro has released in several years though. And no Max-D valve; that's what I really liked about it. But mine just broke as well.

[SEAL]

Hydro cannons are a piece of crap. I had two and both broke. Put them things back where they belong... In the garbage. I can't understand how everyone sweats a blaster that you have to pump 30 times before you can get one shot off. The range is not even that good. I know everyone whats CPS technology in blasters but just because it has a rubber bladder doesn't mean it's good. Wake up people.

Well the point is that you can mod them to give them longer shot time, and they have the potential to shoot 45 or even 50 feet. According to isoaker, the bladder is stronger than everything except 2000/2500 bladders. I would never, ever use a stock HC, but if modded, it could be a deadly 'sniper' weapon like the 2000 and 2500. The only drawback is that apparently they're hard to mod.

[HBWW]

Modding a HC to be a proper blaster is way too much work than its worth. At that point, I'd rather just build than deal with flimsy parts and having to slice up large plastic parts and connect them with copious amounts of epoxy/putty. It may be the only Nerf Super Soaker that isn't 100% garbage, but it isn't great either.

That said, with something as simple as a nozzle mod and proper reinforcement of whatever part breaks so easily, the HC should be pretty competent against many WW's. Thing is, that requires that you actually do work on it.

[marauder]

Nozzle mods help, but they can only do so much. I was very excited when I got my Arctic Blast to shoot 42 feet by just adding a new nozzle. I thought that I had made a competitive primary. Unfortunately other design aspects still dragged down the gun's performance.

The top mounted pull tab style trigger made it very difficult to do tap shots. A one second shot was about as quick as I could pull it in the beginning. This gave me an output of about 6.5 oz. The stock PC only held 9.5 oz, so after a quick shot I was left with just one more (half second) shot. This left me with poor (unpractical) options in combat. I could fire 2 shots and then pump the PC back to full. I could fire one shot and pump 10 times back to full, using the last 3 oz as a last resort shot in the event that I'm charged by 2 people. Or I could fire 2 shots and pump a few times to get off a short tap shot length shot and be left with 0 oz in the PC every time.

How much you have to pump a gun to get it back to full power after just one shot matters. I only used my AB in a soakfest and I got hosed. I have 3 other practical examples of how important this is:

When Dux and I dueled 150 vs Colossus the 150 destroyed the Colossus despite it's ~3-4 ft range handicap. For every shot you took with the Colossus it took 3 to bring it back to full pressure. For the 150 it only took 1.

The same thing happened when Scott used a Colossus 2 against SEAL, who was using an original Colossus. Scott was having to pump his gun more often to keep his range about equal. This meant more down time for his gun, which meant SEAL was able to take more shots, which meant SEAL was able to hit Scott more. When Scott brought the fight close it was actually in SEAL's advantage. SEAL fired streams. Scott countered with streams. Scott's C2 lost pressure and got soaked.

Lastly, 2 years ago I took on an Ultimate Explorer with my 600. My gun shot ~3ft less and half as much water than the Explorer's largest nozzle. My 600 had a small, .3 oz pump capacity advantage, but a major 18 oz (23 to 5) PC capacity advantage and CPS tech. Louis was only able to get off 1 tap shot before having to pump 2-3 times to get back to max power. I was able to fire what seemed like an infinite number of tap shots. In the 2 seconds it took him to recharge I was able to close the distance and hose him.

Range and output are very important, but they are not the be all end all. There is some type of golden ratio that balances range, output, and recharge time (to 100% power). I would like to explore this further by looking at different stock, modded, and homemade blasters. This would be a great subject for an article.

As far as the Hydrocannon is concerned, it has a horribly low pump volume just like the Arctic Blast. When I added a backpack to my AB it made the pump situation even worse. I got about .4 oz/pump instead of .65. This was primarily due to the way the pump connected to the reservoir cap. A good idea in theory, but not so practical. The intake tube method I used with my Hydrocannon mod did not have that problem.

[the oncoming storm]

Also fast Triggers also help to reduce down time for pumping, I can actually tap shoot my 300 faster than my Gorgon, or my Shotgun modded Stone Cold. The Gorgon, and Stone Cold can get 4-5 tap shots per second of shot time, vs 6 to 8 tap shots on my 300

[marauder]

Oh yeah, I forgot about the Stone Cold. Haha. That is a fun gun! Gets you drenched.