A chart showing pump diameter vs. force

Guides and discussions about building water blasters and other water warfare devices such as water balloon launchers.
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AmaIro18
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A chart showing pump diameter vs. force

Post by AmaIro18 » Fri Oct 26, 2018 10:56 pm

I had some free time and was bored so I made this chart because I wanted to visualize how pump force changes with pump shaft ID. I would post a image preview but the image seems to get scaled down.

Link:

https://i.imgur.com/HrqiGRm.png

SSCBen
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Re: A chart showing pump diameter vs. force

Post by SSCBen » Mon Oct 29, 2018 11:04 pm

Nice work. Should be useful for folks designing water guns.

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SEAL
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Re: A chart showing pump diameter vs. force

Post by SEAL » Tue Oct 30, 2018 4:20 pm

That's pretty awesome. Unfortunately those numbers don't mean a whole lot all by themselves. Does any body know how much pressure is typically built up in a soaker? Not really sure how many pounds of force is considered a lot either. I'm assuming anything over 40 lbs (going by the numbers in red)? I wonder how much force is needed to pump a CPS gun?

I've always considered 3/4" to be a good size for a pump, or 1" on larger weapons. Bigger pumps could make use of some kind of mechanical assist, like the lever mechanism on the Soakzooka (wow, I'm actually referencing a Hasbro gun). However there'd also be the problem of size and weight. Even if you were strong enough to use a 3" pump, such a gun would be freaking enormous.

I didn't know they made 16" PVC. Although where I work there is a very large tube of PVC that looks about 12". I think it's used as some kind of housing for a prototype product. But anyway, I don't think it's pressure rated or anything. The only water war-related use for pipe that big that I can think of would be a reservoir for some kind of stationary turret cannon. Nobody really builds anything like that though.
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SSCBen
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Re: A chart showing pump diameter vs. force

Post by SSCBen » Tue Oct 30, 2018 6:41 pm

We have some information on pressures reported on Super Soaker boxes here:

http://www.sscentral.org/physics/man_pumps.html

Drenchenator figured out the forces for various water guns based on the reported information.

It would be simpler to use a smaller pump diameter than to use a lever. The net effect is the same as the pump volume needs to decrease in either case, but a lever would have more parts and be harder to build.

AmaIro18
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Re: A chart showing pump diameter vs. force

Post by AmaIro18 » Thu Nov 01, 2018 12:27 am

Yep, I made anything over 40 lbs red. The coloring is arbitrarily chosen, but I think that once the force gets around or over 30 lbs, it starts to become unrealistic in combat, possibly even before 30 lbs. What do you guys think?

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Re: A chart showing pump diameter vs. force

Post by marauder » Tue Nov 13, 2018 4:27 pm

Thank you for making this. This is really useful.
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