Crazy trigger valve idea

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Zman
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Crazy trigger valve idea

Post by Zman » Fri May 20, 2022 9:51 pm

I was thinking that if you had a ball valve by save a lever it’s a gear and you just have when you pull the trigger back it’s turning to gear kind of like this
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would have to figure out somebody to reset it but it could work and you could either do it with something like 3-D printing with a good material Trish idea any thoughts

Edit : This is what the gear system should look like
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Re: Crazy trigger valve idea

Post by SSCBen » Fri May 20, 2022 10:46 pm

Welcome to WWN!

This sort of setup is not crazy at all. It's called a "rack and pinion": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rack_and_pinion

You can buy them on McMaster-Carr: https://www.mcmaster.com/gear-racks/

I don't think it has been used for water guns, but it should work. The trigger pull might be too long if the ball valve is too large, and you definitely want an easy-to-open ball valve for this sort of design.

Returning the valve shouldn't be that hard with a spring.

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Re: Crazy trigger valve idea

Post by Drenchenator » Sat May 21, 2022 10:00 am

This is a pretty interesting idea. As Ben said, though, the issue becomes the tradeoff between how long of a trigger pull you want versus how much trigger weight you want. My experience is that some ball values are quite difficult to open (they require a lot of torque), so you would want a larger gear for more mechanical advantage. That however, would result in a long trigger pull. I used lever arms for the trigger in my designs to avoid this issue, since the trigger only then has to rotate and not move linearly. That said, this is a pretty cool idea that I would love to see implemented in practice.
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Re: Crazy trigger valve idea

Post by Zman » Sat May 21, 2022 8:35 pm

SSCBen wrote:
Fri May 20, 2022 10:46 pm
Welcome to WWN!

This sort of setup is not crazy at all. It's called a "rack and pinion": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rack_and_pinion

You can buy them on McMaster-Carr: https://www.mcmaster.com/gear-racks/

I don't think it has been used for water guns, but it should work. The trigger pull might be too long if the ball valve is too large, and you definitely want an easy-to-open ball valve for this sort of design.

Returning the valve shouldn't be that hard with a spring.
I already knew that it was a thing I’ve meant using it in that way. sorry for the confusing.
Drenchenator wrote:
Sat May 21, 2022 10:00 am

This is a pretty interesting idea. As Ben said, though, the issue becomes the tradeoff between how long of a trigger pull you want versus how much trigger weight you want. My experience is that some ball values are quite difficult to open (they require a lot of torque), so you would want a larger gear for more mechanical advantage. That however, would result in a long trigger pull. I used lever arms for the trigger in my designs to avoid this issue, since the trigger only then has to rotate and not move linearly. That said, this is a pretty cool idea that I would love to see implemented in practice.
I would like to see a photo of what you did sounds interesting. part of the reason that I thought is this what I want to turn a pump action pistol to a pressurized reserved gun.
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Re: Crazy trigger valve idea

Post by Drenchenator » Sun May 22, 2022 9:48 am

Zman wrote:
Sat May 21, 2022 8:35 pm
I would like to see a photo of what you did sounds interesting. part of the reason that I thought is this what I want to turn a pump action pistol to a pressurized reserved gun.
I was talking about my Riptide homemade water gun in particular. The thread has several photos of the trigger mechanism. The clearest photo of the entire trigger system is below:

Image

The trigger itself is a lever arm and the ball valve is opened with a level arm too. Despite how clunky and haphazard this looks, this is the most robust and reliable trigger design I have ever created. That said, I basically made this gun rather quickly and out of (mostly) spare parts, and there are a lot of things that I would do to improve it if I were to build a second one based on this design. But the trigger system is rock solid and in my opinion the best part of the gun.

I'd say that a rack and pinion design could also be robust and reliable, but it might take more work to get it to that state. Another issue would be that a rack and pinion design would need a very good case too, and in general few people have made good cases. I am struggling to thinking of any examples. I would classify one of my own designs, Cloudburst, as a bad case in retrospect. It is heavy, awkward to hold, overbuilt, and overdesigned. That said, a case like this could support a rack and pinion trigger system with modification. I attempted a linear trigger in this one but it has reliability issues. It gets stuck easily. The Riptide trigger system is much more reliable.
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Re: Crazy trigger valve idea

Post by Zman » Sun May 22, 2022 8:32 pm

It will have to work with the trigger on this gun
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I’m trying to convert it to a pressurize reserve I really love the design of it so I have the case I think this piston and rack trigger mythic would be really good for people to turn pump action water guns in to pressurize reserve once

Edit : this is what I came up with
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any thoughts
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Re: Crazy trigger valve idea

Post by SSCBen » Mon May 23, 2022 11:05 am

Converting pump action water guns to separate pressure chamber is possible, but you probably won't be happy with the result. I actually did such an upgrade with a Super Soaker Vaporizer over a decade ago. It didn't use a real trigger, though, just a ball valve. I used the piston as a pump, which didn't work that well because it was too wide for a separate pressure chamber blaster, which made pumping hard. I could have completely replaced the piston chamber with a better sized pump, but it would be difficult to get the pump to fit well with the existing design. The case also did not have enough space for the pressure chamber, so the pressure chamber was external to the blaster. I don't see space for a pressure chamber on the XShot. Similarly, if the XShot doesn't have the internal space for a functioning trigger, it's going to be really difficult to modify it to have a functioning trigger.

It would be easier to build a completely homemade water gun with the design you want than to convert an existing blaster that is too far away from what you want. As I wrote in the SSC FAQ over a decade ago, "you can't upgrade a tricycle to perform like a monster truck".

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Re: Crazy trigger valve idea

Post by Zman » Mon May 23, 2022 11:17 am

SSCBen wrote:
Mon May 23, 2022 11:05 am
Converting pump action water guns to separate pressure chamber is possible, but you probably won't be happy with the result. I actually did such an upgrade with a Super Soaker Vaporizer over a decade ago. It didn't use a real trigger, though, just a ball valve. I used the piston as a pump, which didn't work that well because it was too wide for a separate pressure chamber blaster, which made pumping hard. I could have completely replaced the piston chamber with a better sized pump, but it would be difficult to get the pump to fit well with the existing design. The case also did not have enough space for the pressure chamber, so the pressure chamber was external to the blaster. I don't see space for a pressure chamber on the XShot. Similarly, if the XShot doesn't have the internal space for a functioning trigger, it's going to be really difficult to modify it to have a functioning trigger.

It would be easier to build a completely homemade water gun with the design you want than to convert an existing blaster that is too far away from what you want. As I wrote in the SSC FAQ over a decade ago, "you can't upgrade a tricycle to perform like a monster truck".
I’m thinking of doing a pressurize reserve one not a separate Chamber also there’s a lot of free space in the gun and I should be able to get a internals pictures soon

Edit:
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Re: Crazy trigger valve idea

Post by SSCBen » Mon May 23, 2022 12:49 pm

A pressurized reservoir would be dangerous here. The existing reservoir is not designed to hold pressure and could explode if pressurized. Do not pressurize the reservoir.

The internals are more spacious than I anticipated, and the pump does not seem particularly wide, so this may be a better candidate for a separate pressure chamber. You might find extending the pressure chamber out the top of the blaster to be good to get more water volume. Getting a working trigger looks like it's going to be difficult, however.

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Re: Crazy trigger valve idea

Post by Zman » Mon May 23, 2022 1:43 pm

SSCBen wrote:
Mon May 23, 2022 12:49 pm
A pressurized reservoir would be dangerous here. The existing reservoir is not designed to hold pressure and could explode if pressurized. Do not pressurize the reservoir.

The internals are more spacious than I anticipated, and the pump does not seem particularly wide, so this may be a better candidate for a separate pressure chamber. You might find extending the pressure chamber out the top of the blaster to be good to get more water volume. Getting a working trigger looks like it's going to be difficult, however.
Do you think you could help me get a working trigger design and a separate pressure chamber it would be nice if we could make it good looking
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Re: Crazy trigger valve idea

Post by SSCBen » Mon May 23, 2022 3:44 pm

If you're dedicated to converting this blaster to have a trigger and separate pressure chamber, I can provide advice. However, my main advice is that modifying this blaster in that way is not worth the effort, as I said earlier. It's going to be a lot of effort, so much that I think building a proper homemade blaster or buying a working used blaster would be a much better use of your time.

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Re: Crazy trigger valve idea

Post by Zman » Mon May 23, 2022 4:49 pm

SSCBen wrote:
Mon May 23, 2022 3:44 pm
If you're dedicated to converting this blaster to have a trigger and separate pressure chamber, I can provide advice. However, my main advice is that modifying this blaster in that way is not worth the effort, as I said earlier. It's going to be a lot of effort, so much that I think building a proper homemade blaster or buying a working used blaster would be a much better use of your time.
Yeah I think I’m dedicated to do it I think there is a chance that I could figure out a way to make this easy so people who don’t really know how to do things that you have to do to make homemade ones can do this first it’s gonna take a lot of effort but maybe we can figure out a way to make it easy the truth is this would also make it a lot cheaper because you’ll have your pump nozzle most of your tubing and Reservoir already plus it’s going to be easy to hold things to the fact that you’re going to have a case it’ll look a lot nicer than most homemade
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Re: Crazy trigger valve idea

Post by SSCBen » Mon May 23, 2022 5:08 pm

If you're intent on using the same nozzle, then you should consider a smaller non-ball type valve. Ball valves are good for their high flow rate and low turbulence, but you're going to have a difficult time getting a ball valve to work given the limited space. And using a smaller valve would probably be okay given how small the existing tubing leading to the nozzle is. The small size is probably the bottleneck in performance here.

One of these valves would probably work: https://www.mcmaster.com/valves/for-use ... ff-valves/

A system of pulleys attached to a trigger might be the easiest way to link the valve to a trigger.

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Re: Crazy trigger valve idea

Post by Drenchenator » Tue May 24, 2022 9:39 am

I'm with Ben here. I do not think that this gun is worth modifying. That said, if you want to modify it, I suggest starting out slow. A trigger system is an advanced modification here and well beyond most people's abilities to construct for this kind of gun. I certainly do not know how I would integrate a trigger system into this gun. There does not appear to be enough space in the right places. For example, I do not see how it would be possible to get any sort of mechanical element (rod, wire, or gear rack) past the pump valves, since these seem to take up the entire internal cross section of the gun at that point. That likely would make it impossible to modify this gun to have any sort of trigger system in the first place. This is one of the reasons why people build homemade water guns: modifications often do not work.

I suggest starting out with adding an additional pressurized reservoir with a simple firing valve without a trigger system, like using a ball valve or what Ben recommended. You probably would have to get rid of the nozzle assembly to make this work, though. This should be relatively easy to complete successfully. Incremental modifications area great way to start in this hobby.
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Re: Crazy trigger valve idea

Post by Zman » Tue May 24, 2022 10:12 am

Drenchenator wrote:
Tue May 24, 2022 9:39 am
I'm with Ben here. I do not think that this gun is worth modifying. That said, if you want to modify it, I suggest starting out slow. A trigger system is an advanced modification here and well beyond most people's abilities to construct for this kind of gun. I certainly do not know how I would integrate a trigger system into this gun. There does not appear to be enough space in the right places. For example, I do not see how it would be possible to get any sort of mechanical element (rod, wire, or gear rack) past the pump valves, since these seem to take up the entire internal cross section of the gun at that point. That likely would make it impossible to modify this gun to have any sort of trigger system in the first place. This is one of the reasons why people build homemade water guns: modifications often do not work.

I suggest starting out with adding an additional pressurized reservoir with a simple firing valve without a trigger system, like using a ball valve or what Ben recommended. You probably would have to get rid of the nozzle assembly to make this work, though. This should be relatively easy to complete successfully. Incremental modifications area great way to start in this hobby.
There’s about a half of an inch on the top and below the pump valves
SSCBen wrote:
Mon May 23, 2022 5:08 pm
If you're intent on using the same nozzle, then you should consider a smaller non-ball type valve. Ball valves are good for their high flow rate and low turbulence, but you're going to have a difficult time getting a ball valve to work given the limited space. And using a smaller valve would probably be okay given how small the existing tubing leading to the nozzle is. The small size is probably the bottleneck in performance here.

One of these valves would probably work: https://www.mcmaster.com/valves/for-use ... ff-valves/

A system of pulleys attached to a trigger might be the easiest way to link the valve to a trigger.
I think I will go with your suggestion I play around to see if I can figure out a good layout
Do the valves close by thereselves

Edit : any suggestions on how to do the PC

edit : this is what I figured would work for the layout just have to figure out what valve
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[attachment=0]9CBE6F
Attachments
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Re: Crazy trigger valve idea

Post by Drenchenator » Wed May 25, 2022 9:17 am

Zman wrote:
Tue May 24, 2022 10:12 am
Do the valves close by thereselves

Edit : any suggestions on how to do the PC
If you are talking about the valves Ben linked to on McMaster-Carr, the page says at the top that the valves "spring closed when the lever is released". So you can assume that these valves do close by themselves.

As to the added pressure chamber, there are many options, but ultimately nobody here can recommend much without knowing more information. For example, what are the dimensions of the gap between the nozzle assembly and the reservoir? What locations could support the weight of a pressure chamber? Where could a pressure chamber be attached, in other words? The end-to-end length of those valves on McMaster-Carr is a bit less than 2.5 inches, so it looks like there is enough space for the valve at least, provided you can figure out how to mount it securely. But that still leaves open the question of where the pressure chamber goes.

Two other important questions to consider: What is your budget (both in terms of time and money)? What resources (tools, machines, workshop space, skills, computer software, free stuff, etc.) do you have on hand? All of these questions would inform the design decisions here.

A simple no-nonsense solution would be to create a kind of miniature APH-style pressure chamber, but connecting it to the rest of the gun depends heavily on other design choices, like what firing valve is used, what kind of tubing is used, etc. Something like an APH would be my first recommendation, but I can't think of a good place to put the chamber, especially if you want to keep the existing nozzle assembly. In all honesty I would just create a new gun from scratch!
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Re: Crazy trigger valve idea

Post by Zman » Wed May 25, 2022 3:24 pm

Drenchenator wrote:
Wed May 25, 2022 9:17 am
Zman wrote:
Tue May 24, 2022 10:12 am
Do the valves close by thereselves

Edit : any suggestions on how to do the PC
If you are talking about the valves Ben linked to on McMaster-Carr, the page says at the top that the valves "spring closed when the lever is released". So you can assume that these valves do close by themselves.

As to the added pressure chamber, there are many options, but ultimately nobody here can recommend much without knowing more information. For example, what are the dimensions of the gap between the nozzle assembly and the reservoir? What locations could support the weight of a pressure chamber? Where could a pressure chamber be attached, in other words? The end-to-end length of those valves on McMaster-Carr is a bit less than 2.5 inches, so it looks like there is enough space for the valve at least, provided you can figure out how to mount it securely. But that still leaves open the question of where the pressure chamber goes.

Two other important questions to consider: What is your budget (both in terms of time and money)? What resources (tools, machines, workshop space, skills, computer software, free stuff, etc.) do you have on hand? All of these questions would inform the design decisions here.

A simple no-nonsense solution would be to create a kind of miniature APH-style pressure chamber, but connecting it to the rest of the gun depends heavily on other design choices, like what firing valve is used, what kind of tubing is used, etc. Something like an APH would be my first recommendation, but I can't think of a good place to put the chamber, especially if you want to keep the existing nozzle assembly. In all honesty I would just create a new gun from scratch!
As for budget I’m trying to keep it under $60

I have access to woodworking tools plumbing tools a 3d printer Metal working tools as far as a workspace I have a 10‘ x 10‘ workshop with a workbench and toolbox and I’m experienced with using all the tools that I have access to plus coding, building robots and fixing things on a farm,

My thoughts on where the pressure chamber would go is on the top of the gun kind of like this
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Also here’s those dimensions
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Also on the type of pressure chamber I was thinking about doing a CPH Style one
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Re: Crazy trigger valve idea

Post by Zman » Wed May 25, 2022 9:47 pm

After thinking about it for a while I decided that I’m pretty much going to do a homemade with the Reservoir case and nozzle assembly of the X-shot gun
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Re: Crazy trigger valve idea

Post by Drenchenator » Thu May 26, 2022 9:41 am

That seems like a good idea. You will take the best parts of this gun and make something even better. The nozzle assembly especially would be difficult to make, and reservoirs usually are hard to pull off right too without making something very heavy. You seem to have more than enough tools and workshop space, so good luck with the build!
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Re: Crazy trigger valve idea

Post by Zman » Thu May 26, 2022 12:57 pm

I’m creating a new thread that way this one doesn’t get caught up with stuff off topic
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