Filling/Refilling Equipment

[isoaker]

Beyond typical hoses, faucets, buckets, and water bottles, what other tools and equipment do you find useful for helping you and your group quickly refill your water blasters before or during a game?

Fast-fill water bottles are nice if you have them, but they also need filling. Funnels definitely have their uses, but not sure how often others make use of these simple devices. There are specialized things like fast-fill/QFDs, but these are not so common or easy to find.

What else is useful to have to make filling/refilling water blasters easier?

[SEAL]

I've always wanted some kind of portable pump that can be used to draw water out of a stream or pond and into the reservoir. Such a device would be faster than using a water bottle, and less destructive than dunking the blaster. It could be crank-based, and it would need some kind of filter as well.

Otherwise, I just use a water bottle or a faucet/hose if available. Sometimes I'll use other blasters too, like during combat.

[HBWW]

The refill pump is something I'd like to work on in the future. It'd be perfect for buckets as well as streams.

Funnels are a good idea. A funnel and short length of tubing could let you refill from sinks easily.

We need to develop equipment and bring these sort of things to community wars to speed things up.

QFD's/fast fill mechanisms (like caps or SC's, or the special filling system I mentioned in the dream concepts thread) are rare, and good bottles for fast-filling don't seem to exist at all.

[DX]

I still prefer a single bottle with a narrow enough neck that you can just put it upside down on the cap opening and shake it to speed up the flow. A bottle fits in a large pocket and weighs nothing. Developing actual equipment for this means hiking in and running around with it.

Blue water boats often have water makers where you dispense fresh water by stepping on a pedal. Shouldn't be difficult to design something like this, but it might be annoying to carry and I'm not sold on it being faster than bottles, it depends on the soaker.

[HBWW]

On the other hand, a pump means you can filter the water a little bit while maintaining usable flow rate. Pumps are light (as long as they're made of PVC/thin aluminum like the stuff I have on my APH/CPH) and take up similar space, except in a different (lengthier) form factor. They don't have to be carried in combat, but doing so could be helpful.

Advanced quick-fill solutions will require machining. They may become practical when 3D printing also does.

[Neptune]

On this topic when battles aren't by streams what's a good way to supply water? Just a bunch of those 5 gallon water bottles?

[HBWW]

We generally just opt to target sites with a spigot/faucet/bathroom or streams. It's a lot of water to pack otherwise, so we avoid it.

That said, multi-gallon containers will last you a decent amount of time. I brought a solar shower to Soakemore and ran a good half day's supply for myself and a friend on 2-3 gallons or so. (Although we had issues getting actual games going, which is why the water lasted so long.)

[the oncoming storm]

While impractical with our current team sizes I would like a pedal powered pump that can alow you to set up a hose at a water supply (stream or bucket) for defending a position.

[marauder]

I have been considering the creation of some type of "self pumping" hose for battlefield filling. I may get around to this over spring break.

[HBWW]

Everyone wants a field pump! I thought of one mainly for the purpose of filling SC's, but there are many applications for one, so I definitely want to generalize. Using the same design ideas behind the VHS would be a good idea; I'd probably call it the "VFP" (Versatile Field Pump) lol.

[Neptune]

You could probably build something like that off of one of those dollar store perfect sealed pump to shoot things (Cut off the tip, put a 1.25 bushing on it) and attach that to 2 check valves, maybe a tank even of some sort. I've thought about it just to have a splashzooka usable...

[HBWW]

I'll be building one since the components are durable. Last time I got a $1.50 syringe blaster, turns out the components were garbage. The handle snapped after mild use and the nozzle cap unglued itself. If I can reuse the seal elsewhere, I may try that out, but it's more worth it to have a standard design that uses standard components.

[Njupko]

Hi there, i have speed loader double cross 3000 but i lost hose attachment and i can't fill. Does someone know how to make or where i can find hose attachment like one on the picture. Thanks

[the oncoming storm]

I have not ever used the original QFD but I do have a Speed Loader 1000. What I did was you’ll use a hose barb wraps in Electrical tape and so far it works well, the tape doesn’t last forever though and gets changed every few months