Revamping the VHS

[HBWW]

I'm still editing those 7 hours of footage from a water war from last summer, and one thing disturbing that I have noticed is the blatant, enormous waste of water encouraged by bad VHS design. The problem is quite simple: the ball valve does not close on its own and I need to make it spring loaded to do so. Otherwise, I will need to attach a traditional nozzle to the VHS if I don't want to get too involved in working on this. I will most likely stick to that solution anyhow even though it restricts performance significantly. Until these modifications are made, my VHS's are strictly for refill-only and will lack a nozzle for shooting very far with.

Thoughts, anyone? While a spring loaded ball valve system would be ideal, it will take a while of planning and thinking to build. If I can come up with a reasonably simple but reliable solution, I will jump on it. I might also be able to find pre-built spring loaded ball valves online, which would be far better.

[Andrew]

They're quite expensive, but McMaster-Carr sells brass spring return ball valves.


EDIT: Question misunderstood, following response invalid but useful nonetheless :

[A much cheaper solution would be to use a quick-connect hose connector thing with a built-in one-way "waterstop"/"aquastop" valve. If you could modify (either open out or make smaller) one of these to fit a standard SC/QFD blaster fitting (I don't know exactly how big those blaster connectors are, they may fit anyway without modifying the hose connector) then as soon as you pull the blaster out of the connector the water flow stops. If this isn't possible, you could try adapting those inset plug things from the original VHS with a form of valve which opens like the waterstop connector or original QFD, i.e. when you push the blaster into the connector.]

[HBWW]

That link actually gives me an idea to try out. It didn't occur to me while typing out the OP to use rotary springs and those could be a solution if I ever figured out a way to get them on the darned valve, haha.

Not exactly clear on your suggestion. I think you misidentified the problem I'm having, which is with people shooting, not refilling, with the hose. I have no problems with the refilling, but when shooting, people tend to leave on the streams which wastes ridiculous amounts of water and doesn't go to any combat use at all. People are usually good about shutting it off after refilling though.

[Andrew]

Not exactly clear on your suggestion. I think you misidentified the problem I'm having, which is with people shooting, not refilling, with the hose.

Yeah, sorry! Read "VHS" and didn't notice anything specific in the post about firing, other than a mention of a traditional nozzle, so I assumed you meant when refilling!

Glad my post was useful though. I have tried making a rotary spring return valve (makes tap shots a little easier, and would make making a homemade trigger actuated valve MUCH easier) but it didn't go too well. The ball valve didn't seem to have enough space between the valve body and the lever for a strong enough spring, and there was no place to put the spring above the valve. That and I didn't have a good enough spring anyway!

If I could find some kind of screw-on extension for the valve spindle (a threaded sleeve maybe??), then I might be able to modify the standard brass ball valve.

[atvan]

A custom valve hadle like drenchenator did on his DR-3 might allow for a clothespin spring or similar.

[soakinader]

Hey there, when modding my WW Equalizer last year, I discovered that it had a spring-loaded ball valve, similar to a Flash Flood valve. Basically it was a ball valve with a big-ass one-armed lever with room for add-ons, instead of two little arms that would be hard to attach anything onto. I have a picture if you are interested. So if you could glue it in a way that it wouldn't explode off of the VHS when pressurized, along with a spring on the lever glued somewhere on the outside, problem solved.
More likely you will use a steel/PVC valve (like the MCM/C valve) with the standard fittings and a torsion/rotary spring. Much easier to attach, and more durable.

I found a water stop hose attachment sitting in someone's front yard yesterday. I was SO tempted to take it, because I need one for my QFD, but I didn't.
I did get a good look at it, and now that I see how it works, I know that it was very close to what I needed. :{ So sad.
Still need to find one at a store...
Also, I am also looking into the pull valve used in your average hose sprayer/gun. It's a bit more ambitious, but what I want to do is make something that starts with a tee, then goes up into a spring-loaded hose sprayer with a trigger (the kind you wash your car with) and down into my spring-loaded water stop/ universal QFD design.
Then you could spray & fill water balloons with the top part, and you could jam the butt of the thing into your Speedloader/ SC-capable gun and fill er' up. No need to change attachments, you can do anything one handed.

Anyone know if there exists a tee/hose splitter that has a standard female hose fitting in the center of the T, and at least one male out? Don't need shut-off valves on it at all, but preferably T-shaped.

[Andrew]

I haven't seen anything exactly like what you're looking for, but maybe you could adapt something like this?:



I know it's not quite t-shaped, and it has valves which you don't need (leave them open). It also doesn't have a female connector, but you could just unscrew the plastic 'nut' on a female connector and screw that into the open threaded piece on the top of the Y connector, with some teflon tape to seal.

Or perhaps one of these:



with two female connectors (connected together with a short length of hose) attached to one of the male connectors.

[soakinader]

Well, I am trying to make something simple and cheap that won't explode. Can anyone verify the reliability of that type of connector at high pressure?

[Andrew]

I pressurise my homemade blaster (~3.5bar at max pressure) with those type of quick-connect connectors in a QFD style rig. I've had a couple of cheaper non-branded connectors blow out, but the decent quality ones are absolutely fine.

The bottom of the two images (the orange Y) is especially good as it's essentially a solid piece of moulded plastic.

[soakinader]

Aha, I have found what I needed. Of all places, I found a tee with all male, standard size hose fittings. Along with a SCH40 coupling, now it is almost complete...
I found the piece I needed online, but when I went to the hardware store, they were very unorganized and didn't seem to have the piece I needed....
It's a Gardena water stop hose fitting. I am going to modify it, and hopefully it will work for what I want to make.

Now what I need is a hose sprayer attachment with a good sized nozzle that can fill water balloons. And cheap. I have seen dozens with multiple useless nozzles, and all expensive. So far my total material cost is just above 10$. Sure, the thing is that you can use any hose sprayer you would like, but for the prototype, I want the perfect one. Time to go to the dollar store. XP

Hope you don't mind that I am stealing your thread, CA99. I will make a new thread on it when it is done.

[Andrew]

If you ask, he can probably split the thread for you (leaving the first part of your original post in this thread, and moving the rest to a new thread).

Glad you found what you needed!

The first piece sounds like a T version of the orange Y (pictured above). The waterstop fitting is (I assume) what your pressurising the blaster with?