Nozzle Selector?

Guides and discussions about building water blasters and other water warfare devices such as water balloon launchers.
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Croc
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Nozzle Selector?

Post by Croc » Wed Jun 27, 2012 10:30 pm

So this may seem really random, but I was just lurking an old thread on SSC (The JLSpaceMarine Custom Assault Rifle to be exact starting Post 27), and somewhere Drenchenator mentioned making a nozzle selector, and I never actually saw one brought to the homemade community.

Quickly pondering the idea, I came up with a couple considerations one might require and could easily do with such a concept design:

A Locking Mechanism:
You don't want this nozzle to come flying off when the water hits it, so there must be some form of locking mechanism that is easy to disengage or is (similar to the SS and BBT ones) always holding something above the one you are dealing with.

For a thought, I was thinking it could be a rod with a spring on the end, completely sealed from water to prevent any rusting and such, and then have the arm go through a length of pipe and follow a track, much like (For those of you who can remember the Fast Action Rifle from the NIC), the Fast Action Rifle's bolt catch mechanism, but just for engaging the lock and sealing the nozzle on the piece of pipe. It could also be completely spring-loaded, not needing any locking, but the lock would make me much more comfortable.

Easy to Manipulate Nozzles
The nozzles should not stick or require more effort than pushing the nozzle onto a section of PVC pipe. This would allow quick swapping of nozzles. (I'm thinking non threaded endcaps, or for most versatility, a non threaded to threaded coupling.) These could be glued onto an endcap. If using for example, 3/4" CPVC as it is what I have lying around, you could have an endcap in the middle, and six others facing the other way, or however that design works out, glued in a hexagonal pattern. You would then label the nozzle you have on the opposite side of the selector on each nozzle for ease of changing outputs.

Thoughts, comments, concerns? I will likely incorporate this into the CPH that I plan to make some time in the near future.

Andrew
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Re: Nozzle Selector?

Post by Andrew » Thu Jun 28, 2012 12:08 pm

I think it's a great idea. A nozzles selector should be easy and quick to change nozzle to be of real use in a warfare situation. There's no point having a nozzle selector that leaves you defenceless for a long time when you want to change to a different setting. The current style of interchangeable nozzles commonly found on homemades are easily lost in the heat of battle, unless you have a good way of storing them.

The standard SS/BBT nozzle selector designs would seem the most user friendly, as the locking mechanism doesn't need to be manually engaged or disengaged, but I appreciate they can be harder to build and seal properly. When I get around to building another homemade blaster, I'll probably use a nozzle selector cannibalised from either a broken stock blaster, or a hose gun.

An alternative like the one you propose is a good compromise between the 'classic' stock nozzle selector and threaded end-caps, with the potential of making homemade blasters more practical. Although more complicated, such a design would probably be easier than trying to replicate the classic style selector anyway and has the potential to offer better stream lamination if designed well.

Croc
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Re: Nozzle Selector?

Post by Croc » Thu Jun 28, 2012 10:18 pm

Even if you have a good way of storing interchangeable nozzles on current homemades, time is still lost in the unscrewing and screwing in of the old nozzle.

With the alternative we are thinking of, one could have a 5x, 10x, 20x, 30x, Fan (Or something else if you want, maybe Typhoon :goofy:), and Riot Blast all within a 5 second change of each other (Being generous, it all depends on the locking mechanism) as opposed to a 30 (ish) second nozzle change without it.

The passive locks are the most obvious ways to lock the barrel in place. So like putting a rounded piece in an endcap flipped backwards with a spring inside that just gets enough out there to lock a nozzle in place would be ideal yet seemingly difficult. Another mechanism I was considering is like a clicky pen. Have some device that on one push moves it out, next push back in, or even have it preset rotation, so you press it and it just goes to the next nozzle. The third and final idea I had was possibly taking something spring-loaded, and having the spring pushing outwards. The core could be PVC inside larger PVC and you just need to put some bar across the piece to go through both sections, and then it will act as a stopper. A large groove and a small grove, one for changing the nozzle, the other for having it locked in place. It could even be slanted to make it easier to move. Those are just thoughts. I might test some stuff design-wise in NX, but aside from that, I'm not sure

I'm technically just (with my first homemade) trying to reproduce a better, more efficient CPS 2500 :P Or 3000 if it becomes a backpack gun.

Fishfan
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Re: Nozzle Selector?

Post by Fishfan » Fri Jun 29, 2012 9:13 am

I don't know if it is possible, but I have very limited knowledge of what products are out there that could make this possible. If you succeed in making it, make a guide!
This idea combined with Drenchenator's Riptide, Homemades will be the king of the future of water wars.

Croc
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Re: Nozzle Selector?

Post by Croc » Fri Jun 29, 2012 9:25 pm

My major problem is I get super conceptual and wind up not building anything... Mostly due to money constraints. I've got a half-assed build of a prototype pull valve that I'm working on, no springs, holes aren't perfectly sized, no in/out securing method yet, all that stuff. It's going to be annoying but I'll figure out a way to make it work. I have some things in mind for this though that should work just fine, like if the nozzles around the shaft were pinned you could remove the pin, pull the shaft, rotate it and new nozzle, pin again. That seems to be the fastest/most efficient method of keeping things in place to me. (For homemades that is.) Or there are those extendable canes and stuff that give me ideas with the push-button stuff.

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atvan
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Re: Nozzle Selector?

Post by atvan » Sat Jun 30, 2012 10:28 pm

Our resident Mad Scientist/Buyallyourforsaleguns GJiv replecated a stock selector out of metal and aparently got it to work seemlessly, admittedly on a 2k rather than a homemade. You will have to look around in mods for that…
DX wrote:In the neanderthal days of K-modding, people would lop off the whole PRV
Well, not that much soakage.
Beware the Purple

GJIV
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Re: Nozzle Selector?

Post by GJIV » Sun Jul 01, 2012 9:12 am

atvan wrote:Our resident Mad Scientist/Buyallyourforsaleguns GJiv replecated a stock selector out of metal and aparently got it to work seemlessly, admittedly on a 2k rather than a homemade. You will have to look around in mods for that…
Ahahaha, atvan, great :D hahaha :goofy:

Well, my CPS 2000 got its own, totally homemade nozzle selector with 6 nozzles. The system works well, not that easy to make though.

Here it is again...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMWYZ3lTAyQ

Could be done better, but works well. It was one of my first modifications, so it is ok :D Would make it better today :goofy:

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atvan
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Re: Nozzle Selector?

Post by atvan » Sun Jul 01, 2012 9:33 am

For some reason I thought that it worked just like a stock one. Nevermind.

A good place to start for a nice selector would be the turret designs on the NIC- I have seen several that have locks that work just like a selector.
DX wrote:In the neanderthal days of K-modding, people would lop off the whole PRV
Well, not that much soakage.
Beware the Purple

Andrew
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Re: Nozzle Selector?

Post by Andrew » Sun Jul 01, 2012 12:42 pm

It's not far off a stock-style system, it just manually 'locks' each nozzle instead. I'm surprised you didn't have a spring lock system like stock soakers (as you said, one of your earlier mods). You could still change it :) .

GJIV
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Re: Nozzle Selector?

Post by GJIV » Sun Jul 01, 2012 3:07 pm

Quite right^^ But At the moment I am still going to fullfill my remaining aims... And yesterday I had another crazy Idea....I may connect my HydroCannon with the CPS Chambers of two power packs...The 6 chambers should be installed at 60 degrees around the nozzle...O well, this would get Power^^And an amazing 7 000 ml water volume a' filling in the CPS Firing chamber...huhaaa^^ Even may makes me more curious than beating the SuperCannon 2...

While I am talking about this, what was the maximum the SuperCannon 2 was able to archieve ? 72 feet ?

Fishfan
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Re: Nozzle Selector?

Post by Fishfan » Sun Jul 01, 2012 3:53 pm

GJIV wrote: While I am talking about this, what was the maximum the SuperCannon 2 was able to archieve ? 72 feet ?
It got 73 feet effective range at 100 PSI, and at 95 PSI with 5% glycerin 78 feet. He didn't say the range at 60 PSI, just the output.

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