Fire Extinguisher Cannon

[Mitchell_Leary]

This is a pretty easy device to build. Basically you only need to drill a hole in an empty fire extinguisher and mount a valve stem in the hole.

The fire extinguisher is filled up with air via a bicycle pump (that's the hard way). Of course, if you live near a gas station you could use their tire inflating air pump.

The nozzle of the fire extinguisher needs to be of the rigid PVC variety. If it has flexible rubber hose this needs to be replaced with a smooth-bore pipe, like plastic PVC or similar.

As far as projectiles you can shoot damn near anything that will fit down the barrel. I shoot old batteries; I can launch D size batteries three blocks away (about the length of a football field). I've broken several windows during my late night ventures.

It can also fire projectiles that slip comfortable OVER the launching tube (the rifle-grenade launching princple). The better the air-tight the better this princple will work.

Enjoy kids!



-Mitch Leary-

[master lurtz]

Sounds like a cheap spudgun to me. You werent to clear, but I gather that you release the compressed air via the 'trigger' that is allready on the extingwisher? Do you know how much pressure it can handle?, you might want to considder replacing it with a solinoid valve, where you know the pressure, that way you get a quicker air release and you know how much air you can put in in order to get the max performance out of her.

[Mitchell_Leary]

Master, yes you are correct, this is basically a spud gun. Your solenoid idea is a very good one, I just wanted to keep it's basic design as simple as possible.

Not sure about the maximum pressure as I don't have a time gauge. It's been awhile since I've built one of these.

The firing method has been to simply squeeze the handle quickly so as to not let all the air out. As you can imagine pumping this thing up with a bicycle pump can get old fast.

Thanks for your comments.


Mitch