Mine’s bigger....(cannon)

So I had that little potato cannon a while ago and people seemed to like that.  A couple months ago my friend and I created a gigantic one, over 10 feet tall.

Its mounted on a trailer, because it would be impossible to hold and fire it.  Whenever it is fired, a foot long screw driver is driven through the hitch into the ground to keep it from moving back (had an incident the first time we shot it horizontally without having it secured).

The biggest thing is that it is dual chambered.  Chambers have just over 8 square feet of volume, so it gets plenty of power.

First vid:  shooting 1/2" plywood with 2x4 reinforcement, knocks one of the 2x4s off.

Second vid:  shooting at an 80* angle, I'm 5'8" so you can see how tall it is.

Wow.

tecumseh wrote: my barrel on my potato gun is 12 feet long with 2 1/2 inch width (combustion) and it launches potato's 600ft +.   the explosion chamber is 3 feet long and 4 inches wide... and it has a kick like a son of a gun

Yea I know what you mean.  We chose 2 chambers because it couldn't be too long or it would get to be too much to handle.  I've estimated mine could shoot a gatorade bottle (the usual projectile) an estimated 720 feet I weighed the projectile, measured the angle of the shot, measured the distance, and then measured the time aloft. That let me use a ballistic formula to make a table of angles and the distances they will produce (which is where I derive the 720 feet).

procarbinefreak wrote: pneumatic spud guns ftw.

Been there, done that.  Apparently its not good to let it fly out of your hands and hit concrete while its firing.

Daaaaaaaaamn

Belt #2 wrote: I have plans on building my own rather soon, only mine will be a hell of a lot manlier. I'm talking mild steel barrel and expansion chambers, with high pressure ball valves, high flow regulators, and high pressure nitrogen cylinders for fuel and all welded construction (SMAW).   Manly...

Nice, why not just throw some propane in and make it a hybrid!

Under the A's. My launcher shoots nerfs/Paint Grenades and small red russet potatoes it's pneumatic. It was build by Picasso. Fun thing to have. It has a blow off valve set to about 110 psi.

The bigger version has shot a cawking tube through 1/2 inch plywood at about 25 yards.

And back on topic Exelent work looks like a lot of fun. Be carefull thou.

Edited by Evil Elvis - 01 March 2007 at 5:57pm

that thing is awsome

mines just ghetto i just shoot shot gun style rounds rounds





the thing is funny though you get alot of scared expressons from new players when you walk out onto the field




Edited by the_blade - 01 March 2007 at 7:12pm

Monk wrote: Big!  Ill be building some Co2 powered t-shirt cannons for my speech teacher. Kinda sucks though, cause I have to keep the muzzle velocity under 30 mph.

If Tolga will ever get online I'm going to see if he can help me find the speed of a gatorade bottle shot out of mine (I just can't find drag).  Apparently the initial force on the bottle is 1107.792 pounds ((3.14 * 1.4 ^2) * 180).  1.4 is the radius of the bottle, the equation in the first parenthesis is to find the area of the bottom of the bottle in inches, and then multiply that by the psi, 180.  Someone check my math.