SpudFiles

I have a design for a paintball grenade. Basically it is a piece of pvc, with a cap one end and a female adapter with a plug the other end. The end with the cap has sprinkler nozzels fitted onto it, flush on the inside of the pipe. There is a piston in the middle of the inside of the pipe, it has a hook on the one end so it can be removed via the female adapter end. The end with the cap is the "barrel", it is filled with a thickish paint like substance. The other side of the piston is the chamber, it has the mix of propane and air in it. There are also electrodes in the chamber which will be hooked up to a camera flash circuit.

Now, theoretically, when the mix ignights it produces enough force to push the piston down the barrel, squeesing all the paint out the nozzles. The nozzles on the side of the pipe will be far enough down the length of the pipe that when the pison is pushed forward it travels past the nozzles and the combustion pressure can be vented out.

However, I am not sure the combustion will have enough force for the duration it takes to expell all the liquid out the nozzles. It would be really kick ass if it did

Make your own camera flash circuit with a few second delay after the ignition switch and there you have it! A really kick ass paintball grenade!

Now is my idea plausable? I really need combustion techs to help me out here. (I also only have basic knowlage of electonics.)

I need some opinions!

Thats actually a Pretty good idea! you could set up huge mats for the ignition also! just make the thing out of schd 80 so that the huge ammount of pressure required to squirt the paint doesnt make it go KABAM! then its a real land mine..........

That is a awsome idear. Might make a better land mine than a gernade. Throwing it might not be such a good idea. You would realy need to water down the paint so that it could go through the sprinkler heads.

Instead of sprinkler nozzles I would use some kind of burst disks or rubber plugs.
Also, the thicker the paint, the less it will spread when it is released.

Ok, so I will make holes with plugs for containing the liquid. I also noticed that the electrodes would need to be attached to the plug in order for the piston to be removed.

If I make this small enough it will be able to be a grenade. I think I have a better design for the end with the nozzles. Hmmmm.

For the landmines you could just have an electronically activated sprinkler valve, that would do the trick.

a land mine would need a mecanisim to launch when some one steps on it or a long cable so your out of range wen you set it off

Can't someone please tell me if the combustion has enough force to push the piston?

try it... no ones really gunna know...
in theory it should be a short burst of 40ish psi
depending on alot of variables... just try it...

this is a good idea it should work but not with paint....if you have noticed in paintballs it isnt exactly paint...its actually a version of vegatable oil with a special dye in it....so either melt paintballs on the stove in a big pot or get some vegie oil and use food coloring...

But if the propane is let to mix with the air for a longish duration won't it be more powerfull?

I know I could do various calculations to work out how much force is needed but I won't know how thick the mix of the paint is every time.

*edit*

Oviously it won't be real paint A good way to make your own paint is with corn starch and water, along with some childrens washable face paint or chalk powder.

Or an even waterier (woah) mix, 2 parts water, 1 part washable paint, 1/4 part vegetable oil. I use it in all of my paint grenades, it works perfectly.

Well, seeing as the combutsion force of hairspray is enough to detonate a chunk of PVC, im saiying internal pressures are going to end up around 125-150 PSI. it will squirt out anyything you see fit, exept for silly putty....... and plus, the top of that thing is gonna get hit HARD.

Okey doky, I'm gonna build it

And since you make it seem like there is a really high risk I will make a timer for abour 30 secons. Plenty of time to run away.

Surely I can limit the power by lowering the volume in the chamber? This is something I am going to have to fiddle around with.

Maybe I should build a basic small combustion and make a special barrel that serves the same purpose as the actual grenade itself. Hmmmmm.

Paintball paint is actually fish oil and coloring so vegetable coloring would work but nonames recipe sounds good (I don't know if you would call it a recipe though). You can buy like 24 oz jugs of Crayola washable paint.
EDIT: Demon if you were going to use a small cannon you could just fill it with paint like you said but if you did that (I would, it's the easiest) I think a pneumatic would be easier.

nice, demon!

use the smallest drill bit you have, and drill holes all over the top in clusters, and have some drilled on angles, so it sprays everywhere.