School project potato cannon
Posted: Wed Aug 28, 2024 11:58 pm
Hey all, I am building a combustion potato cannon for a school project, a 1.5 inch ABS pipe based cannon (I know, pretty risky seeing how people see ABS with its pros and cons here, also because I made the mistake of not researching beforehand), posting it about it to get feedback and criticism on it, areas where it could be improve and all that. 
Cannon uses a brass "shell", also known as the 1.5 inch brass fitting I found in the home depot plumbing section, covered the bottom lip area with wax and electrical tape to keep in the pressure so the gas doesn't escape, along with heat shrink on the wires to keep it from fraying, using a spark gap for 2 points of ignition for more power, and of course, the "bolt" of it, the floating barrel just simply sitting there with Vaseline applied to keep it's movement smooth!
Planning to add a gas injection system of sorts using butane as I have that stuff all over my house, either buying a valve made for small butane cans, or repurpose a butane torch head with the igniter removed for obvious reasons, and a fan all wired up to it powered with either a 9v or 8 1.5v batteries, since I can't figure out how to step down and properly wire 2 9v's for the life of me
Also credits to this cool guy, for inspiring for me, @Auxiliary on this site, basically built a *really* shoddy version of his
don't mind my messy worktable, will eventually come around to clean it... maybe
Would add more images but it seems my post doesn't seem to be picked up for what I assume too many embeds? This is my third time attempting this so sorry if this is just the admins being overloaded with stuff 
Cannon uses a brass "shell", also known as the 1.5 inch brass fitting I found in the home depot plumbing section, covered the bottom lip area with wax and electrical tape to keep in the pressure so the gas doesn't escape, along with heat shrink on the wires to keep it from fraying, using a spark gap for 2 points of ignition for more power, and of course, the "bolt" of it, the floating barrel just simply sitting there with Vaseline applied to keep it's movement smooth!
Planning to add a gas injection system of sorts using butane as I have that stuff all over my house, either buying a valve made for small butane cans, or repurpose a butane torch head with the igniter removed for obvious reasons, and a fan all wired up to it powered with either a 9v or 8 1.5v batteries, since I can't figure out how to step down and properly wire 2 9v's for the life of me
Also credits to this cool guy, for inspiring for me, @Auxiliary on this site, basically built a *really* shoddy version of his
don't mind my messy worktable, will eventually come around to clean it... maybe