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Film can cannon

Posted: Thu Oct 09, 2008 11:11 am
by NL_bjorn
Hi there,

A few days ago I made a little Foto can cannon. It is alot of fun fire it and eas and quick to built. I will post a movie later, becouse it is a Quicktime file.

Posted: Thu Oct 09, 2008 11:39 am
by lr-lars-nl
lol i just saw a video of that on youtube :P

Posted: Thu Oct 09, 2008 12:02 pm
by iemand
Do you call that a cannon? :P
Anyway, it's nice to play with, and a great way to learn something about combustions.

(you should build a small handheld version with a barrell and some way to measure the amounth of fuel)

Posted: Thu Oct 09, 2008 1:25 pm
by psycix
I recommend a pen tube to be used as barrel.
This way, you are shooting away the film can, or is it attached to the block?

Posted: Thu Oct 09, 2008 1:37 pm
by mark.f
The whole point is to shoot the whole canister.

We made these in science class back in the 5th grade, except with alkaseltzer... and we actually placed them in cardboard tubes to make em go a little further.

Posted: Thu Oct 09, 2008 3:17 pm
by NL_bjorn
markfh11q wrote:The whole point is to shoot the whole canister...
Exactly :wink:
It shoots quit high actually, about 3 stories :)

To come back to Iemand and pysicx; I've also made a mini combustion with a pill bottle and pen barrel, but it isn't working correctly all the time. Spark doesn't work constandly. I´m working on it.

Posted: Thu Oct 09, 2008 9:57 pm
by brother361
i believe kipkay from meta cafe and youtube already made that

Posted: Thu Oct 09, 2008 11:05 pm
by i-will
as long as ur havin fun with it than it's cool to me. now that u got basic combustion figured i hope u build a killer cannon. u'll love it. i promise.

Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 8:36 pm
by jimmy101
Nice job NL_bjorn, basically the SciToy's Binaca cannon.

I just finished a slightly modified one with fuel and spark controlled by a single trigger (built from a hacked long-necked BBQ lighter). It's about as loud as a firecracker.

A short video of my "Crash-test-dummy", uh, er, make that "assistant" test firing it is here. (The first 3-count is the fueling, the 5-count with shaking is just to let the fuel mix).

Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 10:31 pm
by mark.f
Hmmm... three stories with 9.5" total length... sound pretty fun.

Guess I can't use alkaseltzer for my next one...

Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 10:34 pm
by Insomniac
@jimmy101:

'WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!' :D :lol: :lol: :lol:

I've made film canister cannons, they work pretty damn well for what they are, and go off with quite a bang. Just be careful though, I've had them actually explode when firing. This was probably because the repeated launches had actually melted the lid slightly. This made the canister fit on REALLY tightly, and when I clicked the ignitor it split clean down the middle (it was pretty amazing actually, it was a near perfect split, the canister in two identical pieces)

Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2008 11:43 am
by NL_bjorn
Well done Jimmy101! Seems like a nice gun to me :)

@I-Will: I've already build a big cannon (a wile ago). See http://www.spudfiles.com/forums/the-red ... 10721.html . Meanwhile I've modifided it a little bit. Will post some pics in a few minuntes. I also have plans for a big golf ball gun. You wil hear from me later :wink: