Help with tennis ball cannon
I am new to this and after looking around on here and all the great information I'm beginning to see how much engineering goes into all these thing. What I'm trying to design is a "shooting gallery" with fixed mount tennis ball cannons. I'm wanting four or five semi auto cannons that can fire ten rounds each. I want to build a hopper that can be filled with ten balls that will just gravity feed down. My idea was to hook all these to a central air tank/compressor that would kick on and keep the pressure in the main tank so they could fire indefinite. Does this sound feasible ? Anybody make a fixed mount that can fire a tennis ball say 100 feet and break a plate?
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jrrdw
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A 1" sprinkler valve, 2 pieces of pipe that fits tennis balls (1 ten balls long), a second chamber (just behind the valve). It's a simple set up, you shouldn't have any problem setting up 10 in-line cannons.
Welcome to Spudfiles.
Welcome to Spudfiles.
A few days of reading on here and I'm not sure if things are getting easier or if I'm getting more confused.
After some more measuring I have determined I don't need the tennis balls to go more than fifty feet. If they can hit a target fifty feet away with enough force to say knock over a two liter of soda, that would be perfect.
I'm not sure if I will need to use a piston design or will a simple 1" sprinkler valve have enough flow to launch the ball out of a 2.5" PVC barrel?
I want to use the solenoid that's on the sprinkler valve if possible so I can set it up with a remote trigger switch on a button built into a grip on the side of the barrel.
There are two things I'm confused about:
1. Does the air tank (that is typical in the designs I see on here) have to empty completely or can it be supplied by a compressor so it can have an indefinite supply of air at all times ?
2. Can the pilot trigger if there is another air supply hooked to it so it too has an indefinite supply?
I don't want to have to close a valve and disconnect the air between each shot, I want it to fire semi auto indefinitely and just have to keep re filling the "magazine"
I want to make it a breach load gravity fed bolt action semi auto and I don't need it to be portable (will be mounted on stand) so hooking a power supply to trigger the solenoid or hoses to supply the air is not a problem .
If anyone can help with Ideas I would really appreciate it , I have to get six of these built before summer is over if my idea is going to work.
After some more measuring I have determined I don't need the tennis balls to go more than fifty feet. If they can hit a target fifty feet away with enough force to say knock over a two liter of soda, that would be perfect.
I'm not sure if I will need to use a piston design or will a simple 1" sprinkler valve have enough flow to launch the ball out of a 2.5" PVC barrel?
I want to use the solenoid that's on the sprinkler valve if possible so I can set it up with a remote trigger switch on a button built into a grip on the side of the barrel.
There are two things I'm confused about:
1. Does the air tank (that is typical in the designs I see on here) have to empty completely or can it be supplied by a compressor so it can have an indefinite supply of air at all times ?
2. Can the pilot trigger if there is another air supply hooked to it so it too has an indefinite supply?
I don't want to have to close a valve and disconnect the air between each shot, I want it to fire semi auto indefinitely and just have to keep re filling the "magazine"
I want to make it a breach load gravity fed bolt action semi auto and I don't need it to be portable (will be mounted on stand) so hooking a power supply to trigger the solenoid or hoses to supply the air is not a problem .
If anyone can help with Ideas I would really appreciate it , I have to get six of these built before summer is over if my idea is going to work.
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Blitz
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A sprinkler valve will be quite sufficient for your needs - it really doesn't take much to push a tennis ball 50 feet.
Your cannons probably would have their own air chambers - between those and your "main" air source, perhaps use a regulator(s).
Your cannons probably would have their own air chambers - between those and your "main" air source, perhaps use a regulator(s).
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jackssmirkingrevenge
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Yup... and if you fire them electrically with a momentary switch, you will have no issues firing them semi-auto.Blitz wrote:A sprinkler valve will be quite sufficient for your needs - it really doesn't take much to push a tennis ball 50 feet.
hectmarr wrote:You have to make many weapons, because this field is long and short life
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Technician1002
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This is the range I get with a small tennis ball launcher. Measured the landings with a hand held GPS and put the coordinates in Google Maps to find the distances. You can see just how far 50 feet is in the scale in the lower left corner.
