My first sexy cannon

[supercannons]

hey im new and this is my first post and cannon that ive ever made 8)
well this is my first cannon called the "Love Gun"
it took me 3days and is electrically fired by a homemade fuse as i cant afford an electric BBQ lighter haha
the fuse was pretty much a length of thin steel wool wrapped around a match head that is connected to two pieces of stereo wire which is connected to a light switch (like the ones on a wall in your house) haha anyway it gets the job done and works perfectly
its also the slowest reloading cannon in history haha as the steel wool may break from time to time when you move the cannon around
it shoots 250m horizontal and i think about 350m vertical (90degrees) when shooting potatoes
what u guys think of it? any improvements besides the ignition source?

[rcman50166]

Well doing a quick guess and check, your cannon would have to shoot spuds at 650 ft/s or 200 m/s to get a mere 215m down range before it hit the ground...

Using 200 m/s as the initial velocity pointing straight up, you would get the spud 2152m up ideally

Did we just guess our numbers?

Anyways, additions to your cannon can be a proper or traditional ignition source. That can be found here and you can also add a chamber fan. A metering system is another way to optimize performance

[supercannons]

nar total distance traveled was 250m total not per second
and vertical was about 350m total not per second
and yeh i did guess the vertical height as i dont have a big enough ladder or tape measure to see how high it went

[starman]

I can't make much out of your cannon at this point. How about a little more detailed write-up and a few more photos. Also, give us more than this thumbnail to look at. And action and/or damage video is always welcomed of course.

Welcome to Spudfiles!

[rcman50166]

nar total distance traveled was 250m total not per second
and vertical was about 350m total not per second
and yeh i did guess the vertical height as i dont have a big enough ladder or tape measure to see how high it went

Yes I understand that, but assuming you did get it out to 250m horizontally you need an exit velocity of more than 200m/s. What I'm saying is that you horizontal distance is probably exaggerated just a little. Unless you shot the potato at an angle

[supercannons]

I can't make much out of your cannon at this point. How about a little more detailed write-up and a few more photos. Also, give us more than this thumbnail to look at. And action and/or damage video is always welcomed of course.

Welcome to Spudfiles!

thanks damage video will be up this week sometime and so will more pics 8)

and to rcman50166 ah i understand were your coming from now and yeh most of the distance shots i lost cause they all got pretty destroyed but the height i'm sure its 250m-350m and i did shoot it at an angle for the horizontal height

[psycix]

Fixed your pic!


Gun looks okay. But you really should try to find a better ignition.
With a chamber that long (it is really damn large!) multiple spark gaps will grant a good benefit.
A chamber fan would also crank up the performance.