Author Topic: Remote Air Cannon Questions  (Read 3410 times)

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Offline doranwaTopic starter

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Remote Air Cannon Questions
« on: September 16, 2008, 04:19:49 AM »
Hi All,
I'm trying to create a radio controlled, firing, air cannon to put on a radio controlled pirate ship.
I have experience with standard radio controlled equipment that would be used on an R/C, plane, boat, etc... but have little experience with R/C robot controls.
I was thinking I could get a small electric air valve and use it to blast air into a tube to fire paintballs.  However, I have no idea how to use radio controls to sent an impulse of current to an air valve.
My hope is to have a controller with a couple push-buttons that I could use to remotely set off a couple of paintball air cannons from my R/C ship.
I talked to a guy at the local Hobbytown USA shop and he didn't have much in the way of advice for me.
I drew a very basic diagram to show my concept.  Any ideas or criticism would be appreciated.

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Offline ArcMan

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Re: Remote Air Cannon Questions
« Reply #1 on: September 16, 2008, 07:35:43 AM »
Assuming you have 2 digital channels available on your R/C set, it's a matter of building a circuit (like a MOSFET switch) that will take the receiver's digital output and drive a solenoid valve.

Do you have 2 digital channels available (sorry, my work connection blocked your drawing).
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Offline doranwaTopic starter

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Re: Remote Air Cannon Questions
« Reply #2 on: September 16, 2008, 07:51:43 PM »
I haven't picked up any of the equipment yet.  Right now I'm just trying to figure out how I would set this thing up.
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Offline stan

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Re: Remote Air Cannon Questions
« Reply #3 on: September 16, 2008, 09:01:50 PM »
you can use a sprinkler solenoid/valve... will fire at very low voltage...I use a 9v battery in my air cannon and I blow things down my street. hooking it up to the rc stuff is the easy part hook it up like you would hook up a motor. two wires to your rc control to the two wires on the valve.... battery will plug into rc controller....your hardest job is connecting it to your cannon....if you have trouble hit your local machine shop, they do your plumbing.
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Offline doranwaTopic starter

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Re: Remote Air Cannon Questions
« Reply #4 on: September 18, 2008, 04:43:13 AM »
I am curious if there are RC controls out there that are just a button.  I am only familiar with the controls that have levers that adjust a servo to a particular degree of rotation.  What I would really like would be a set of a couple buttons on a remote that would each fire a different cannon.
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Offline Admin

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Re: Remote Air Cannon Questions
« Reply #5 on: September 19, 2008, 08:44:12 AM »
The spring loaded paintball feeder won't work.

It needs to be gravity fed, or use a servo.

airsoft cannons:
http://www.toyeast.com/v3/pdtdetail.asp?pdt_id=A02102961
http://www.toyeast.com/v3/pdtdetail.asp?pdt_id=A09000290
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