So I mentioned a few weeks ago that I'd seen some interesting now compact battery-powered air compressors. I finally got one and unboxed it today. So this is it. A mysterious anodized aluminum brick with a hose, a USB-C port, and a few buttons. I tore off a small rubber bit on the bottom, removed a few screws, and it came apart easily. Here's what it looks like on the inside. Yep, this baby runs on 2s LiPo. It's got a digital pressure sensor and computer controlled shutoff. Its smaller than the old 12v compressors I used to use, though. Looks like about a 380 size motor vice the old 550 cans, and the cylinder is smaller too. Still, it is very compact thanks to the unusual gearbox it uses. Smaller than a 5oz CO2 bottle. Unfortunately it does not restart if pressure drops after reaching the shutoff point, so the awesome stock electronics will not actually work for our purposes without modification or replacement. Here's a few shots side-by-side with a 5oz bottle. Not bad if you ask me! To actually use it in a warship, you would need to re-mount the compressor in your ship, and hook up an auto pressure shutoff switch like the one I have here. This one has a fixed shutoff pressure of 150psi, and restarts when pressure drops to 120. Wire this in series with the motor and a battery, and you have nearly unlimited shots. Sort of. After taking pictures, I reassembled the pocket compressor and gave it a try. It refilled a 4cu.in accumulator to a full 150psi in..... 21 seconds. Not exactly a blazingly fast fill, but the batteries were almost dead. Also, I believe the example I saw previously was hooked up to a 3s system for more voltage. As it currently stands, this little pocket compressor is not ready for combat use. I need to get that filling speed up before I'm confident at installing it in a warship, and it will never be suitable for fast gun. But for occasional big gun cannon tests in the garage, or a leak check? This is perfect. No more hauling out the shop compressor or wasting co2. Just power this baby on, select the pressure, and press go. Oh, and wait 20 seconds.
I have something similar, i just diconected the pressure sensor to allow for no interuption, there no preasure regulation though
Just curious, whats your plan for when this accidentally ingests water and you hydrolock the compressor? Might be neat for a non-combat model, but considering what we do with these boats and the fact that they are designed to take on water and sink, I'm not sure how you'd ever make an onboard air compressor last longer than a weekend or two.
On older ships with air compressors, you had a remote on/off switch as well as a pressure switch. So you'd put your ship in the water then turn on the compressor. If you were sinking, you'd (hopefully) turn off the compressor before going under. If not, it would hydrolock and destroy itself and you'd be out for the day. Since old compressors usually had a big plastic gear, the gear would strip and that would be the failure point. Compressors were mostly used by Big Gun clubs in the 1980's, before they'd discovered CO2. They are actually the origin of the Big Gun rate-of-fire rules. If I were designing this again today, I would include a water sensor as well, to automatically shut off the compressor/compressors once the water level gets high enough. I do plan to perform further tests with this compressor, but for now it is useful in its current form for benchside testing.
I've been using one for small torpedo cruisers, and it works well. https://amzn.to/3Dg1xMu Power it through a pololu RC switch: https://www.pololu.com/product/2803 ...and a similar (though lower pressure cutoff) pressure switch: https://amzn.to/3D8aibv Looking forward to trying it out in battle this weekend.
