I am building a small battleship for use in the local pool and I want to make one of the guns squirt water. Unfortunately, small electric pumps seem to be something of a rarity... I have seen the pretty crazy height the water from those bilge pumps you use gets to, I thought maybe one of those integrated so that it was open to the water below the boat could provide a good single barrel gun. What do you think? What pump would you recommend?
you might try a micro pump. Another option would be using co2 to propel a slug o water out the barrel.
Well, it depends on what sort of ship you've got and what sort of power supply it has. If you've got a decently big battery, you could run one of the full-size battleship pumps that you've seen throwing so much water into the air. However, those require a pretty big battery and draw a lot of power. Running a small pump or micro pump will take less power and a smaller battery, but will have a proportionally smaller range.
I only need it to go maybe 5-8 feet to look impressive. When you say "really big battery" do you mean this is something I can't power with a pack of say six 1.5v batteries?
If that's the case then I don't think you'll need one of the monstrous Large Pumps. Some of those things are so powerful they're almost like destruct-o-ray laser beams. I think Archer's initial suggestion of a micro pump will fit your needs the best. It could probably run for hours on six AA batteries.
If you are just looking to spray a little water out for "looks" get a pump made for a car wind sheild wippers. Or a fish tank circulating pump.
Thanks, I will definitely consider the smaller one! I don't want to knock anyone out I have been using some smaller pumps, however in order to keep the pressure high with such low water volume they end up using crazy small tubing that is hard to find fittings for. Hence I end up designing the ship on the tube length on the guns! Eventually the idea is to build multiple ships, each with a gun and a water detector. When the detector fills, it will either set of a light or, for more realism, open a solenoid valve to flood the hull. These are the pumps I am looking at from Battlers Connection, you would recommend the smaller size, then? http://www.battlersconnection.com/html/damagecontrol.html