has anyone tried running cannons without the piston springs? I've been playing with my cannons here a bit and I have made some that function just fine with only the pistons weight returning it to the down position. also, as long as the piston is not tilted more than ~25-30 degrees off vertical, it still functions fine. This was not what I expected to have happen, I am wondering if anyone else has experimented with it. It seemed to activate fine, and return fine... (the return might be due to the sloppy fit of the piston in these particular cannon and the weight of the piston). It does not have a greater affinity for spurt fire/misfire than any of the standard cannon I have bought/built over the years. looking for commentary. -Greg
I've done some with no springs... I used servod to fire the guns on that boat, so I can't say if it affected my rate of fire, but they worked.
I was firing it by hand and it seemed to have no trouble at all firing as fast as I could press the valve... I am thinking that I will go all pistonless if another day of testing works out well
I've tried to make a springless cannon & a pistonless cannon.. Neither worked as well. The pistonless kept shooting the bbs out of the magazine as soon as the "firing" bb hit the o-ring... Not a great idea after all! GO figure! I've also tried it without a spring return... The problem was the piston kept getting jammed when the next bb tried to come down. So I use a very small piece of spring to gaurantee the piston will fall below the magazine hole. Also, if you are interested; I have more information about my Kat Cannons... Visit this site
I've rolled some piston interupter cannons and they have no springs. However I've just got them fireing from a popet valve and I don't have any air line going to the mag either. I used brass tubing and a nickle plated coller soildered to it to make the piston and polished the chamber the piston rides in and they havent jamed in aprox 1000 bb's for each gun since I got the bug's worked-out. BB's every where garage, driveway ,front yard ,back yard. You name it there's bb's there LOL. I have foam board thats as hevey as ply wood.hehehehe They go through blue dow board 1 1/2" at a range of 5' but when I tighten the o-ring further they will almost go 3" but rate of fire is super slow. (1 1/2"is plenty of power I'm guesing)never battled. I'm sure oyu guy's are already went through all this so please tell me should I use a valve with more flow capacity than a popet from battlers connection/are they ment to be used as a fireing valve? And if I were to use silenoid would I need to just start over from the begining or can I use them to fire my cannons??
Nice looking cannon, Steve If you're using one poppet per gun, you'll be fine. If you later decide to switch over to solenoids, you just disconnect the hose from the poppet and hook up the hose from the solenoid Piece of cake, don't sweat it. When you say that the rate of fire is super slow, is that only with the O-ring tightened a lot, or is it just a low rate of fire all the time?
Cannon with no piston spring will work untill they jam... probibly right after "War" is declared. The issue with lack of mag gas feed, is that the bbs tend to get pushed back to the feed end of the mag, then have to roll back under gravity. So with the mag full, the fire rate is "sort of" OK. But as the mag gets less bbs in it, the rate of fire drops off. Also you need to have gravity feed for the entire length, which makes for difficult install job in actual ships. Put a piston spring in, and a mag feed, then you will have a more realible cannon. You may have to fool around with the spring to get it right, but in the end its worth it.
Yea only when its realy tight. I have noticed the bb's rolling back and forth thank's. I didn't think you could get away whith nonegravety feed in the setup/install?
Only gravity feed, can be done in some ships. It is just a pain, and you get that slow fire rate. When the mags are nearly empty, you may have to wait a second or two between shots. Depending on the angle you can fit into the ship.
Your setup is very similar to mine... I agree with your report that they don't jam / jam infrequently, HOWEVER, murphy will let anything happen that you've never seen before when it really counts. For the price of a spring & the complexity of the mag feed, why not just use them.. At least that was my thought process & they seem to be working well on the prototype... We will see once they are actually in battle.
