SpudFiles

Hi i am new to this great site. Been launching golf balls and other projectiles for years now by other means other than air and have got back into pneumatics again, so i have quite a few questions to ask. As a safety rule myself i only deal with metal valving piping and pressure chambers , as i am a bit wary about plastic exploding in the face etc.
At the moment i have made a nice qev valve operated golf launcher with a 12" tube and 1kg pressure chamber, pumps up fine to 100psi but my only problem is finding a snug fit bore. I have at the moment about 1mm play in the metal tub i found which gives about 50 yards range but by cutting short 40mm plastic tubing about 25 mm long and lathing a step on the ball and super gluing together which turns it into a self sealing shuttle cock, it improves range considerably . At 200 psi it really flys which i am satisfied for this size design.
Hopefully i can use this design for launching line for tree work.
My only problem is pressuring the chamber, yes i can use a compressor but thats not portable or flexible for remote areas to use, at the moment i can get up to 110 psi with a cheap track pump and then finish it off to 200 psi with a airgun pump which takes a lot of effort. I have looked at some of the posts under search about track pumps but they are old topics, and technology has moved on so i am wondering what you guys use-as of 2021. What i would like is a track pump that can at least pump to 300psi max. I don't want to use a airgun pump as they take ages just to get to 50psi let alone 200psi unless mine is broken. A track pump seems to be much less pumps and effort. Anyone seen a good track pump on the market to-date, i did see a pump called a Jobsworth vortex but it looks discontinued, are there other and better but not in the airgun class.
There is an alternative but a bit costly and that is using a Co2 inflator. What do they charge up to and how many charges of 100psi can i get out of a Co2 cylinder, any of you use them, don't know that much about them.

If it were me, I'd go with an HPA tank, either a SCUBA tank or a large paintball air tank. That's the problem with pneumatics and even higher mix hybrids: you gotta get an air supply out to your shooting area. I use low mix hybrids and a regular bike pump. In your situation I'd go with HPA because I don't think you can avoid doing a lot of annoying pumping with pressures like that. Even with a medium sized 3x hybrid, there is a lot of pumping from a bike pump but it's manageable because the air pressures are low. 200psi pneumatic? Forget it. Go with HPA.

Air tanks are the best bet but my air cylinders are heavy dive cylinders for my airguns so a bit of a lump to carry about. I was thinking of a small12 volt car compressor to carry but i don't think you can get to 200psi at the most.
I did have a try with a Co2 bike pump cylinder but it was useless . I think a will stick to a track bike pump at least its light to carry, bit like swings and roundabout with these pumps as i read some pumps don't take that many pumps to get up to 100 psi, anyone recommend a certain type and make they use.

I have a dive pony or buddy bottle about .6 in size, i was wondering how many 200psi fills i can get out of it, may be worth the effort to get it up and running.

Welcome to the forum!

golf45 wrote: ↑

Sat Apr 10, 2021 6:14 pm

There is an alternative but a bit costly and that is using a Co2 inflator. What do they charge up to and how many charges of 100psi can i get out of a Co2 cylinder, any of you use them, don't know that much about them.

Here is a useful chart from the spudfiles wiki:



Basically if you have chamber 2 inches in diameter and 8 inches long, you will get 1 x 200 psi fill from a 12 gram cartridge.

Other things to consider are that CO2 is very temperature sensitive, here is a little chart:



As you can see, you will have about double the pressure at 30 degrees Celsius compared to 5 degrees.

Also, CO2 is denser than air, and therefore it will tend to give lower velocity for the same pressure compared to air.

A good track pump is probably your best bet, something decent like a higher end Beto pump: