Lighter nozzle instead of Syringe?

VirusX · Mon Oct 12, 2009 1:35 pm

Hi,

My idea is to use a lighter instead of a Syringe. I could fill the lighter with the calculated amount of butane and then fill it with the lighter nozzle in the chamber. I think this is much more comfortable then using a syringe.

The only problem is, that it takes hours to get the full amount of butane in the chamber.

Is there any possibility to set the amount of outcoming gase higher? For example the hole amount of gase comes out with one or two presses on the lighter button?

jimmy101 · Mon Oct 12, 2009 2:21 pm

I could fill the lighter with the calculated amount of butane

Don't understand why you would want to do it that way. The syringe is going to be easier and faster.

It is possible to increase the flow rate of a typical cheapo butane lighter. I doubt though that you can get it as fast as you would like. The typical lighter supplies about 1cc/sec. It is possible to get that up to between 5 and 10cc per second.

See here, scroll down to the section "Anatomy of a Cheap Butane Lighter"

ThegunGuy · Mon Oct 12, 2009 2:32 pm

On all the lighters that I have that can be refilled there is a little dial surrounding the place you put butane into, turn that in the direction that has a plus sign all the way without unscrewing and letting all the fuel out. This is assuming you you know exactly how much butane you are using if you want the potato gun to fire right.

theBOOM · Mon Oct 12, 2009 3:01 pm

Hm I posted a LONG information block on your last mini combustion thread... but it somehow didn't go threw and I didn't feel like re-typing it all over again...N'way what I did is screw of the valve that the butane goes out off, and then epoxied or forced it into a syringe which had a small hole drilled so that it could accommodate the small piece of the valve. Just buy one of those butane refill cans for refilling small butane lighters and all you have to do is push the syringe with the valve into the small tank and it will fill up

Any quaestiones, ask..

BTW this isn't exactly the way you thought of doing it but I think this is easier than having to deal with the syringe , small diam tubing and needles, to much drama. BTW I recommend this for small launchers like a 30ml volume or less..

VirusX · Mon Oct 12, 2009 4:21 pm

theBOOM wrote:Hm I posted a LONG information block on your last mini combustion thread... but it somehow didn't go threw and I didn't feel like re-typing it all over again...N'way what I did is screw of the valve that the butane goes out off, and then epoxied or forced it into a syringe which had a small hole drilled so that it could accommodate the small piece of the valve. Just buy one of those butane refill cans for refilling small butane lighters and all you have to do is push the syringe with the valve into the small tank and it will fill up

Any quaestiones, ask..

BTW this isn't exactly the way you thought of doing it but I think this is easier than having to deal with the syringe , small diam tubing and needles, to much drama. BTW I recommend this for small launchers like a 30ml volume or less..

Hi,

I know your idea with the syringe but I live in a very small village, stores are many kilometers away and it isn't so easy to get a syringe. So I have to take what I have in my house

jimmy101 · Tue Oct 13, 2009 3:32 pm

VirusX wrote: I know your idea with the syringe but I live in a very small village, stores are many kilometers away and it isn't so easy to get a syringe. So I have to take what I have in my house

Then you best bet is probably to calibrate a lighter.

Read my page on how to use a piece of wire insulation as the tubing. Install the tubing on the lighter and run the tube into an inverted glass measuring cup filled with water. Trigger the lighter and measure how much gas it puts out in say 5 seconds.

Calculate who much 4% of your gun's chamber volume is. Calculate how many seconds it takes your lighter to supply that amount of fuel.

Not quite as good as a syringe (or other type of meter) but still better than spray and pray.

theBOOM · Tue Oct 13, 2009 3:42 pm

You could try what jimmy said, you could also use a syringe that come in the epoxies ( the ones that have syringes) just cut it in half and seal it with something and it should work. OR you could try to do a 1 potatoe , 2 potatoe , 3 potatoe count.... (works better in minis) just open the valve to let butane out and calculate how many seconds of butane you need.