SpudFiles

my idea is a dry ice powered, burst disc cannon. dry ice can be combined with water in the pressure chamber and a standard burst disc is used. no need for compressors is a plus. ill update with progress. comments or questions?

It seems like it wold work, but my only question is that what type of chamber are you going to use? If pvc, would it still be safe?

good idea though. you should try and develop this idea

These have been done before...

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They're a little unpredictable for my liking, especially for something handheld.

the only problem i see about the dry ice cannon is that what if you didn't put the right about of dry ice. your cannon will be pressured and no way to let the pressure go safely.

Well if that did happen you could always drop a potato or something with a nail in it to puncture it or a lead ball and to make it safer you could make a trap door thing so it would fall in and rupture when you are at a safe distance not right next to it.

If you have cheap access to dry ice, it could be good for some nice, safe entertainment (as dry ice will only generate about 800 psi, it's not too incredibly difficult to work with). Otherwise, it's more trouble than it's worth.

Standard aluminum or copper tube would be fine for this, even steel as long as you weren't knocking it around while it was pressurised and cold.

However, as Starman said, too unpredictable to be of great use in a serious cannon (and not very powerful, due to the low temperature and high molecular mass of CO₂).

I updated the wikipedia entry with dry ice bomb cannons not long ago.

It's exactly the same thing but simpler, the bottle provides the high pressure high flow gas release when it ruptures.

Not a big fan of it, not least because it goes off a random time after you get it going, anything from seconds to hours.