New video of the final round of testing. Both my castor wheel piston and 3D printed piston held up well. Was able to achieve Mach 1.2 (fps reading not in the video). I think I am calling this one closed and moving on to the next project. https://www.youtube.com/edit?video_id=mR-rXoVXcaI&video_referr...

jackssmirkingrevenge wrote:

What material are you printing with? I don't think ABS is quite up to the job.

I will be testing an ABS one and a PLA one.

Update: Year 3 of the LRCH Project So I haven't done much since the last round of testing I did back in December 2016. Now, I am preparing for a 3rd round of testing over labor day weekend in a few weeks. Here is a list of updates implemented. -Piston ReDesign -Spark Plug moved to center chamber Reg...

That looks mad powerful! What kind of velocity did you record on the chrono in your video with a golf ball? Thank you! You will really like what I have next. Unfortunately we were unable to get a clean reading. We suspect that the "whoosh" from the muzzle interfered. We will try again over Labor Day.

Have finally gotten it to a point where I am ready to showcase it. Steel chamber with aluminum barrel. Cam lock breech loading system. Piston made out of all thread, 2 caster wheels, o rings, and a piece of a dog toy. Shoots up to 9X mixtures at the moment. Enjoy.

Delayed Again. For those who don't know, the reason testing is so complicated is because I have to go off site into another state where there is a place I can legally and safely fire it. I can't do it at home because I live in the city (where they frown upon such things) and because I have not gotte...

Side Note: Firing off a blank in the garage with the garage door closed in a suburban neighborhood is still loud enough for someone to call the police. There was a gun drawn and everything. So how did you explain that one :shock: Came clean about it. He then basically told me how stupid I am and no...

A few changes since last time. Coming up on 2 years into this project, but some things get better with age. (Not me obviously) I got a sudden surge of productivity in between projects and decided to build a mount and put the cannon through final finishes early. The main goal for the mount was to mak...

I'm not done yet. The project has been on hold for several months due to lack of funding and other higher priorities, but now I have dusted it off and continued development. Call this Phase II: Systems Integration. Here are the plans for the next 3 months. -Build a mount with manual pitch control -I...

November 26, 2015 What better time to test the Ole golf ball cannon than after Thanksgiving dinner. I assembled the LRCH-200 for the second attempt at Operational Test 1. It went through pressure tests and met the tolerances. Functional testing also showed it could hold pressure after cycling a few ...

Work is my main constraint. I also have other projects that take priority. Like putting together the baby nursery for example. :) I went up to 100PSI. It started leaking at 65PSI. I used Ultra black gasket sealant to seal all the piston components. The sealing face has a void in it that I filled wit...

Functional Testing commenced September 5th at Simalusa Creek in Louisiana. Initial results were good, until I got to higher pressures. Note that functional tests are pneumatic only, no fuel. After a few cycles, leaking was detected. I concluded that: A. The sealing compound for the piston components...

Unfortunately not an engineer...yet.

LP-4 piston is making progress. LRCH 200 is slated for operational testing this weekend at the proving grounds.

Jakerz,

Go PVC in my opinion. I've never had trouble with it in the 10 years I've used it. Even with nonpressure rated PVC, it holds up well. However, I would use pressure rated just to be safe. Happy Spudding.

So it has been awhile. The LRCH-100 project went stagnant back in December after the failure of the functional test. This test was a pressure test, and piston function test. Piston function was good but pointless since it leaked. The LP-1 piston design was therefore scrapped. So it sat for 6 months ...