Baseballs

[Batmaker]

I need to build an air cannon capable of firing baseballs at up to 170 MPH for the purposes of testing wood bats. (170 is combination of pitch speed and bat speed.) It will be stationary and in a shop environment with lots of safety precautions. Does anyone know of plans that would be suitable for this. I have a shop compressor that can put out 170 psi. Thanks for any help. John

[dudeman508]

On this site you really shouldn't ask for plans, But you should use the search button and after you do the research people on the site will give you some suggestions.

[sputnick]

Well for starters you may want to consider purchasing something like the mauler valve since I assume you are not so much interested in building as the finished product, then just attach a pipe that fits a baseball well, and a large air tank to the bottom of the valve, then adjust the pressure until you get the desired effect, that is really about as specific as I can be, given that I do not know your specific needs.

If you know how to solvent weld pipe and check for pressure ratings then it is pretty straight forward from there.

Good luck!

[daberno123]

250 fps won't be too hard to get with a baseball. Try downloading a copy of GGDT (search the wiki for it) to get some hard numbers.

You'll need a sabot as baseballs do not fit in any standard pipe sizes I know of.

As this is your first cannon, some pressure rated PVC pipe and fittings with a 1" modified sprinkler valve would be easiest. Take a good look through the wiki (in top-right corner) and you'll find all the info you'll need.

Once you've done some more research come back with some more specific questions, because as dudeman508 put so bluntly "you really shouldn't ask for plans." We generally dislike spoon-feeding information to make a potentially deadly weapon to just anyone. I'm sure you understand why.

Don't worry, though, your grammar is excellent and your first post wasn't as vague as a lot of the ones we get.

Welcome to Spudfiles! I hope you stick around.

[Batmaker]

Thanks. I will look around further. I have looked around on quite a few sites with no luck. I'm starting a new business with a new invention that already entails lots of new learning curves because no one else is doing what I am doing. I've already had to invent machinery to build my product. This is for 7 days a week for the past 4 months. You'll have to forgive me if I show "learn something new" burnout. I'm doing this all with cash from having sold my home. Hopefully it's not all for naught and I can actually make some money someday. But hey, nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? I'm sure I'll be back with further questions. Cheers.

[starman]

Yeah, your best bet would be a pneumatic model which would allow you repeatability and fairly quick construction. You should be able to use a 3" dia. barrel with sabots as daberno mentioned. Also, for your purposes the mauler valve at launchpotatoes.com or the supa valve at spudtech.com will shorted your learning curve quite a lot.

We're still not going to plan your air cannon for you, but it sounds like you have a other things taking your cpu cycles so give it a decent effort and we'll help you get going in no time.

Download GGDT and start your plans.... run it by us as you go, especially if you have questions.

[jeepkahn]

Or you may want to consider commisioning one of the sponsors to build a cannon to the specs you require... I'm sure they'll be happy to work with you on how you want it layed out and can prolly design it to be used as a stationary(for lab testing) fixture... They may even be able to source barrel materiel that wouldn't require a sabot for shooting baseballs ...

OK sgort and jagerbond, you may want to throw him a bid by pm....