Paintball Regulator question

[coryS]

Hi guys, this is my first post and i was wondering if you could help me. I was wondering if you could use a paintball gun regulator and hook it up to a co2 for a pneumatic potato gun. You can adjust it from 50 psi to 450. I'm trying to make my first piston potato gun for my senior project. And sorry if this has been asked before but i looked everywhere and couldn't find anything

here is the website for the one i was looking at "http://www.paintball-online.com/shop/Dy ... eadReviews"

[rcman50166]

Well you have definitely come to the right place. I'll be the first to say that you will need to specify exactly what you want to do. People here are very quick to answer and always answer intelligently.

The idea is not bad. I myself am currently designing a CO2 driven piston cannon. I would find something with a gauge on it myself, it's risky business going above 200psi with PVC and especially with CO2. I'm using this to regulate my CO2 pressures.

Welcome to Spudfiles

[Technician1002]

Check if the project has any safety regulations. The project I mentored some school students has a 100 PSI limit. A higher pressure source could be used, but it must be regulated to no more than 100 PSI.

[coryS]

@ rcman50166 I want to regulate the flow of co2 to a psi of 100. I was going to adjust the velocity screw on the bottom to 100psi and i also would put a guage on the chamber itself. I would have a ball valve to shut when it reached it's top psi just to stop flow just in case. And thank you for making me feel welcome here

@ Technician1002 It does not have a psi limit. But i want to keep it at 100 psi for personal safety. I'm just curious if this would work.

[D_Hall]

Could it be done? Yes.

SHOULD it be done? I would argue against it. There's just not a lot of safety margin there. Open the regulator a tiny bit too much and you've got a world of trouble on your hands. Better to use a regulator that maxes out somewhere around the pressure you've got in mind rather than 450 psi.

And at the very least, use a safety relief valve.

[rcman50166]

Could it be done? Yes.

SHOULD it be done? I would argue against it. There's just not a lot of safety margin there. Open the regulator a tiny bit too much and you've got a world of trouble on your hands. Better to use a regulator that maxes out somewhere around the pressure you've got in mind rather than 450 psi.

And at the very least, use a safety relief valve.

Oh yes sorry, I forgot to mention that as well, I would definitely recommend a safety relief valve as well. They just thread on to the chamber and come in a variety of release pressures. I recommendthis one

[coryS]

Thank you guy's for your help so far. So if/when i use a safety relief valve will it vent fast enough? Or should I install multiple's just in case?

Also how to you link websites to words like that. I tried and couldn't figure out how. Sorry for being a forum noob lol

[rcman50166]

Thank you guy's for your help so far. So if/when i use a safety relief valve will it vent fast enough? Or should I install multiple's just in case?

Also how to you link websites to words like that. I tried and couldn't figure out how. Sorry for being a forum noob lol

One valve should be fine. All it needs to do is drop below critical pressure, the valve will close at a lower pressure by itself.

You imbed URL's by typing {url=urlnamehere}textyouwanttohyperlink{/url}. Replace the {} with [] and you should be all set

[Technician1002]

Thank you guy's for your help so far. So if/when i use a safety relief valve will it vent fast enough? Or should I install multiple's just in case?

Also how to you link websites to words like that. I tried and couldn't figure out how. Sorry for being a forum noob lol

A safety relief valve should be able to vent as fast or faster than the maximum air delivery rate of your source.

If your source is a shop compressor, using one like the one on the compressor will work fine, but set for the lower pressure of the cannon. The air hose size will limit maximum flow from the compressor accumulator. To test if one is enough, start filling the cannon and open the relief valve by hand. If the pressure starts to drop back down, it is big enough.

The relief valve is to protect the launcher from overpressure from someone connecting it to too high a pressure source. The single relief valve should keep up with the flow output from the paintball regulator if you use a small diameter hose as a flow limiter. Most paintball regulators have the small ID hose. Don't replace it with another hose.

For my cannons, I use a compressor with a relief set to 110 PSI. The compressor cut out pressure is 100 PSI, so I haven't added an additional one. My small launcher built into a disposable propane bottle is using the original relief valve and the big t shirt cannon is using the original burst disk as backup protection, but it is unlikely the cannons will ever get close to the operating pressure of the relief as the cannons operate below 1/3 that pressure.

On my comressor, if I lift the pop off relief valve by hand, it remains open until the tank has bled down to about 1/2 pressure.

[Procyon]

1st post here as well. I'm working on a semi-auto revolver using co2. Here's a link to the site for the regulator. The guy is slow in filling orders so plan on a couple of weeks before you get it.

http://www.kegkits.com/Merchant2/mercha ... gory_Code=

Nice bunch of folks here. It's been very helpful.