*Updated* 4" Piston Valve now mounted to FEAR

[Technician1002]

Has anyone else noticed a fridge compressor ?

Hotwired did.

Also, scale doesn't quite come across in that video until you note how small the fridge compressor looks.

[ramses]

ear plugs. you should wear them.

and ear muffs

[turner]

wow that thing would be soooo cool you could shoot footballs or something. Are you ever going to have internal pictures?

[Killjoy]

So I have some good news and bad news that has developed very quickly over the past few days.

The good news is I have a friend who is patent lawyer and is interested in helping me patent my valve design (the physical design features and application). I also have family and acquaintances from different industries who see a lot of potential for my valve design in their respective fields.

Bad news is that going through the patent process, something I figure my valve wouldn't be interesting enough to go through with, and by my request of lawyer and interested acquaintances means no more info or videos/ pictures specific to the valve.

Sorry guys, I really wanted to share and I never saw this coming. Ya'll probably won't see anything on the valve till brief test videos/pictures with it on FEAR.
I appreciate the kind words though!

[Technician1002]

I figured the field was full of air cannons with most stuff patented so I figured my design and application had limited commercial value and possible legal challenges down the line.

Due to the legal costs, I simply opted to avoid the mess and open source as I have no commercial manufacture planned.

With the design posted here and elsewhere,, it is published and will be a clear prior art for anyone trying to copy the design and patent it.

Martin Engineering and others have large commercial air blaster valve and systems. Most shirt launchers use a smaller valve, higher pressure, for a smaller compact launcher using CO2.

Is the patent fight really worth it? Are you planning on any large commercial run?

[Killjoy]

The design of this valve was made with the potential of commercial production down the road. For the applications I've designed it for, I know of no other valves with the same design features as mine. The patent fight might not be worth it, but I won't really know until I look into it and see if other patents exist for a similar design (which I have yet to find) or even if it is worth it to patent.

Also I was lucky. Because I've known the patent lawyer for a very long time and he is a very good family friend, he has volunteered his services to helping me, otherwise I never would have considered looking into a patent.

[warhead052]

Holy ..... Thats awesome.

[mark.f]

So I guess it isn't just a normal hybrid piston valve, then. So effectively you're going to patent a massive high flow pop off valve? (Not saying the workings are the same, just the end result.)

[jackssmirkingrevenge]

The patent fight might not be worth it, but I won't really know until I look into it and see if other patents exist for a similar design (which I have yet to find) or even if it is worth it to patent.

I don't want to put a damper on your aspirations but I doubt your design is original, the field of pneumatics is literally centuries old and unless your valve uses some technology or concept that wasn't available in the last 50 years, someone has probably already come up with the same idea.

Again, not trying to diminish your achievement, I wish you the best of luck with turning this into a commercial venture.

[Killjoy]

Your not putting a damper at all Jack. I have no doubt someone likely has a patent out based on the concepts this valve is based on, and likely even a similar design so I'm pretty skeptical at the moment. But if I have the resources I might as well use them and see where the road goes.

@mark,
Simply put, yeah. What I am banking on as making this patentable is the way the valve is assembled, attributes of the piston, and a particular application of the valve I developed. For now I'm just talking with the lawyer and go from there. Doesn't mean any patent or full pursuit of patent yet.

Edit
Ah ha. Found a patent based on the same concept my valve is. Considerably more complicated then mine though.
http://www.google.com/patents?id=IikaAA ... &q&f=false

[Technician1002]

Be sure to look at the internals of commercial piston valves to look for prior art. In particular, I would recommend looking at the Martin Engineering products in the Hurricane and Tornado lines.

http://www.martin-eng.com/products/big- ... air-cannon
Check the operator and maintenance manuals in PDF form on the site. Is your design anything new?

[Killjoy]

Ah yes, I reviewed Martin's stuff before well before my project. The only similarity is that Martin's valves and mine are both piston valves.
The specific internals of my valve and how it pilots are different and "new" from other valves as far as I can tell from my research the past few nights. Only time will tell if this is true though.

[Killjoy]

Updated the front page. I put up a picture of the piston valve mounted to FEAR's combustion chamber. Check it out if you're interested.

[mattyzip77]

now that is some serious mutha f*#%ing fire power!! I like it!! 8)