SpudFiles

I was messing around with a disposable lighter yesterday, and realised that once you remove the straw and any other limiting part of the lighter, the actual valve has a fairly decent flow. (Take a look at how much butane comes out of the lighter when the straw is gone)


So anyway, I thought there must be some good uses for these tiny little valves. Any ideas? The best thing I've thought of is to remove the spring and add somthing else to stop the internals from sliding too far. This gives you a very very small, threaded check valve that doesn't require much pressure to open. Could be usefull to integrate one into the piston of a gun with O-rings on the piston.

Unfortunately due to the mechanics of the valve, it can only hold so much pressure before it starts to leak. I guess if you added another spring to it you could bump that up a bit, at the cost of less flow.





Has anyone here ever used one of these tiny valves for anything interesting?

Hmm...the only thing I could think of using it for would be loading fuel, or something like that.A manual safety?

u pretty much said it. it's a small threaded safety valve. not only does it release the butane on demand, it also keeps the lighter from exploding before u buy it. that is y if u leave a lighter in the sun it will begin to lose gas instead of taking ur arm off in a ball of fire. but it won't generate enough flow to pilot a piston valve unless it's a pen sized piston valve. sounds like an affordable way to make a mini repeater (full auto, maybe).

I tried making a dart gun using one (to shoot pins) but it didn't work well. The best use is that and a lighter with a bbq lighter tube(what the fuel goes through) and a syringe for fuel metering.

What if you inverted the valve, so that the pressure closes it instead of opening?
Could use it as a hammer valve then right?

i-will wrote:u pretty much said it. it's a small threaded safety valve. not only does it release the butane on demand, it also keeps the lighter from exploding before u buy it. that is y if u leave a lighter in the sun it will begin to lose gas instead of taking ur arm off in a ball of fire. but it won't generate enough flow to pilot a piston valve unless it's a pen sized piston valve. sounds like an affordable way to make a mini repeater (full auto, maybe).

In my experience these lighters they will indeed explode if overheated. I've had several explode when stored in a car in the summer time. Car internal temp gets around 150F and kablooie goes the lighter.

Insomniac
Any idea what the thread is on the valve?

You can also boost the flow form the lighter (without removing the "straw" (which isn't actually a straw, it's some kind of foam)) by just removing the metal shroud and repositioning the flame height adjuster lever.

http://www.inpharmix.com/jps/Fuel%20Met ... ghter.html

cool any idea which pressure it can hold?
maybe a pilot for a mini

I also have wondered that, but figured that the flow was far to tiny to launch anything that doesn't require a microscope to operate,

I have actually been wondering about using the nozzle on a butane refill bottle as a hammer valve, it is a metal nozzle so it can take some abuse it's all a question of whether I can make a hammer strong enough to activate it, and whether the flow is decent enough for bb's.

Interesting how long does the flame last?

Im thinking... pen gun pilot.

They would not be good for piloting pen guns, they are pretty low pressure, and penguns really need to be filled from the same port as firing to avoid a hassle...

[quote="jimmy101Insomniac
Any idea what the thread is on the valve?

You can also boost the flow form the lighter (without removing the "straw" (which isn't actually a straw, it's some kind of foam)) by just removing the metal shroud and repositioning the flame height adjuster lever.
[/quote]


Not sure about the thread... it's pretty fine though. I already knew about the trick where you keeep moving the adjuster across, but if you remove the foamy thing the gas comes out much much quicker. Pity the flame only stays that huge for a couple of seconds.

Poop I was thinking pocket flamethrower oh well.

wow
how about modding it for higher pressure and make a pocket flame thower, throwing out all gas at a decent pressure had to be nice

I would find a way to hook up the lighter permanently to one of those butane fill bottles, that way you could have a much larger supply of gas, so you could actually keep it going for longer.