Pneumatic Catapult

Gun Freak · Tue Feb 23, 2010 6:39 pm

I was thinking about a catapult powered by a pneumatic gun, basically it would be a regular air tank with a ball valve or another type, and on the other side there is a 45 d. elbow that faces up and there is another length of pipe that would house a piston. On the piston, there is a bar that can pivot on the piston end and on the other side it connected to an arm that pivots so when the air is released it pushes the piston and launches the arm foward. I have put a lot of thought into this. Much more than I explained in this post, so if you have any ideas then post a reply. I probably won't end up doing it because of the amount of work needed for the body and everything but maybe somebody else would. Perhaps this has been discussed before... but I haven't seen a thread.

~Gun Freak

iknowmy3tables · Tue Feb 23, 2010 7:51 pm

why would you do it? you lose energy moving the mechanical parts, a pneumatic gun would out preform this

Gun Freak · Tue Feb 23, 2010 7:54 pm

I understand that but it would be so cool. And as I stated, I wasn't planning on doing this.

iknowmy3tables · Tue Feb 23, 2010 8:21 pm

so you think it is cool... but you also understand that it's not efficient right? so then you should understand why we don't care

roboman · Tue Feb 23, 2010 8:48 pm

So, basically, you want to hook up a homemade pneumatic cylinder to a lever?

Sounds terribly inefficient. Also, it has been done before, just not by anyone on this site (that I know of).

Why did you post about it if you weren't going to build it?

Gun Freak · Tue Feb 23, 2010 9:01 pm

Just an idea... this thread is for discussion. And we are discussing how inefficient it would be. CASE CLOSED.

maverik94 · Tue Feb 23, 2010 9:03 pm

so you think it is cool... but you also understand that it's not efficient right? so then you should understand why we don't care

Hey dude, that's pretty harsh. I think he knows what he's talking about, If he's interested in making it and undertands the limit of the device, why put nim down? cmon! Show some understanding please!!

Anyway, back on topic, I understand what you're trying to do Gunfreak, I don't think it's been done on spudfiles before, but it would be pretty cool if nothing else. I'm not sure, would the fact that the arm of the catupult is a lever give it some extra power?

Zeus · Tue Feb 23, 2010 9:15 pm

It has been done on a televison show going by the name of Scrapheap Challenge. It is a British program which is on a constant repeat in Australia. They used the air suspension spring from a truck.
It ended up hurling a 15Kg dummy over 100 metres.

Gun Freak · Tue Feb 23, 2010 9:19 pm

maverik94 wrote:I'm not sure, would the fact that the arm of the catupult is a lever give it some extra power?

If the rod attached to the arm of the catapult were lowered it would have more leverage but it would also take more force. A good balance of leverage and power would have to be found.

Zeus wrote:It has been done on a televison show going by the name of Scrapheap Challenge. It is a British program which is on a constant repeat in Australia. They used the air suspension spring from a truck.
It ended up hurling a 15Kg dummy over 100 metres.

So it could potentially work pretty good... if one were to build it.

bighead33 · Thu Feb 25, 2010 12:51 am

i know what you mean but i wold like to see a drawing or maybe you could work some thing out on paint.