How To Make A High Power Air Cannon - 2" Piston Valve (Barrel Sealing)
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- Опубліковано 8 лют 2025
- In this video I build a high power air cannon using a PVC piston from my previous video (seen here): • How To Make PVC Piston...
In case you're wondering how this cannon valve operates, I demonstrate the internal function at the 5:35 mark in this video.
The sprinkler valve I use at the end of the video was modified as shown here: • How to Make an Explosi...
Check out my Patreon page and if you like my projects a contribution would be awesome! Link: / nighthawkprojects
Special thanks to my top Patrons! Syniurge, Matthew Leitzke, & TheBackyardScientist!
Music: Sam Davies - Northern Lights (Original Mix)
• Sam Davies - Northern ... (Provided by Silk Music)
Thanks for watching!
Working on a parts list. Am I missing anything?
PVC Primer / glue and teflon tape for the whole project.
ALL pipe and fittings must be marked NSF-pw (rated for pressurized applications)
Piston:
1 1/4" Coupling
1 1/4" End cap
2 1/2" of 1 1/4" Pipe
1 5/8" ID x 2" OD O-Ring
Piston Housing:
2" pipe
1 1/2" pipe
2" Tee Socket
4" of 2" pipe
2" Female threaded adapter
2" to 1 1/2" Reducer Bushing
2" x 1" Threaded Reducer Bushing
1 1/2" rubber pipe coupling
Sheet rubber
Light oil
Air Tank:
2" threaded elbow
2" pipe
2" end cap
Firing Assembly:
1" Ball valve OR Modded sprinkler valve
sch 80 pipe nipple
Schrader valve
Pressure gauge
Barrel:
2' of 1 1/2" pipe
1 1/2" male adapter.
Modded sprinkler valve:
Sprinkler valve
1/4" Hose fitting
2' air compressor hose
2x hose clamps
Small air gun/nozzle for trigger
Looks good, thanks for typing up the list I'm sure it will be useful to others. I'm not sure what the threaded couplings are that you have listed under the piston housing list, that's one correction maybe. And you also need a 2" x 1" threaded reducer bushing. That's the piece that the sheet rubber is glued to and connects the piston valve to the release and fill valves.
I will rewatch the video again and edit the list shortly. If not tonight tomorrow. Hopefully it will help anyone who is going to be replicating this project like myself.
It would be helpful to pin this comment or put the list in your description.
i cant find a Schrader valve and Pressure gauge like the kind that's in this video, my local lowes did not have one, so if you could give me a link to buy one online that will screw into the cannon, like in the video, I would appreciate it very much.
Overly Ecstatic Englishmen you can get a Schader valve from a bike inner tube
Very honored to have one of our recent releases by Sam Davies as the official soundtrack of this one. Massive thanks, NightHawk.
Thanks for the great track
I love quality content like this on UA-cam. No clickbait, no stupid trends, just solid and informative content that looks good. Keep up the great work!
Really smart how you used the rubber coupling to create the seal! Reminds me of the days I used to spend hours at home depot walking up and down the aisles waiting for inspiration to strike. I may try something like this! Thank you for your dedication to this channel :D
dude omg i used to watch all your stuff back in the day! Whatcha doin here?
Lowes always gave me a funny look when I would be shopping for a couple random pipe fittings, some pipe that didn't fit them, bit of sheetmetal, couple feet of absurdly heavy grounding wire, bunch of thin wire.......had to explain ham radio antennas to a number of people with that how its really just a few carefully cut pieces of wire and carefully wrapped cables.
At the start, I didn't quite understand how it was going to work, but when you explained it, once it was finished, it made heaps of sense. Really great build and really well edited I think!!
Thanks!
Scoop Science 16 hours ago?
Patreon supporters get early access to videos
seems legit
NightHawkInLight oh ok
I built this for my kids. Very powerful! One recommendation I would give to anyone trying it out is to make sure you have an AMPLE cushion for the piston to slam back against. I tried rubber gasket material first and it cut through. Then 1/4" thick bullhide leather and it cut through. Finally I found a rubber cork (about 1" thick) that was about the same diameter as the 2" adapter on the narrow side. I drilled a hole through it, modified it slightly with a lathe and glued it into the adapter and it seems to work better. The BIGGEST fail-point is the piston slamming back when you fire it. My cannon has broken twice now from this. Once from the cushion failing and once from the PVC actually breaking from the tremendous force of that piston. If you want this cannon to last, put in a very ample cushion.
I don't know why but his voice makes the video so much better.
yes agreed
He sound and looks like Wil Wheaton.
I made this and it works like a charm, fired a potato out of it and went really far hitting the side of the hill. If you fill the barrel full of snow it turns it into a shotgun. thank you for the project.
Watching these videos make me happy to see how smart some people are, and what intelligence and creativity can do. Makes me feel good as a math major
I’m glad this video is still around. I’m build a throw ball launcher for tree work with this design. I really appreciate the ingenuity!
when I made my first hairspray powered Spud gun it was a lot more powerful thank expected. I shot it at the side of my dad's shed and ended up putting a tater hole in the wall. I was both impressed and in trouble. good times.
O-ring info - It's an AS568-326 o-ring (you can find it anywhere online). O'Reilly Auto parts has it under the National O-ring brand, part number 326. My local O-Reilly has it for $2.99
I've had this idea for a valve mechanism kicking around my mind for a long time. Nice to see it would work!
I suggest using silicone grease instead of oil, petroleum based oils can make o-ring and plastic swell an be brittle it can also be used to lube the valves
Silicone grease fixes (almost) everything.
But you can't get if off of anything. Everything it touches is doomed to be slippery until the end of the universe.
swiss aint that bad but it is the whole point of lubing it :P
Yeah works well. I usually use that in my cannons but only after I know everything works right since it's a pain to clean. Concerning oils damaging the o rings, I've heard that for years but have never seen it happen myself.
NightHawkInLight work fulltime as a mechanic and sometimes brakes are totally ruined because someone used petroleum based lube (like copper grease) doesent happen over night but rather months or even years but i have seen bad cases over just some days.
love your videos anyway ☺
Somebody give this guy a medal!
I love this design. The simplicity of the valve is genius. Lots of the piston valve designs I have seen are far too complicated; this is just neat and tidy. Bonus points for using the already amazing moded sprinkler valve as the pilot valve!!
That's a brilliant firing mechanism.
I am gonna use this for a Candy Cannon for my Front Porch Castle this year! 🎉
Hey man I appreciate you posting all this up I have been wanting to build one like this to launch Frozen bait in the surf
Very clever barrel-sealing valve.
Nice to see that you did your research and built a well-designed cannon with a fast valve. Even the Mythbusters couldn't get this right, and repeatedly made ridiculous cannons with overly-long barrels instead of using faster, higher-flow valves.
The piston valve for this application is pretty cool!
Jesus this thing could be lethal. Very well done
It's nice to see there's fun project how to videos by a true scientist and scholar. Instant subscribe.
cool. looks fun& simple.
on another note: that reverb sound in the last 3 shots with the paper I find oddly satisfying/ amazing.
Now fill it with hydrogen!
Cody'sLab I'd love to see that!
I like the way you think...
Cody'sLab liquid helium
Holy smoke Cody, KingOfRandom and me in one chat!!! :D
Let's Do It !!! and Davehax too!!!
Your laughing after the first shot felt like childhood.
Fantastic.
This works So good! I made one and on the 2nd time it sent me jumping for joy. the first time i had cut the boot too short and air would get through. Second time it worked like a dream
Advanced engineering that went straight over my head
man that piston valve is genious
that valve is killer buddy, nice work.
When zombie apocalypse kicks in.
I'm sticking with this guy
This is incredible. Awesome work man.
that's a great valve design. I'ma have to run to Lowe's now.
I've been a sub for a couple years now, it's always nice to see a new upload from you. There's always neat projects coming out of your channel. It would be awesome to see this scaled up to a larger barrel to fire larger projectiles, perhaps a mounted cannon variant. Keep at it Night, your videos are always something to look forward to.
a smart mind is always behind these projects keep them coming ! cheers :D
the pyros favorite youtuber
I've been watching you since sixth grade
Love the great explanation! Awesome build!
a suggestion for you @NightHawkInLight is to put the cap on the end of the canon where it fires out. I made a simple air cannon where it is literally just pvp with a schrader valve in it with a tube at the end and the cap on it blasted through my stone wall (2 feet thick) with ease. but it shattered. i deserved that
Thanks for the awesome design I am currently building this project except I am putting it in the back of a vacuum cannon!!!
Ah thank you my friend. Been looking for a cheap way to produce a reciprocating air piston
Whoa. Thats awesome. Nice job man!
In the end, that mad genius laugh of success! Love it!
Im gonna try to build this one for my exams at the last high school year. Im serious, with arduino I can apply a IR tracker to a target. Really really really cool.
Love the vids - so well explained and structured. Keep up the outstanding work!
Very cool. I had been thinking of how to make a valve like that out of plastic tubing from time to time.
I wonder if that blowgun you put on the sprinkler valve would work straight up on the back of it. You probably don't need a very sudden release of gas. Once the piston starts to open up at all, the pressure that goes in the barrel barrel really upsets the balance and gets it opening up really fast regardless (provided there's some sort of projectile in the barrel)
Whatever valve is used behind the piston just needs to be able to let air out faster than it can refill from the small port hole in the side. However, the faster the air is dumped out of the back the faster the piston will move, so a small blowgun valve would make it pretty slow opening. It would be too close in size to the port hole so a lot of air from the chamber itself would empty before pressure was low enough behind the piston to pull it backwards. If instead of just an open hole in the side of the piston you had a one way check valve that would help solve the issue of using a blowgun, but still the larger the valve the better to get that quick backward snap of the piston.
NightHawkInLight I found that out the hard way as I used a fill set up from past cannons that hooks up to my compressor doesn't let out air fast enough. couldn't find the o ring though so if you could link that it'd be appreciated
Once the seal breaks, the piston actually should accelerate more slowly (as the pressure in front of it is dropping). Ideally, you want as small a volume behind the piston as possible, and you absolutely want the fastest valve to vent t he pilot volume you can find.
Using the sprinkler valve in between the blowgun and the main valve is a very good idea and will result in much better performance (and greater consistancy, as slight variations in how fast he pushes the blowgun will have less of an impact on the final valve speed)
Just built this but instead of using a threaded bushing on the end I used a clean out plug and taped some threads into it for my firing valve. This, I think combined with not tightening the plug in all the way resulted in the piston exploding right through the plug and almost taking my hand off. Hopefully no one will repeat my mistake. That piston comes back fast and hard!
I'm glad you were uninjured! As you've discovered, cleanout caps are not pressure rated. All pipe and fittings must have an NSF-PW rating
I used a proper bushing this time and some rubber weather stripping for a cushion. Put some grease on the 2" threads to help get it in all the way. Piston works great now. Only problem now is I'm using a regular sprinkler valve to trigger it and when it fires the solenoid blows out. Ever hear of that happening and what to do about it?
This is genius i love the animations!
I'm definitely making one of these this summer! Such a better and safer design than a traditional potato gun.
excellent explanation trigger mechanism
a huge thx for this i am definitely making this i think it would look great beside my spud gun (basically the same thing as this only it runs off propane) I've been making things like this since i was ten so anything similar to this is always great.
The power of this thing is outstanding, great work mate ! It's a really ingenious build, It is also obvious that you got a lot of fun firing it ! :p
That would be cool to design a discarding sabot round with a tent spike, and test it remotely. Might need a thick wadding so the spike can handle the g forces. I think it would be dangerous, but very fun.
Please add the "vacuum cannon concept" to this new cannon. You just have to put a hose in the barrel in order to connect the vacuum pump and create the aluminum foil seal at the end of the barrel, that's it.
I think that would be amazingly powerful!
Maybe the piston could have troubles going backwards once you open the ball valve because the vacuum in the barrel keeps it against the rubber sealing. In that case just add a vacuum chamber behind the ball valve ;)
It would be great to see experiments with different Barrels and custom Rifling!
Your aim is good
I researched all kinds of designs and went with yours. I built your piston cannon and it worked great during testing even at a low 50 PSI. I built it to launch bait in the surf but for some reason at the beach the piston failed every time and I never got a single launch off even up near 75 PSI
There were several other people there and too many hands touching the cannon and moving it around before I set it up so I'm guessing they got sand down the barrel into the piston area keeping it from moving freely. After a good rinsing I left it lying there and when I picked it up and shook it I could hear the tell tail thud, thud of the piston sliding back and forth. But by then I wasn't interested in messing with it anymore.
I need to be on my own in my own vehicle where I have complete control of whats going on. A good tip is to have a can of spray cooking oil handy for lubing the barrel and piston head/seal through the barrel and even a short squirt into the ball valve seems to help.
I also made 3 different tanks for it 18" 24" and 42" I've only tested the 18 & 24 and they tested OK. I need more testing on the Tank and barrel lengths to get the right combo for the most distance with a 10 to 14 Ounce bait bullet.
Thanks for a great design
I love how he had a million, dropped to 700-800k and then earned it back, gj
That is so awesome. Nice work
would love to see how you would rifle a barrel.
I double that !
I've always wanted to do that with a PVC barrel but it has sadly only been a thought and never reality.
Batteriii I think you could score a straight line down the barrels inner wall then heat the pipe and twist. not sure how well it'd hold that twist but seems fairly easy to do in theory.
David Armes Good idea, but I'm afraid the pipe would become more oval than round when you're heating it up because of how gravity acts on it when it's soft. also it may create deviations in the barrel. But when I come to think of it you could just put something like a wooden dowel with a perfect fit into the barrel to keep it from becoming oval or creating deviations. Thanks for giving me ideas, may try this in the future as i don't really have a workshop to do it in at the time. Maybe someone could try it and tell me if it even works.
Batteriii I thought it would need an inner support. deviation could be an issue but with soft projectiles like potatoes would probably be fine.
very nice QEV air cannon!!
This looks so fun!!
That's badass. I don't know why... Thundergun!
Alright forget I said that. Don't wanna ruin this comment section.
Dude! Those are the toeiest toe thumbs Ive ever seen!!!
Great project I love your videos !
Nice.love the homemade piston what a great idea
I thought he was shooting bread, not potatoes lol, great video!
Absolutely genius
Put a small metal grate at the end of the barrel so it can shoot french fries
Clever design. Is the purpose to overcome the fact that a human hand simply can't open the ball valve completely before the projectile comes out? Joerg Sprave typically uses a bunch of rubber and a trigger mechanism to swing the valves open, but something like what you've demonstrated might boost performance even further.
To a certain extent, yes that is the purpose.
Great job, keep em coming!!
You also can make dart-like projectile.
Or print mortar-like projectile with parashute for GoPro camera,.
I just built this design. It is significantly more powerful and reliable than the old hairspray model from my youth. I was able to launch a potato plug so far that I lost sight of it before it landed. Another shot against a block wall completely disintegrated--nothing left but an 8" wet smear!
What's cool is that this is how some paintball markers function.
Nighthawkinlife, your projects are the greatest and your videos are of great quality. Would love to have a skymatic of your ball valve piston air cannon. Thanks for your great work.
Thanks! I don't have a schematic but I have several other videos on my channel about similar cannons that may help you
That's awesome! Thanks for sharing 😊
Now I know this video is well over 2 years old, but I finally have a location to do stupid stuff like this and a relatively expendable income, not to mention you do a damn good job answering ALL your comments. Without further delay, about how much would one spend on a cannon like this? can I use a bicycle pump to power it? and would it be cheaper to do a piston vacuum cannon or this? what about ammo? I own a riffle and if 5.56 is cheeper in the long run I'd rather throw lead than plastic or potatoes.
You would spend maybe $100 on this. It is difficult to use a bicycle pump and may not always work. This is a type of piston cannon. Ammo can be anything that fits down the barrel.
We put together our own version yesterday and were able to chrono it at ~800ft/second with a ping-pong ball at 100psi... that is before the piston blew out the back of the cannon on the next shot!
Yikes! Same fittings I'm using here? All nsf-pw? Did you use a bumper as I did?
@@Nighthawkinlight Similar fittings but a slightly longer piston to allow more airflow and no bumper. We're working on a V2 with a bumper of some sort.
Warning: If the area where the piston slams back is too long, it will pick up too much speed and bust through the back. Learned the hard way lol
Hey Ben, we create videos on science and for one of the videos, we require a customizable sand timer. A sand timer with a regulator attached to it's neck which can control the diameter of the neck so that the clock can be used to measure varying intervals of time. Please design such a thing and tell us the idea.
awesome video
That looks like a great contraption :)
I am involved in a sport that could make use of that as a tremendous safety device. Unfortunately it would require a few modifications, and I'm a geologist by training LOL. If you have the time I'd love to speak with you about it. If we can get it to work, I will guarantee it will save a life someday. Thanks
the classic Supah valve design
The supah valve is actually a chamber sealing design. Similar in function, but the barrel and chamber are switched. The piston has a hole in the front of it rather than the side in a chamber sealing valve.
you are absolutely right, I used to have one back when Joel owned spud-tech, unfortunately it cracked eventually after many disassembles, did you used to be on spudfiles about 10 years ago, I seem to recall having some forum discussions with someone who had a similar username to you.
I was on the forums back then but I believe I was using a different name at the time. Can't recall what it was
Maybe a few modifications to make it rifle-like, turn the chamber around to face forward, affix the trigger towards the front and make a buttstock below the sprinkler valve to the air blasts over your shoulder, kind of like a basooka
When I made air cannons, an accidental discovery when designing a breach loading port; There's no need to trim the potatoes... as I found out, even a baseball will get smashed through the barrel which it doesn't fit through. Bottles of water and cans of soda were fun, they would rupture in order to fit through the barrel and "spray" a hole in the fence.
The real Windkanone
Yessssss I've been waiting for this one
CANNON=LOVE
Sharpen the end of the barrel so you can press in apple and fruits it cuts them to a perfect size
Since the barrel is sealed, you should definitely pull a vacuum in it as well. That would be an impressive hybrid.
Brilliant!
This was so cool! I would love to see a power comparison between this and a hairspray powered potato gun
I wonder if it would make a significant difference if you put the barrel under a vacuum like in your vacuum cannon video... I'd love to see you try this!
Awesome design
After all these years i have something that could be usefull.....it is possible to make this cannon full automatic.
If you change the ball valve at the end with a spring loaded over preassure rrlease valve, the cannon would cycle as long there is preasure from an external tank.
The trigger would stop the valve from opening, but as long as you keep the intake air going and the valve free....it should fire. The next step is to add some kind if seald hopper that feeds the ammo (like rubber balls) to a T-junktion in the barrel
Awesome man
I built one of these when I was like 13 with my grandma (she’s dead now and the original cannon broke) I’m 23 now and am going to make a badass cannon to honor my grandma
I literally thought you were Will Wheaton in the thumbnail! lmao 😂
ah. a homemade cannon for the zombie apocalypse! going on the list!
Wow, this thing's gotta pack a punch in recoil when shooting potatoes...