Air Cannon

 

The air cannon is used as a startle effect to get a loud bang noise to scare your guest.  If you want your guest to jump but have minimal time to build anything elaborate this is a great project to scary but not be seen by your guest so visual detail is not important.  Please read through all instructions before purchasing any parts.

 

 

Construction:

    1)  5 gallon air tank.  Harbor Fright sells them cheap, even cheaper with coupon. Harbor Fright Air Tank

    The following are parts that were purchased from McMaster Carr and can be easily ordered off their website with links to the part numbers below.

      1)  Pipe nibble. (qty 3)  Part# 4461K414

      2)  Pipe nibble 9” long. Part# 44615K318

      3)  Pipe fitting cross.  Part# 44605K161

      4)  Pipe fitting straight reducer.  Part# 44605K326

      5)  Pipe fitting straight reducer.  Part# 4429K422

      6)  Sealant pug. Part# 1162T38   (for pressure relief valve...this is needed if you purchase the same air tank as I use)

      7)  Power cord, if you don’t have one lying around.  Part# 7248K22

      8)  Larger Strainer.  Part# 4413K1 (This part is not necessary for operation but just distributes sound better then without)

    2)  1/4inch industrial male plug.  Can be found at any hardware store in the air tools section.  (this part is used as the input for your air hose)

    3)  1/2inch ports 2 way normal closed solenoid valve that operates at 120V.  I used one that I bought on Ebay.

 

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Picture on right shows all the parts with the layout of them.

Remove the existing pressure relief valve assembly from the air tank.  Then remove the tubing from the pressure relief valve and replace with sealant plug as this air port will not be used.

 

 

 

 

 

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Picture on right shows the pressure relief valve with gage, solenoid valve and air input plug fitting connected to the four way pipe fitting.  I used Teflon tape on all the pipe threads to seal them.

I spray painted the air tank black along with the steel pipe fittings before connecting fittings together.  This step is optional.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Picture to the right shows another view of the assembly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Picture on right shows the finished air cannon.  Turning the solenoid on for a split second at a time will give you a loud bang sound and by varying the input pressure you can control how loud the bang sound is...the higher the pressure the louder the bang.  Pulsing the valve quickly will give you a machine gun sound effect.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Haunted Driveway

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