Here are a few pics of a potato cannon and fueler:
(Don't try this at home)
This design is dangerous, mostly because of the PVC pipe.
PVC pipe cannons have been known to explode,
and when they do sharp little pieces of PVC
plasstic fly everywhere. ABS pipe would be
better, I'm told that ABS will tend to just
split instead of exploding into little pieces
when the pressure gets to high. But I couldn't
find ABS, so I made this cage around the 4 inch
combustion chamber at the bottom. It's rabbit
cage wire wrapped in some romex and duct tape.
I was using starting fluid as a fuel, it works good
if you can get the air/fuel mixture right. That was
difficult, you have to spray it for about a half-
second and then quickly screw the 4 inch plastic
plug on the bottom of the cannon. Too much or too
little fuel and you either get a weak fire, or it
doesn't fire at all. If it doesn't fire it's
usually because of too much fuel. At this point
many dumbasses have been known to unscrew the cap
and look inside the bottom of the cannon to check
for spark. They forget that the cannon is full of
starting fluid, and turn the sparker, then burn
the hell out of thier face and hair.
Anyway, I decided to build a fueler that was more
reliable. I tried a design that I found on the net,
but it didn't work very well. Then I modified the
design a bit, and now it works great. It's made
from a $8 propane torch head, a gauge, some pipe
fittings, a ball valve and a tire chuck. Here's how
it works: I use the metal pipe on the fueler as
a way of holding a measured amount of fuel.
With the ball valve closed, I slowly open the
torch valve until the gauge reads 10psi, then
close the torch valve. Now I press the tire chuck
on the valve stem on the cannon. Then I open the
ball valve to let the fuel in. It takes about 1 or
2 seconds for the fuel to go in. 10psi of Mapp
gas works great for me. Propane at 20psi works OK,
but Mapp has more power.
Here's a video of one in action
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