Comments on: Steam powered spud gun

By: Dan Fekete

Dan Fekete — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 09:56:49 +0000

I can’t remember the site, but a fast way to make steam is to use a capacitor bank to flash boil the water in a chamber. The nice thing about doing that is you don’t need a pressure seal as the water rapidly changes to steam. The downside is the capacitor bank needed can be large and deadly in and of itself.

I believe it’s refered to as electro-thermal and you can find a bunch of videos on youtube.

By: winsucker

winsucker — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 11:59:33 +0000

That’s fast…

By: Nathan

Nathan — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 07:12:25 +0000

It won’t take much water at all because when water flashses to steam it expands into 1600 times the volume it was before.

1 drop of water = 1600 drops of steam. Neat project. Now it’s got me thinking of a way to vaporize all the water INSTANTLY. Then you’ll get a powerful gun.

By: kabukicho2001

kabukicho2001 — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 00:39:06 +0000

You can get the same effect shaking a bottle of Champagne and the cork blow out! Cheers! Happy new year 2009!

By: Blastar

Blastar — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 15:48:58 +0000

With this half Rotten Potato its twice as Lethal.. Well at least once.

By: mike

mike — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 14:54:13 +0000

Thats pretty cool, I was thinking “what the hell?” when he only put in a few drops of water but apparantly that is all you need to get the steam.

By: Dan

Dan — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 05:47:26 +0000

Nice. I like the integrated design but the pressure buildup is because of the cork and not the potato. If you could build up the vapor pressure in a chamber, then release it all at once against the potato, then the potato would fire on it’s own otherwise you would just have a potato chunk slowly eject itself from the end of the gun as the pressure builds up.

By: fractalrock

fractalrock — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 01:10:27 +0000

I love it…good job robbtoberfest.

For the potatoes that refuse to seal well, maybe a dip in vasoline?

@wizzard1 and chris mcdowell….he’s using the cork because it is easier/simpler/more reusable than a metallic seal.

By: Chris McDowell

Chris McDowell — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 00:21:43 +0000

What is the point of the potato if he is shooting the cork?

By: ngth

ngth — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 00:19:06 +0000

Cool idea, but the amount of time that you need to heat the water up is too great. How about hooking up a CO2 cartridge and having a trigger? NOW you can possibly win in a spud fight.

By: wizzard1

wizzard1 — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 22:52:48 +0000

he should use a layer or two of tin-foil as a seal, inside the device… tin foil, as well as being air-tight and water-tight, will rupture at a certain pressure in such a way as to remove itsself from the path of the volume of steam as it leaves the device… then there’d be no need for cork.

By: NetCrash

NetCrash — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 22:46:20 +0000

Realy cool!!!!