Scott was tired of throwing money away on cans of compressed air (who pays for air?). He decided to build a compressed air can that could be recharged. The aerosaol can that he used should be able to handle at least 200psi. The travel DC air compressor is only good for 50psi so he doesn’t expect this to turn into a frag grenade anytime soon. It’s not nearly as powerful, but at least now it’s “as free as the air you breathe”.
A bicycle pump could take that can to 100 psi pretty quickly and easily. Not much volume in that can. If you never let it get too low, it
This will be great after the 2nd or 3rd filling when the condensed water inside the can starts spraying all over your computer equipment.
Still a good project, but the air needs to be dried before going into the can.
There are commercial solutions to this– I only mention this since there may be structural issues with the can, over time…
this Cool Tools post:
http://www.kk.org/cooltools/archives/000565.php
talks about ReAir, a commercial alternative. Only mentioning it because there may be people who can benefit from this, but who may not be comfortable hacking together their own…
should the spray can that you use be a really cheap one you should be able to flip it upside down and flush the water that way.
The reair thing came to my mind also. What you could do is make a “docking station” system that you simply push the can down onto and it would turn on and refill in the same amount of time.
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=1102
this is the cheaper safer easier way
That is really useful thanks!
Digg it here: http://digg.com/mods/How_To_Neverending_Compressed_Air_Can
Heya man, a little off topic but I wanted to thank you for shirt you handed out at Defcon. Cool site, I just realized that I took the shirt and didn’t say anything at Defcon and that didn’t seem right.
Rock on, laters
anyone know at what point metal fatigue would become a problem?
What kind of stupid bs is this?? First the can can very well explode, maybe in the presence of somebody who doesn’t know what it is. And second, the volume is a joke! 50 psi? Muha! Sever
“What you could do is make a “docking station” system that you simply push the can down onto and it would turn on and refill in the same amount of time.”
Whay not make a docking station where you can refill ur brain? To me this seems necessary. What a nuts idea.
This does not seem like the best solution. Here are three other ways to do this, in a safer and easier manner:
1) Just use the compressor. I got a small one from Rona that came with a brad nailer. Holds 100psi and enough air to get a good clean of your computer.
2) Shopvac. In reverse if you’re interested in blowing, or sucking, with a sock or mesh over the end to make sure you don’t suck up anything you didn’t intend to (Whoops, there goes the cmos battery!)
3) a bike pump. I (think) everybody has one. You may not get as much pressure as a can of compressed air, but I bet you won’t kill yourself when your recompressed can explodes.
wow a mini compresser cool but dont let it get mor that 100 psi or it WILL explode thos cans cant get higher than 120 i knew a guy hue tryed to make his own spray paint and he shout the can with 110 psi the can exploded and he lived but his dog dident make it and he was 30 and was smart but the blood loss crippled him
stoned, what the fuck is wrong with you? haven’t you seen butane soldering irons? you push the aerosol can of butane against the fill plug and the pressurized gas goes from the bottle to inside the iron. if you pressurized this in reverse it could reload the can.
god, why does h-a-d have a bunch of assholes posting now?
i was toying with the idea of using the small co2 canisters bb guns use as a cheap air source. they wouldn’t be too hard to make and you can pick them up for about 50 cents a bottle
The 12V air compressor used for the factory air shocks in early-80s Cadillacs (common as hell in self-service junkyards) will put out 160psi, and you can get them for $10. It’s mounted on the driver’s side fenderwell- can’t miss it. But for god sake, use a tank that can handle the pressure.
I mainly use the canned air for the cold liquid gas in them. If I’m working on a monitor or PSU that seems to have a temperature dependent problem (problems that appear/disappear when device is warmed up), I go around spraying components and heatsinks with an upside-down can to find bad parts. In recent memory, I’ve found a leaky diode in a TV, a vertical deflection amp in a monitor, and most recently a bad cap in an ATX PSU (capacitance and leakage were okay, but ESR was 260 ohms).
yess i agree with stoned its a load of crap and very dangerous shame on u hackaday lets get some decent hacks on here whats up with u lot this site is going to the dogs but no dought mentor will love it COME ON HACK ADAY NEXT HACK PLZ
Everyone is overlooking the fact that hacks get cooler the more dangerous they are
i have never seen such a load of crap in my life compressd air has been around for milleneunms u fucking idiots this is not a hack its high school science lesson and not a very good one at that
Steve, bud… You just crack me up. Us smart people tend to point and laugh at people like you.
someone smarter than me i dont think ur smarter than me it is impossible ur a total wanker an u no it so there for i shall treat that remark with the utter contemt that it deserves ok next
Uhh.. the output of a compressor is humid air, with oil… don’t use that to clean a computer- or worse yet, optics.
Just like if you were using your compressor for painting, you’d need a drier in line.
smart people dont try to reload spent aerosol cans. If those things fail, you could die.
don’t use a shopvac. those things generate quite a bit of static electricity.
hey steve, take your hand off your jimmy long enough to fully type the word “you’re”. We’re getting a little sick of your script-kiddie speak. Being british, I thought you would at least know how to speak “ur” own language.
wanker.
please just ignore him and get on with your lives. he’ll get bored eventually if nobody talks to him.
Um two things:
1. If you want to eliminate water then just run it through a refrigeration chamber.
2. You probably will have a grenade on your hand sooner than you know it, metal fatigue. Once you start draining the can and reloading it the can will become fatigued. I’m guessing those cans aren’t really well engineered and someone pressurized it and it held so they went with it. Now if someone could post the wall thickness and radius we could get somewhere…
Guys, frankly, the hacks are becoming- not lame- worse yet: stupid. Refill a canister with 5 litres or so of air. Woooo, magic! Will last at least 3 seconds! Who the hell wants a duster with a pressure gauge??? Wtf is this supposed to be? A hack or just “how do i kill myself in the most stupid way”? Hackaday recently: people drilling holes in helmets. People refilling 3$ spray cans and risk theyr life for it. People plug in hard drives. People plug out a LED. Such are not hacks, such is plain bullshit. Woohoo, I plug out my Notebook and it still runs (on battery). Is this a l337 “hack”? Can I send it in? At least it is safer than that stupid thing. And dont think iam steve, cause iam not, iam just one more guy pissed by stupid hacks and even more dumb people requesting “docking stations” for refilled spray cans. Nxt plz!
inspired by this, i refilled a can of beer. no metal fatigue on my steel reserve 12 oz!
“nxt plz” haha, you’re gaytarded!
What is wrong about being gay?
wouldn’t it be easier and safer to use a vacuum or swiffer?
matt: thanks for the link, I gotta get me couple of those from harbour freight. always wanted to mix my own spray paint colors without the freezing method.
I bet you naysayers are the same putzes who scream about banning potato cannons too.
Guess what? *Life* is dangerous. Despite the Democrats trying to ban everything that they can. Too scared of the device? don’t build it. We’re all aware the potential problems.
Hey, did you know your *car* runs by mixing air and highly flammable *gasoline*! OMFG, it could explode! And your monitor, runs at over a thousand volts! ban it, don’t be stupid and use such a thing, right?
Sheesh. Pansies, and the pussification of america.
I bet you naysayers are the same putzes who scream about banning potato cannons too.
Guess what? *Life* is dangerous. Despite the Democrats trying to ban everything that they can. Too scared of the device? don’t build it. We’re all aware the potential problems.
Hey, did you know your *car* runs by mixing air and highly flammable *gasoline*! OMFG, it could explode! And your monitor, runs at over a thousand volts! ban it, don’t be stupid and use such a thing, right?
Sheesh. Pansies, and the pussification of america.
hmm..
a $2 air freshener can doesn’t exactly scream quality. i wonder why didn’t he use an empty compressed air can? not to mention it would have the proper fitting for the air tube.
personally, i’d recycle a small fire extinguisher. pressure tested to much higher psi. solid aluminum pressure vessel resists corrosion from damp air. i could dust every darn computer in my office without running out or the pressure getting weak. now that would be a hack!
>Hey, did you know your *car* runs by mixing
>air and highly flammable *gasoline*! OMFG, it
>could explode! And your monitor, runs at over
>a thousand volts! ban it, don’t be stupid and
>use such a thing, right?
Which is why we have experts to design these things to be as safe as possible.
there are plenty of people here who’s sole purpose is to bash hackaday as much as possible. i am not one of these people.
however, this hack is a particularly bad idea. there are simply too many cons, and not to mention safety issues, to make it useful in the slightest bit. furthermore, it really doesn’t save any money. personally, the time I would spend building it would not even be worth as much as the cost for future cans. i await tomorrow’s post.
and seeing you cant take liquids on planes anymore how will they work without jet fuel?
and seing that jet engines involve explosions no jets should be on planes
and all that metal could kill someonre if it fell on them to
might as well ban flight alltogether
Well if you have a compressor without a tank (do those exist?), or a bike pump, or if you just want to clean the air, you could get a section of galvanized pipe from your local hardware store, some reducers to fit the threading on your compressor, tire nozel, airhose, whatever. Then fill part of it with a water absorber.
I know the Container Store near me sells gallon buckets of stuff you’re just supposed to open and leave in a closet to absorb humidity. The home-made rebreather hack posted a while back also linked to other similar stuff. That would take care of any moisture, and probably oil from the compressor as well.
Ahh Hack-A-Day. I knew ye in the beginning. When all that was in the comments were construtive criticism and Ways to improve this hack. Examples here?
Metal Fatigue: Constructive Criticism. Opps didnt think of that. Well better grab the next best thing…
Premade Refillable cans: Ways to improve the hack. BRILLIANT! Why drill the can and all that work when you can had a can that has one built in.
But todays hack-a-day forum we have flamers, nay sayers, agenda pushers, not-a-hack’ers, firstposters(woot go me!! Not.) , and more.
People please. Look at your intellegence. If you think this sucks, Please go to the tips page and send one in. If you have a concern, Voice it in an intellegent manner (“Uh, I would agree with the metal Fatigue. Seems this would be the thing that has me worried”). If you can make it better, enlighten us with your wisdom.
Now if you will excuse me i will get down from my podium in the lower portion of the comments and reload for one last parting shot: [Shouting as i leave] we dont care about ‘diggin it” or any other linking site. Thats why we came here in the first place!!!!!!!
[panting] phew. shesh. forumn rant. sorry.
don’t any of you guys get it yet? We are trying to get rid of all of the losers out there trying to flame the site off the net. We tried posting hacks that don’t appeal to the normal script kiddie, but they just won’t go back to slashdot. So now we are resorting to dangerous hacks so that their own stupidity will kill them. Stop bashing the hacks and let the losers die goddamnit!
If you guys want it I will submit a hack on how to build diy pipe bombs…
amen
I BULT ONE i made one out of an febreze can and put a tire nozzle on the bottem and put all of the components in an evan sived 2′ peace of steal tubeing so it lookes like one big can and it is rechargeable by li ion it runs with 75 psi takes like 5 secs to fill CAN PUT LIQUDS thru a little attachment i made and a crudely made pvc doc that will charge the li-ion bats in 15 MINUTS FOR !@HRS OF PLAY!!!
8HRS OF PLAY*
So much BS from everyone about this hack. That’s pretty weak.
In case it wasn’t clear to you: This hack is dangerous.
Solution? : Make your own container out of pipe purchased from a store, when you drill it make sure you glue/weld it properly (JBweld tends to eat some metals) and finally, add a drier to get rid of moisture. (unless you used PVC)
@stoned: I don’t like you because you have the word “stone” in your nick.
seems like a semi interesting hack, I have some cans that run out of propelent before contents and I could really use a good strech.
Anyhow the hacks are all great and I was enjoying the site, then I started reading comments. I can see the internet is the same no matter where you go! Keep the color up it is funny because it has no impact on the site over all, it is just great reading.
anyways steve, isn’t it time you submitted some hacks? I can only imagine what you have created. This is only semi-sarcastic, I really do want to see some of your handy work, in fact I am sure most of us would.
My dad got me one used oxygen tank (the portable kind that paramedics use) to which he had adapted a manometer (for pressure) a hose and an release pistol (kinda the ones used for aerografies) that can get recharged for free at a gas station… i will post you someday pictures once it returns from a construction site where he needed it for some time.
Cool thing about it? it holds 100 psi but a lot of air, its not like the most portable solution but it takes care of heavy duty work.
How is this dangerous? First of all, it’s 50 psi. A can of coke at 60 deg F is 40 psi, and the can in the hack is many time stronger.
Secondly, when a relativly thin walled can fails, it “splits”, as can be seen when one shoots a popcan or throws it against the ground. Unless the metal becomes extremely brittle, there will be no flying debrie.
okokok #45 us modders dont jest stop becouse it has dangeryou half to trust ur welding its only dangeris if your an complete retard ok ive ben useing mine for 24 hours and i pumped mine to 100 psi its working fine so am i you jest cant do something jest becouse it has danger
and #46 chill out like uve never goten stoned