New Type of Valve, sounds too good to be true
Advantages:
1. full auto capability with a force (spring usually) fed magazine.
2. solenoid can be replaced by spring trigger and hammer mech. (should be lower required cocking force than conventional valves)
3. Bullpup is this reason i started drawing this thing’s ancestors. pretty much a 1meter long gun can have a 32″ barrel. this assembly is only 20cms total and being electrical, wires are easy to place the trigger anywere
Disadvantages:
1. Why doesn’t the industry use this kinda if it gives a longer barrel length, auto ailibility?
2. is there something i missed that will make this thing not work? perhaps bolt gets shot out on first shot?
Hi guys 😀 , pretty much I thought of this type of valve,(all work inspired by the stuff and pics i’ve read on this site! oh and thanks to insomia i’ve got time to waste) and am calling all experts (and non experts of course) to let me know why this valve will or will not work.
I tried to find something like this, and couldn’t. (by the way the drozd’s valve looks very similar but actually works in a very different way. briefly Drozd’s valve (pretty awesome) have a cup seal, which is more conventional. held in place by… i will continue this part if someone wants me to, but trust me they are VERY different)
If someone does know of a similar kind of valve, let me know 😀
brief intro:
– There are no cup seals, nor forces forcing the valve closed initially. that is the force to open the valve when charged at say 5000psi will be the same as when empty (not counting the part after the valve is opened and the solenoid tries to hold it open)
and yes it is a very uneasy concept to me.
– there is no impact. The bolt/valve core actually gets accelerated from it’s idle position VERY (VERY) fast. and gas release is in a square wave manner due to another reason i’ll explain later.
-there’s a dicharge cavity, and is fed by a stacked tube which makes sure an ample volume of gas is ready, especially if co2 is used
-minial cycling time is 7ms (from idle to firing and back to idle, albet very lame shot at such a short opening setting)
Here is a simplified drawing.
please note the actual design is a three body piece inside a tube and sealed with further orings not shown here. reason being… srsly! how on earth do you groove those oring glands that far in?! so yea three piece section and their orings are not shown, the important orings and features are here.
How does it work?
1 Resting: -the valve is sealed. no force ‘FORcing” it closed. although there is a return spring inside that solenoid that pulls both the solenoid’s rod and bolt back into that idle position.
-the front has a ball (i like those .25 graphite coated lead ones on pyramyd) force fed (for auto).
-there’s a 100Watt solenoid (Yup, only $40), and has enough force to push open 10 condor valves and bleed the tank of air (circuitry consists of 555chip, capacitor, resistor etc.)circuitry is the easy part, i can go into more detail if we agree this valve actually works)
-bolt and valve stem is a single piece. pretty much there’s a section that’s hollow at the front (like a condor’s)
the rear part of the thing is solid, and just in front of that part are square holes on the two sides (machined sideways not drilled). They’re square and are on a slightly thinner diameter section of the bolt. makes sure the gas release is fast
2 solenoid is pulsed by capacitor discharge, and drives the bolt forward. (5ms time for the square hole to just about to enter that discharge cavity)
the square then enter that discharge cavity where gas can enter them. NOW there IS a force trying to move the bolt back closed, it is cause there’s a pressure on the are at the flat solid face at base of the holes.
at the same time the holes enter the cavity, the front of the bolt would have pushed the ball about 5mm’s past the front breech seal oring. (actual design has a rather simple detent mechanism as well
3 The valve is held open against the forces of gas pushing it back for a set amount of milliseconds (determined by resistor adjustment) by the solenoid.
After holding, the solenoid de energies and is both pulled back by it’s return spring, as well as the bolt’s rearward action (from the gas remember?until the holes covered again, then there will be no force)
Advantages:
1. full auto capability with a force (spring usually) fed magazine.
2. solenoid can be replaced by spring trigger and hammer mech. (should be lower required cocking force than conventional valves)
3. Bullpup is this reason i started drawing this thing’s ancestors. pretty much a 1meter long gun can have a 32″ barrel. this assembly is only 20cms total and being electrical, wires are easy to place the trigger anywere
Disadvantages:
1. Why doesn’t the industry use this kinda if it gives a longer barrel length, auto ailibility?
2. is there something i missed that will make this thing not work? perhaps bolt gets shot out on first shot?
SRSly thanks for taking a look! and take no mercy in criticising on this design! i’ll attempt to explain or fix flaws.
Be nice! 😛
ancestors (conventional valves) used in these guys btw (just some picture candy) 😀
All Replies
Most likely you would blow out your lead o-ring (nearest the ball) when the pin passes by either going forward or back at 2000 to 3000 psi.
Most systems use o-rings as seals not transition material under pressure.
I like the idea, has anyone heard anything more about this sort of valve? The only problems are of course the o-ring wear and tear (can be solved by a lot of testing) and the amount of power needed to drive the solenoid.
I haven’t seen a paintball marker use this sort of technology before and I’m wondering if there is a reason for that. This design gets rid of the need to vent any gas as with solenoid valve paintball markers and could be cheaper if the batteries needed to drive the solenoid weren’t to expensive.
Airy mentioned above he was going to use a 100w solenoid to do the job, I guess he meant he was going to drive a solenoid with 100w. I found a 10 piece brick of 10000mAh NiMh batteries (12v) for about $200 which could drive it, I’m sure buying wholesale you could get down to $100 or less for the brick.
It would also be interesting to ditch the solenoid (as Airy stated above) and replace with a traditional trigger and hammer. Don’t know how well it would work though, would probably have to make a few tweaks.
Anyway…anyone know of an existing paintball marker/airgun using this sort of valve?
I can work with sheet metals, all kid of machinery at uni.
About the shipments, you can use cardboard tubes, but that depends on the size of tube you can get… I have lots of them with different sizes, the biggest with 95mm diameter.
Cheers,
Filipe
haha, the solid block of aluminium. its based off g36C, (bottom one based off a 14,000 FPE *not a typo!!* rifle. – guess what it is.. heh)
ACTUALLY it was originally designed with sheet metal (2mm steel) (using autocad mechanical) but then i don’t know people who do sheet metal only machining, so i had to do solid block (it shouldn’t be hard to get it anyway tho?) it was actually .8kg or something lighter.
also! your in post!? i need to ask a question! when i design guns, i usually design them to be dissassemblable into .5meter lengths for easy shipping.
for international shipping are there cheap long parcels?! (so i can design 1m long parts!!) something like a cardboard tube parcel?
I’m just starting with this one to get the things together, and see if it works, later I’ll user the 3D parts do build other versions.
I really like your idea on the 2nd gun from the top, being the pros a possible bullpup design and the cons, the need for a solid block of alu 🙁
Currently I’m burried in work of uni, and I’m also doing a part-time at central post office and I don’t have any time to work on the project.
After Christmas I’ll have something new!
Waiting for payday to get my reg!
Also I’m doing some kind of report along with the project, after it’s all done I’ll be very happy to post it here.
I’ve learned much of what I know about AG building here, although it’s AF forum, there’s a lot to learn here and the mates are great! Sorry I don’t post much but I am a busy man… youngman 😆
Cheers,
Filipe
oh sniper!@ by the way, for some reason, especially if you want a long range precision rifle, i HIGHLY recommend you build a bullpuped (seeing your design is bullpuped =) condor type. Condor’s straight flow (there is ONE other valve that is even more powerful) is better apparently. get a friend (a mate at uni does aerospace did it for me) to check it out. oh yea, he said use DNS model or something??
Sniper i’m 100% with you and think power is important. all the “non automatic” are actually all single shot with straight through port (not drilled holes on a tubular structure)
The funny thing is, i’d never sacrifice acuracy and power for auto, yet this auto thats starting to emerge doesn’t sacrifice anything. well the point is, i’d only make it auto if it didn’t compromise power 😛
One more thing, Airy is trying to build (draw) an automatic airgun. I want to build a long range, single shot, precision air rifle
Most of my drawings are done on paper 🙄
This is not a finished version, I’m waiting for a paintball regulator to arrive.
I’ve not modeled the reg/valve/solenoid parts yet. And still need to take a lot of measures to get everything to fit.
I hope you understand that starting a project like this isn’t just a simple valve mod… I’m taking it very seriously. I hope I build it in less than one year 😆
About the solenoid I’m actually going to machine one and roll the wire by hand, using calculations I learned on Electromagnetism and Optics discipline 😉
Thanks for the input powder.
Regarding the solenoid forces, be assured there will be enought force. 😛
the solenoid i chose for those designs are 26mm max stroke. and i’m using 20mm of it’s stroke (5mm nominal with 100 Newtons of force at 15% B field gap). starting with a lower force of about 10N.
man i wonder why solenoids are used more.
i’ve had a couple of droidz types myself.
one of them had a breech that closed first then the rear pin struck..
Airy, I love the work you’ve done. As far as simplicity the solenoid system is going to be about the easiest. A while back I was working on an open source version of the Drozd but I abandoned it in the early planning stages. The one thing with solenoids is the farther they move the less force you have. I might suggest that you have a solenoid valve system and where you have your solenoid right now you replace it with a pneumatic piston system, the only problem with that is you have to vent the gas.
Sniper782, it sounds like you’ve made some progress on your designing process. I’d love to see how you did your internals on your action.
Carl
Airy if you want send me an e-mail, I’ll send a zip file with a compilation of stuff I got online, mostly pics. I’m in R&D stage also…
Cheers
nice stuff sniper!
@bart, thanks for your comments! as for the bullet type, i was only considering for ball shots.
for the bolt needing to be detained. I might have not made it clear, but the bolt has set screws clamping it to the solenoid pin. the solenoid pin it self is detained by the solenoid body, which has additional shock absorbing assembly inside
I’ve been looking into this type of loading mechanism as well, but I didn’t yet come up with the solenoid.
I’m basically in the same situation as you are, I don’t have the machinery, and even if I did, manufacturing weapons is illegal without a special gunsmithing license, and airguns are specified as weapons.
There’s two things I see when I look at your design.
The bolt must be detained, as you already noted yourself, so you’re either going to have to go with a very strong detent system, or choose a rather weak solenoid, meaning you’ll have to balance the solenoid force with your return spring (which you need to return the bolt reliably, and which will have to be strong if you want full auto, again requiring a balance between cycling speed and return spring/solenoid strength/energy usage/battery size/maximum supplied current by battery/…).
Second, your force fed mechanism will only work properly for ball ammo, since the bolt can clip the next pellet (the one above the one you’re going to fire) when pushing the first one into the breech/barrel.
So you will have to incorporate a traditional magazine system, with an indexing system if you want to fire pellets.
But this is actually an excellent idea, I’m kind of disappointed I didn’t think of it myself 😆
*edit* the pellet thing MAY be solved by making the bolt travel slightly longer, and making the front end conical, which may leave the next pellet unharmed or with a bent skirt (which is equally bad as a clipped one)
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Awesome!
How do you plan on feeding this thing pellets?