This blog covers the day to day progress of water rocket development by the Air Command Water Rockets team. It is also a facility for people to provide feedback and ask questions.

Wednesday, August 01, 2012

Using Scuba Tanks

This week we have put together an article on how to use scuba tanks to make an air supply for your water rockets. Although scuba tanks won't be suitable for everyone, the article tries to go into some detail about what components you can use and how you can connect them together. There are also a number of tips and things to look out for when assembling your own air supply.

Since we are often asked about how many launches you can get from a scuba tank, we have also included a calculator that will work it out for you.


The full article can be found here: http://www.aircommandrockets.com/scuba.htm

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for putting up such a good article on how to set up a scuba tank!!! I might not have figured this out on my own!!!

George Katz said...

@Anonymous: Glad to hear you found the article useful. :)

lucrockets said...

Hi George,

It,s a good article with lots of information.I hope some day I find a good second hand scuba tank because by making larger and stronger roc kets there needs to be a lot of pumping.Where do you store your scuba tanks?

Thanks,Team Lucrockets.

George Katz said...

Hi Lucrockets,

There are often good deals to find for used scuba tanks on line. You just need to find one that is close to you as shipping could be expensive. A scuba tank is definitely useful when filling large rockets. It means you can launch them several times in a day without much effort. We store our scuba tanks just in our workshop. We keep them out of the way where they will not get knocked over.

Cheers

janf said...

Hi George,
I use an industrial pressure regulator and found it here : http://home.planet.nl/~delta872/Vulkan%20technisch%20cilinderreduceer%20F20%20Effect.htm

in: up to 300 bar / out: 0->20 bar
Maybe interesting for people in Europe.

George Katz said...

Hi Jan, Thanks for sharing the link to the pressure regulator. That is a great output range of pressures for water rockets. Do you use a scuba tank with that and if so what adaptor did you use to connect the regulator to the tank?