Thread: hooking up dual action cylinders in a series

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can pneumatic cylinders be hooked up in a series such as:
you come out of the selenoid into one port on the cylinder out of the second port on cylinder into a port on second cylinder out of port on 2nd cylinder then back to selinoid?

I'm very new to pneumatics & had an idea of a monster in a box where one cylinder would rock the box on one stroke then when it tries to retrct that air goes to a second cylinder to bang the top open & closed just curious if that would work?

It is easier to use 2 solenoids. Most prop controllers use 2 outputs so it is really easy to work with.

It can be done though

You can use 1 solenoid and split the air line via Tee connectors. Then go into the other cylinder. The timing of each cylinder would be the same. Unless you either have 2 different size cylinders(stroke or bore wise), or put flow control valves on the other cylinder to mix up the routine of air flow.