Thread: Could compressed air cylinders be used??

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Hi gang. There are so many air-driven props, and I'd like to make some....but an air compressor is way outta my league financially, and seems like a rather noisy way to drive things anyway.

So I was wondering if it's possible to use something like the small cylinders you put in "cordless" framing nailers and such.
Or are there other similar things that could be used?

I'm thinking something like this would be more compact, portable and economical.
Any thoughts on what & how?

I use indexed wiper motors for opening and closing a coffin lid, as well as raising and lowering other props. Depending on the linkage it may not be too compact, but it's low cost and very quiet.

The compressed gas cylinders you are talking about are VERY high pressure and would blow a pneumatic cylinder apart if used unregulated. You would need a regulator, which isn't all that sheap for high pressure but not terrible, but even at that the tanks would barely work. You might get a couple fires out of a tank, but definitely not an entire night unless you were using a giant tank. The little ones that power the tools you're talking about probably wouldn't even fire a prop once.

If you look on craigs list or at a pawn shop or something you can find an air compressor for $50 or less. That's the way to go.

Kip

ok, thanks for the advice...I guess I'll have to go sell my body on the corner or something.....no , that'll never work. LOL

The yard "mechanicals," as we call 'em, are sig other's dept. (I'm static prop gal usually), but have you looked around at Monsterguts for some small motors? Not noisy, not a lot of $$$.

Also, I know for our pop-ups in the yard we use wiper motors attached to sound fx boxes & spots that all come on simultaneously- works great & cheap to make from used stuff found online.

You might think on this Tough Gear Motor @ http://www.sciplus.com/category.cfm/...magepref/photo

I got one of these on Ebay at the same price for my witch's neck rolling. It's powerful enough I couldn't stop the motor with my fingers, and it stretches her latex without any heat from the effort that I can tell though I haven't ran it for hours just yet. I first tried it on a 1 amp wart and it wasn't enough to drive the shaft, so I suspect it pulls a little over an amp to function. It runs fine on a 12v regulated supply.

I use 25# CO2 cylinders for all the pneumatic props in my garage haunt. My compressor is obnoxiously loud and I don't want to hear it running all night.

I also do a church group trick or trunk and there's no electricity available in the area. Two years ago, I did a creature crate in the back of my brother's truck wired to a remote control and run off a 5# CO2 tank mounted inside the crate. I could bounce the crate 4" in the air from 500 feet away. Scared the you-know-what out of every person that walked past it. The best thing was you couldn't see anything other than the crate in the back of the truck. I bought a 80 PSI regulator from the local Pepsi distributor to run my creature crate. The standard CO2 regulators aren't high enough PSI.

So far, I haven't had any problems with freezing the regulators or valves but I also don't use huge amounts of CO2 at a time. If you do, I'd recommend using an expansion tank of some kind.

Unless you have a source for very cheap CO2 (I own a restaurant, so I do) or need the silence, it would be better to use a compressor. A small leak overnight could drain your tank and that's the last thing you want to discover at 6:00pm after all the stores have closed and your first guests are pulling up the driveway...

You all do realize that you can use a refrigerator compressor and an old propane take from a gas grill to make a low cost (free) quiet air-compressor. Well not quite free, you do need to buy fittings and a pressure switch, but this would get you a 5 gallon air tank at 40-60 psi for under $50
Here's a link to a how-to: http://www.briansmodelcars.com/tutorials/tutorial/28

great stuff! there's some really valuable info here; many thanks to you all for taking the time to help!