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Unread 08-05-2011, 01:43
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Bryan Herbst Bryan Herbst is offline
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Re: off-season launcher

Quote:
Originally Posted by Travis Covington View Post
Typically solid when used for gardening? I don't understand the argument here. Sprinkler valves are rated for water pressure. A plastic sprinkler valve would likely fail in the exact same way a PVC storage tank would. Use a valve rated for air pressure if you are even remotely concerned with safety. Water is incompressible and behaves completely different than air when pressurized. Please refer to the countless other threads here where this has been discussed before. Bottom-line; please don't cut corners when people’s safety is at risk.
Yes, they are rated for water pressure. That doesn't mean that they are at a high risk for failure when using air. It simply means that they need to be tested before being used with compressed air.

As for "a plastic sprinkler valve would likely fail in the exact same way a PVC storage tank would:" Not true. PVC used as an air storage tank almost always fails at the end caps or connection points, typically due to the a failure in the cement used to join two parts. If it isn't an endpoint, then it's because there was a crack somewhere along the body. If you are operating at reasonable pressures, a PVC tank will not spontaneously explode.

I have very carefully watched every thread on CD relating to air cannons and PVC air storage. I would never use PVC to store air. However, you may notice that every single team in those threads intends to use (and many have been using) sprinkler valves. None of them have reported any problems, and no one before has ever called them out on the sprinkler valve.
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