Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniel_LaFleur
Neither of you are thinking outside the box
Take a 12" cylindar. lock it 1/2 way (mechanical lock like a fence latch). pressurize the cylindar. release the lock and see how fast the cylindar reacts and how far you shoot the ball.
oh, I'd put a hard stop on the rod so you dont damage the cylinders end cap 
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that plus if you use 4 1/2 inch cylinders vs 1 2 inch cylinder you have the same force but 4 times the flow. when you need speed and force in pneumatics use multiple small cylinders in parallel. and using a mechanical stop to allow the cylinders to charge like daniel said makes a huge difference.
here is a example of a multiple cylinder launcher.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeQSGmFnKAE
here is another example
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0c6mym04OGs
both of those shooters used multiple cylinders with a mechanical stop the breakaway bot used a door latch type mechanism and the overdrve bot had a delta p of about 1.5 psi so the pistons would deform into the ball until there was enough force to break the vacuum.
which with that amount of surface area was about 200-300 pounds