Giant Piston

[EricH]

Your cylinder is too big. Plain and simple, you're way too big. The air just can't flow in fast enough given the FRC pneumatics tubing size for a ram like you're looking for.

Try 3-4 smaller-bore cylinders and/or a lever arm. OR... mechanically lock the cylinder so it can't move when it's initially fired, and have a tank or two after the solenoid, then trip the solenoid (preload) and unlock the cylinder a few seconds later, once it's got some pressure in it. On smaller cylinders, it works great--we couldn't even see the cylinder move when we tried something like that back in Week 1, it just was in one spot then in the other. (3/4" bore, probably about a 3" stroke)


BTW, point of clarification: I'm sure you're getting enough force, once the cylinder hits 60PSI. You're looking for speed/airflow, and getting the cylinder to 60 psi faster.