How to improve power in piston shooter

[AllenGregoryIV]

Originally Posted by Jibsy

Depending on your setup, a potentially easy improvement is to add gas springs alongside the pneumatic cylinders to assist them on the way up.
I'm surprised that I haven't seen this done yet given how much it could add.
All of the force that the cylinder is using to launch is also being used to retract (not as strong on retract, but still packs a punch). Rather than having all of that go to waste, you can use it to store up energy in a gas spring. Something like these:
http://www.mcmaster.com/#gas-springs/=rc2sdb

You may also need to employ some of the tricks people have mentioned already about increasing the flow rate of your cylinder - otherwise the spring may just be slowed right down resulting in more than enough power, but not enough speed.


Best of luck!

Nearly every pneumatic launcher I have seen doesn't plumb the retraction of the cylinder at all. Most of them rely on gravity for return. This allows the cylinders to fire much faster as they don't have to exhaust through tubing or a solenoid.