Parallel or Series, which is better?

[Gary Dillard]

Originally Posted by diesel

Sorry for not being clear.

Yes, I am talking about pnuematic tanks.
We have one piston on our robot.
Will putting the tanks in parallel provide more force?
Will putting them in series make the pressure last longer?
And any other facts would be great.

Thanks.

1) Putting the tanks in parallel does not provide more force. Force in your piston is generated by the area of the piston times the pressure downstream of the regulator, which is the lesser of the regulator setting (60 psi default, lower if you dial it down or use a second regulator) or the pressure in the tanks (when the regulator no longer has to "regulate" a higher pressure down to its setting). The pressure is the same in both tanks (and all the tubing up to the regulator) regardless of whether it is a series or parallel connection because it is really just one big volume of air connected by tubing. Since you are drawing air out of this volume through the same size tubing, the remaining air is able to stabilize/equalize to the same pressure regardless of where you remove air from the storage volume.

2) By similar reasoning, the pressure will last the same amount of time for series and parallel, because you are storing the same volume of air either way, and removing the air at the same rate either way.