1.5" 40mm PVC Pipe Cannon Shell

thingiverse

Fun Fact: A standard ping-pong ball fits perfectly into a 1.5 inch PVC pipe. It must be a brand new ping-pong ball, since the old standard was 38mm but the new standard is 40mm. With this knowledge, some friends and I created a few ping-pong ball cannons. Just print or machine (I machined out of Delrin on a lathe) a plug for a 1.5" PVC pipe with a hole just big enough to fit the nozzle of your click-button igniting torch. Place a screw a few inches down from the torch nozzle to prevent the projectile from sitting right on the torch (allowing combustion gases room). You will need to play with the combustion chamber distance but more equals bigger boom. 5-7 inches from the torch to the projectile provides ample combustion space. Then open the torch gas flow, wait a few seconds (more wait time equals bigger boom) and then click the ignition button on your torch. The ping-pong ball can be shot with such force that it can sometimes shatter on impact with a hard surface. After playing with potato cannons for years, this little idea has yielded the easiest and most fun combustion cannon I've made. Ping pong balls sting when they hit you, but don't cause injury. However, this could cause injury if shot at a person. So it should go without saying, DON'T AIM THIS AT PEOPLE/PETS/THINGS YOU DON'T WANT DESTROYED. This is a 3d-printed "Cannon Shell" for a 1.5" PVC cannon. It fits snugly, and has a bullet profile. When launched full power, I have shot through 1/4" plywood boards with it and dented large trees. This is the maximum destruction version of the ping-pong ball. I have launched this hundreds of feet. Play with the infill setting, 10% makes a cannon shell that will shatter on impact, and is light enough to not travel too far, saving damage to incidental siding hits or whatever. 50% + infill will yield a heavy shell that travels for hundreds of feet and destroys everything in its path. Use carefully.