NightHawkInLight - 2018-09-10
I made a new vacuum cannon and use it to blast some unfortunate plants and beverages. Thanks to my sponsor Squarespace you can make a great website easily! Check them out at: https://www.squarespace.com/nighthawk Vacuum cannons are one of my favorite science experiments for demonstrating pressure differentials and atmospheric pressure. They never fail to get a huge response from a crowd. I've been improving upon my piston operated design over the last year, and while this new version adds some complexity to the design it has a number of improvements as well. New features of this cannon: 1. Crank operated piston which eliminates the need to tether the barrel down and reduces the cannon's footprint 2. Magnetic piston allows easy attachment of projectiles 3. No home made burst discs required as they have been replaced with plastic cups Check out my earlier vacuum cannon videos here: Piston operated cannon v1: https://youtu.be/9ydJXOTf1-4 Follow up response to comments: https://youtu.be/wrYDRNnrTu0 Giant 4" diameter cannon: https://youtu.be/cDoUBJbyZ-8 How to make PVC pistons: https://youtu.be/BCZGWvieJ7I How to make a vacuum pump: https://youtu.be/UkPLu6mgdWA Thanks to all my Patrons for keeping these videos possible and supporting me no matter what changes YouTube makes. A special thanks to my top Patrons: Syniurge, Matthew Leitzke, TheBackyardScientist, Enzo Breda Lee, John Johnson, & Thibaud Peverelli! https://www.patreon.com/NightHawkProjects As of uploading this video I have read over 213,000 comments over the last 11 years of my channel. Keep them coming! Thanks so much for continuing to motivate me to make the best videos I can.
You get an instant like for that "cabbages hate him!" line in the thumbnail...
this video is an epic win for the engineering of simplicity alone
Yup
The man has found a way to "force" people to listen to the sponsor bit. Watching the bird play kept me from closing the window.
His genius is omniapplicable
while everyone else is just putting out random videos to increase their volume you are putting enough time and research to make great videos love your work keep the quality content coming. hope you get a bigger team soon so as to create more content so that you can earn more so that we get to see more cool stuff.
Look. I'm not really sure why, but when you got to telling us about your sponsor my brain immediately skipped a beat and I thought you were going to say your bird was your sponsor. Your bird is also very cute.
You should put a fog machine at the end of the air cannon (where the air comes in as it is fired) to show the movement of the air as it is fired. Would be really interesting.
You know it's going to be a good day when NightHawkInLight uploads!
It’s like a supersized blowgun, try supersized blowdarts.
use a sabot, high density projectile and styrofoam bits keeping it airtight
The piston has two O-rings that keep the barrel airtight. That is how how the vacuum is created. It would be interesting to see how a 10mm ball bearing in a sabot performed though.
Or shot from a shotgun shell.
There might be laws and regulations about high velocity home made weapons. I’m not saying I like the fact, just saying he might want to look into that before making this more and more like a weapon
@Andrew Brown Hello, internet lawyer here, there are no current laws I know of regulating air cannons, vacuum cannons, or any compressed/vacuum powered projectile slinger in any way. You're basically free to do whatever you want on a federal level at least. Though your town or city may have an ordnance banning them due to noise or something
for sure learn how sabots work
Nice idea with the plug. I was waiting for this followup video to see how you solved this problem. It seems the projectile hits the plug about half a meter out of the canon, that's quite comfortable distance to do something about it. You could probably attach the cup with a string to the bottom of the pipe, maybe with some spacer, so that after being pushed out of the canon, the plug will be directed on a circular path downwards out of the way of the projectile. You wouldn't lose your cups, you wouldn't have to collect them from everywhere around, and the projectile would not be influenced by them in the flight. What do you think?
Sees you uploaded a new video
Drop everything and watch sciency stuff
Ditch the hand crank and string and replace with extra long wormgear actuator. Program it to jog back and forth pausing 3 seconds at each end. You can then rapid fire as fast as you can load and add the cup seal.
That is awesome, I love the plastic cup seal, genius.
So simple, yet effective. Great design!
Fantastic idea with the plastic cup! Really simplifies the sealing process.
This is actually SOO COOL!!!😍
Didn't even realize I was watching an ad since you trapped me watching that bird, lol
We need to try a Styrofoam Sabot + arrow and compare it to a compressed air arrow launcher... That's why I need a bigger workshop, I'm sure my wife will finally understand after I show her this video =)
Go for it, break the speed barrier a few times..
Try to find the best shape for the bullet..
sometimes it's funnier to play with a stick than to eat watermelon :)
anyway, awesome video as always and I'd love to see a longer canon to shoot supersonic styrofoam!
So cool to see this old project become so refined!
Awesome how you improved the front sealing. This is truly genius!
Greetings from Germany 🇩🇪
Longer tube you say? Did I just watch a video on bending PVC pipes with hot sand.... Coiled vacuum cannon here we come!
Hands down my favorite channel. No matter what you upload, im watching it asap.
Have you tried making projectiles more aerodynamic? I know with the vacuum in the barrel aerodynamics kinda go out the window, but the impact damage has to be tremendous.
I certainly enjoy the projects that can be done with a single trip to the hardware store
When I shot pvc end caps out of my earlier cannons they were pretty aerodynamic. I haven't tried anything else with that in mind.
Yep, one of the best channels on YouTube. It would be interesting to see if turning the wooden projectile on a lathe, to a conventional bullet shape had any effect of the projectile once it leaves the barrel.
@Supaa Mann almost like a hybridization of rifling and fins? Interesting idea.
Would it be possible to somehow take advantage of water's higher speed of sound (or of some other fuild) basically making the following:
A bigger pipe that reduces to a smaller pipe with the smaller pipe being the barrel of the gun.
Have a water tight sealed piston on EACH pipe.
Fill the space between the two pistons with water and no air
Load projectiles into the smaller pipe, and have the force be applied on to the bigger piston, which will move subsonically while the smaller piston can move super sonically.
Pleeeeeeeeeease make a Sabot projectile for this, I beg of you.
Great work btw!
Oh and a fin stabilized one please. Just like APFSDS - Armor Piercing Fin Stabilized Discarding Sabot shell used often in today's main battle tanks.
@Mojmír Křížek that's one hell of an acronym.
Just about anything you do is a treat to watch. We notice how much effort you put into your videos and I personally appreciate it. You could do more nerdy less explody things and we'd still watch, as a lot of your viewers are here for the science. I'd say keep making videos of what you're passionate about.
Brilliant evolution of ideas. I’m so impressed at the refinements and simplification of the overall design. Thank you. I love how it keeps me thinking about whether I would have one up with the same solutions! Love your work!
When does your wooden projectile come off of the piston? Is it only at the bitter end that air rushing in overcomes the magnets?
I'd love to see the longer cannon!
I'd also like to see some of the math and physics gone into in more detail. Maybe you could start a second channel to really dig into the numbers and equations?
I love seeing your birds at the end of the videos :D
This channel is really cool man. Been watching for years
Second
my thought "hey that is an amazingly simple design and I could build that. almost anyone could" so I am going to. thank you very much. you are a great engineer.
Since your last video I have thought about the valve problem in the front quite a lot and I have to say the cup is a genius idea. Great video!
Darn it ... Looks like my "things to build for classroom demos" list just got longer. This is so much simpler to understand and more intuitive than a vacuum pump and burst disks. Time for an update to one of my favorites demos. Thank you!
Love your work ⚒!
Can you look into making a self self sufficient home 🏡 improvement?
Like, running undrinkable water through pipes, focused sun rays heat 🔥 it up, a boiler convert it to electricity. Finally water is condensed to drinkable.
Little bit worried 😯 if my country goes to war. 😅 🌹
When I saw the Squarespace message at the beginning all I could remember was your caique playing with the ball from last time
I love your bird ❤️. I have a Meyers Parrot I rescued almost 17 years ago.
Awe inspiring stuff! I would love to see this cannon fire a projectile (perhaps rocket-shaped) straight up to see how high it can go. Bonus points if you can utilize a parachute recovery.
Really loving the simplicity of this design; its rare that someone innovates on something as tried and true as a vacuum cannon; so thats pretty awesome.
Can you make a "cannon" the fires toothpicks fast enough to go into or through a 2x4?
I like that idea a lot
Amazing improvements in design, I look forward to seeing future versions that I'm sure will be nothing less than ingenious.
This is a really fun looking toy, I have been playing with the wood gas myself as a byproduct of charcoal making. looking forward to seeing future vids.
I love seeing your "workaround solutions" for these projects, they're always simple yet elegant and make me go "Oooohhhh, makes sense."
Thanks for such great videos, always look forward to your posts.
Favorited! This design is awesome!
1.3M subs and 52k views in a week, guys what the hell this is one of his best videos the amount of ingenuity needed to design this is amazing!
I have been a sub for at least 5 years still by far one of my favorite channels. Keep up the great work!
How am I just now seeing this? Excellent work, I love the development of this new super weapon to surpass metal gear
Hey, I'm a long time fan of your channel and your videos are still the greatest!!! Would still love to see some of your oldschool homemade fireworks, but any of your projects is so interesting! Keep up the good work!
NightHawkInLight - 2018-09-10
As of 8:53am this morning I've read 213,438 comments on my channel over the last 11 years, + a few thousand extra from before YouTube started reporting comment data. I think that shows pretty well how much I value your feedback. Thanks for keeping me motivated all this time and giving me fresh ideas! For my next video I'll be back to the wood gas series, and after that I think I'll be building a new solar project I'm really excited about. That is, if I don't get distracted by some other idea in the meantime. Share my videos with your friends if you'd like to, and the best way you can help is to watch my videos to the end. YouTube promotes videos based on how long people sit through them, so watching until the end really helps my videos be seen by others. I've got a Patreon link in the video description as well if you're interested in supporting that way. Thanks for watching!
blahpunk1 - 2019-09-03
Ohhh wood gas is one of my favorite topics!
Shadowmaster625 - 2019-09-16
if you make projectiles out of lead and shaped them like bullets would they ban?
puttesla intxtbks - 2019-12-19
To be able to shoot heavy projectiles, combine vacuum with air cannon so your not limited to atmosphere pressure. Now you can shoot steel or lead cannon balls, bullets, etc. I think it was Teslalonea(sp) that did this and broke some records with it, on his you tube channel a while back.
puttesla intxtbks - 2019-12-19
Maybe could also increase power_speed even more by use of, say hydrogen and oxygen gas and ignite at proper time.
Bobillho Marshall - 2019-12-21
NightHawkInLight Hey, remember this video? The way you put the plastic cup on the tip is way more fitting for the projectile itself (with a rubber ring to seal the vacuum) this way the projectile wont hit the plastic cup and wont decrease accuracy.
Also, you mind making a real large one? As you said there :) Sincerely.