200 PSI Compressed Air PVC Rocket

July 4th Weekend, built some compressed air PVC rockets. Powered using my 200 PSI compressor. Hard to see the white rockets in the air.
This was based on the Make Magazine article. I changed it up a little; paper rockets don't last long or hold much pressure. These are 3/4 piping, standard cap, then 1.5 inch fins made of poster board covered in packing tape. I put a few rounds of electrical tape around the barrel to get the tightest seal with the rocket.
Tonight, I'm going to launch some glow sticks with a streamer attached (to stabilize them.) I'll upload those if the Flip camera can record them.

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• Compressed Air
• Rockets
• 200 PSI
• Bryson
• My kid is better than yours

[jkahsen]

We just built the same using the Make Magazine article. Two questions for you:

1) How did you get it to 200 psi using PVC? The article indicated that Schedule 40 only had a rating for 150psi.

2) Was the rocket itself made of PVC? If so, I must be missing something because I'm not sure how you were able to put a 3/4" rocket on a 3/4" launcher.

Great job!

[brandondrm]

@jkahsen

Lowes has PVC 1120 SCH 40 rated to 280 PSI , made near here at Charlotte Pipe.

The rocket is 3/4 SDR-21, rated to 200 PSI with a SCH 40 cap on it. The burst pressure is much higher than the rated pressure, so the split second it takes to launch shouldn't be a problem there. The SDR-21 is a little thinner than SCH-40. Without using it, it wouldn't slide down over the barrell.

[brandondrm]

@brandondrm

The barrell is 1/2 inch SDR-13.5 rated to 315 PSI. obvilously not a problem there.

The compressor is a little Dewault unit, usually regulated to 140 max. The manifold out of the tank before the regulator had an extra pipe plug in it. I put another air chuck in it to get the full 200 PSI out of the tank. Really useful when you have an extremely tough bolt with an air impact.

[jkahsen]

@brandondrm Good stuff. Thanks for the technical details. I'll have to check Home Depot to see what the SCH-40 that we used is rated at. Might need to re-tool the barrel to support the 3/4" pvc rocket instead.

[brandondrm]

@jkahsen I have two barrels, 3/4 and 1/2. both have 1 inch threaded adapters on the end of them that screw into the valve. Then I can swap if need be, those aren't glued.

Home Depot didn't have too great of a selection. Lowes was much better.

[Jeeptruck86]

I'll bet Bryson was in little boy heaven. Awesome.