The air-cannon is a fairly simple design, built from a combination of scrap and new materials, able to be angled into various positions, and to shoot a range of substances. Primarily this has been built as a confetti and paint cannon.

The system consists of a wooden baseboard, made from scrap 12mm ply, to which the rest of the components are fixed. A 2 litre stainless steel air reservoir, obtained scrap from some unused equipment stores air to supply the cannon. This is needed as the flow through an airline from the compressor would not be sufficient. Air is fed into this from a standard PCL type connector via a galvanised t-piece to which the valve is also mounted.

The valve is a 24V coil solenoid valve with a reasonable size bore, also removed from scrap unused equipment. This is wired out to an XLR plug to enable remote control. For details of this have a look at the project power pages LINK. The valve is in turn connected on to a pair of new right angle hydraulic connectors. These enable the barrel to be aimed in just about any direction.

The barrel is simply a length of ABS pipe with an end cap solvent welded to it which has a mounting hole drilled through and sealed to the elbow with an o-ring. ABS is used to reduced the risk of the barrel shattering.

Valve and inlet close up

The images here show the unit set up and in use for a powder colour paint shoot I recently carried out.

For more info regarding colouring of powders to use in your paint cannon, please see elsewhere on this site. Please consider the safety of anyone in the vicinity before using the cannon if you build one yourself!