pneumatic shift regulators

[Cement Legs]

I am trying to find lightweight regulators for our shift system and I am wondering if anyone has some helpful information. We are likely going to use high pressure air rather than CO2. Our maximum bottle pressure will be between 3000-4500 psi and our shift pressure ~80-120psi. Are we best suited with paintball equipment or does anyone know of some lightweight industrial 2 stage regulators that would work. I've look online but there is such a huge variety of products out there it may take me till 2010 to find the right one. http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_confused.gif

[Cement Legs]

I am trying to find lightweight regulators for our shift system and I am wondering if anyone has some helpful information. We are likely going to use high pressure air rather than CO2. Our maximum bottle pressure will be between 3000-4500 psi and our shift pressure ~80-120psi. Are we best suited with paintball equipment or does anyone know of some lightweight industrial 2 stage regulators that would work. I've look online but there is such a huge variety of products out there it may take me till 2010 to find the right one. http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_confused.gif

[Erich Ohlde]

Are you looking for pressure regulators or solenoid valves?

[KU_Racing]

I would suggest the paintball gear. If you can, use nitrogen as your gas- it will work more efficiently and you will get more shifts out of each bottle. There are industrial regulators that you can use, but they will probably be much heavier and more expensive than stuff from a paintball store.

[Erich Ohlde]

We have run a pneumatic shifter since 1999 or 2000. The valves we have always used are MAC valves. Specifically, their Small 3-way Valve, 35 Series. These are 12V units that require 5.4 Watts to actuate. They weight .19 lbs each. Hope this helps

[KU_Racing]

jayhawk, if you dont mind me asking, how long does a charge bottle usually last on a system like yours?? I am looking into a pneumatic system, and all the calculations I have done show that we will use a bottle up in about 150 shifts, which seems waaay to fast to me.

[Cement Legs]

Yeah paintball seemed the best bet, I guess I'll price some stuff out. Thanks

[Erich Ohlde]

we have a 20oz bottle charged at 1000psi and we get at least 2000 shifts, provided the systems doesn't leak, OU uses a 9 oz bottle and calculated 900-1000 shifts.

This year we are using a nitrogen bottle charged to 4500 psi, practically infinite shifts.

[Cement Legs]

Yeah we are going to use a 3000psi 68 CU in bottle.... same result ... ~infinite shifts ... for our application anyway.

[Travis Garrison]

You guys aren't comparing CO2 @ 800-1200psi to N2 systems are you? Speaking from paintball expereince, a 20 oz CO2 tank = aprox a 68ci tank @ 4500psi of air. Unless you're consistantly frosting your CO2 tank I wouldn't expect huge shift count increases just by changing gasses.

Of course if you want to follow the latest and greatest of the paintball world you could get a HUGE increase in shifts per fill http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif



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paintball boom (http://warpig.com/paintball/technical/paintguns/tippmann/C3/)

[KU_Racing]

I guess my calcs must be way off then. Thanks for that little bit of data.

[Travis Garrison]

Are you accounting for the phase change in the CO2 tank? CO2 doesn't loose significant pressure for quite some time...liquid going to gas...

[KU_Racing]

Nope. It is no fun trying to debug your handwritten calculations the day after you tried to figure something out at about 4 in the morning with no sleep. I think the phase change plus a unit conversion error is what led me astray.

[BuffRacing]

I'm having a hard time with Regulators myself. Industrial won't cut it, they're too big, and all the Paint ball regulators can only go to ~200-300 psi, or so I'm told. Dive regulators seem to be the best choice, but they're expensive. Any other options, what do you guys use? Our valves and cylinder are rated to 125psi, and I'd like to be closer to 90.

[Dan B]

Take a look at
http://www.paradigmmotorsports.com/html/air_supply.html

[BuffRacing]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by BuffRacing:
I'm having a hard time with Regulators myself. Industrial won't cut it, they're too big, and all the Paint ball regulators can only go to ~200-300 psi, or so I'm told. Dive regulators seem to be the best choice, but they're expensive. Any other options, what do you guys use? Our valves and cylinder are rated to 125psi, and I'd like to be closer to 90. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I email paradigm and they said they can do it, but thier inlet pressure, from what I understand, won't go over 1800psi. I want the tank charged to 3000 so I can use less volume.

[Marshall Grice]

a paint ball N2 bottle has a built in regulator that gets you to about 1000psi. Thus they are completely compatible with any CO2 regulators. The stuff that paradigm sells works with both CO2 and N2. We're using his setup on our car with N2.

[Superfast Matt McCoy]

I'm pretty sure nitrogen gives fewer shifts. Its benefit comes from the fact that the on-bottle pressure gauge gives an indication of how full the bottle is, where CO2 stays at the same pressure until the bottle is relatively empty due to the fact that it's mostly liquid when compressed in a bottle. The other reason Paintball people like nitrogen is that they can have the bottle regulated down to a lower pressure and have their gun fire consistently, whereas CO2's pressure changes with temperature pretty dramatically, especially when you are rapid-firing your marker.

As far as where to buy a regulator, paradigm motorsports sells the whole kit.

As far as bottle size, we can probably run the whole FSAE event on a 3oz bottle (~300 shifts, 200 if you auto pneumatic clutch on downshift).

Good luck.