R/C Naval Combat

I heard there was a way you could substitute an air compressor for the normal CO₂ tank. This looks like it would be helpful, particularlly when you just want to practice at the local pond. How is this done?

Another potential issue to keep in mind is that a lot of air compressors have moving parts made of steel.  Once water get inside the compression chamber and/or crankcase, the water will displace much of (if not all) of the oil or grease inside, allowing it to rust.  If there's an excess of moisture inside while the compressor is running, there's a risk of overloading the attached motor (from trying to compress a lot of incompressible fluid) or turning a lesser amount of moisture into steam that could cause a compressor failure. 

While these are, of course, much bigger issues with larger commercial/industrial compressors, they could easily still cause a small onboard compressor to fail at an inopportune moment and thus should be kept in mind.  On the other hand, having more, smaller batteries instead of both batteries and a CO₂ bottle might provide quite a bit better flexibility for locating everything, especially in smaller ships.

Sure!  Let's see....

A collection of various air compressors:

Air Compressor, sprayed black, in the bow of a Monitor:

The entire ship:

A collection of various pressure shut-off switches (air compressor's equivalent of a regulator):

Posted By Kotori87 on 22 Jun 2009 03:39 PM
The air coming out of the compressor is pretty warm. After initially charging the accumulators, you can hear it turn over a few more times as the gas cools and shrinks, lowering the pressure and turning on compressor again. Heat is another issue you need to be concerned about. The ships that I have seen didn't have any preparations made for cooling the compressor head or motor, and they seemed to be OK, but it's something you do want to keep in mind.

I can't imagine it to be of much difficulty to come up with a simple but effective after-cooler for the air coming out the compressor by running the air through a length of hose exposed on the exterior of the bottom of the hull.  What I see at work for air outlet temperature numbers from somewhat larger reciprocating compressors is between 220-310 ^0F while the screw compressors tend to be in the low 200s.

Posted By Dave on 22 Jun 2009 05:34 PM
Where can you get the pressure switch?

Other than the ones that sometimes come integrated with compressors, I'd sure like to know if anybody has a good source for small and lightweight switches.  I know that Clippard has some pressure switches but if memory serves me right, they only go up to about 4 or 5 bar for actuation and deactuation set-points.
Other sources for presure switches that I use at work (such as here) are overkill and too heavy for our applications here.