A new Palmer regulator (female, low pressure w/ low-pressure gauge attached) and hoses are on the way, along with the bit from eBay to wire up a solenoid and fire it remotely!

I'm going to keep my mechanical valve because I love the T-pull mounted near the e-brake, but being able to fire off the horn remotely is so far over the top that I just have to have it.

Blimey: Thanks for sharing and for making my mod even better.

 

No, Thank YOU!

Collaborative innovation rocks.

 

I hooked up the Palmer regulator on Thursday evening, but the tank leaked to empty over night. I think that I had a bad o-ring. I've gotta get some more CO2, so maybe it's time to replace the o-rings on all my tanks.

I spent some time today working on the electrical for the solenoid setup. I ran a line from the battery, through an in-line fuse, to a 12 volt switch (near the power outlet in the boot) and to the wireless transmitter box (velcro'd to the inside of the little compartment on the driver's side of the boot) I'll pass this line through a gromet on the boot floor and down to the solenoid that will mount off the horn. This way, I've got a constant on power supply directly from the battery, but I've got a switch in place so I can turn all of the electrics off (probably the standard setting for me) so that I don't have to worry about a stray electrical signal firing the horn off unexpectadly.

I'll be running 2 ways to flow CO2 to the horn... out the tank, through the regulator, into a T that will split to the mechanical valve or the solenoid then back into another T and into the horn, so that either valve can blow the horn.

I can't wait to get it working again. It's been too long. I was hoping to have it running for the 4th of July parade that my local club goes to, but it wasn't meant to be, I guess.

 

Cool....

Yeah, those crappy O-rings will get ya. I've got a little (2oz) spray bottle of water/soap solution, and I leak test mine every time I change the bottle now...

 

Depending on the cost, I may just buy a pocket full of 'em and replace them every time I fill up.

 

Yeah... I'm gonna hit the paintball store here sometime and do that, too...

 

I did some research and found that you can buy a bag of 50 CO2 tank o-rings for $6. Looks like cheap insurance... if it saves you a couple of tanks of CO2, the bag of rings just paid for itself. Looks like I'll be investing in some of those nice thread protectors as well. It will keep the business end of the tank clean and protected while keeping the o-ring in good shape as well.

I also read that a bit of gun oil applied to the rings will help with the seal and lessen the odds that the o-ring gets damaged while tightning the tank to the regulator.

I'm wondering if a fiber or nylon washer at the tank/reg junction would help... or maybe a bit of teflon tape on the threads, though you shouldn't have to wrap the threads on this type of fitting.

 

Woo Hoo! The horn is back in service, and electrified too!

I've made it 2 days now without the tank leaking until it's dry, so I'm feeling a bit better than before. Perhaps I just needed new o-rings on the CO2 tanks... I wound up reworking all of the connections anyway, so everything was disassembled, teflon-taped and re-assembled with a careful eye on the side of the system (upstream of the valves) that sees constant 150 PSI pressure.

The electric remote control is HILARIOUS! That is truely an excellent mod!

More photos and video to come of the recent upgrades.

 

Wow that is sweetness!

 

When it comes to working with the o-rings on airsoft guns the only oil that we ever let near them is pure silicon oil, anything else and you risk degrading your o-rings.

 

That's great advice. Thanks!

I'll try and shoot more video this weekend... now that I've got the new regulator on it, it's even louder!

 

Well... I've made it 2 weeks on one 9oz tank of CO2 and the horn is still goin' strong! That's twice my old record, so I think I'm doing something right. Unfortunately, I'm not positive of exactly what I am doing right because I changed several things at once, but I've got a feeling that I was having problems with the o-rings that seal the CO2 tank to the regulator.

Here's what I changed

1. Re-taped (teflon tape) all of the hard connections and re-connected, being sure to get the connections from the valves all the way back to the regulators good and tight.

2. New regulator (I think that the old Kobalt one had leaking issues plus whatever other leaks I had). I found and fixed one during a leak test in my kitchen sink, but I have a feeling that there was another slow leak in there somewhere.

3. Teflon tape on the CO2 tank to regulator threads: Due to the design of these gas threads, I shouldn't have to do this and it shouldn't really do anything, but a handful of paintball guys swear by it and it doesn't do any damage, so why not?

4. O-ring maintenance: O-rings are cheap, so I'll probably replace 'em every time I fill up the tanks. I put a drop of gun oil on 'em and invested in some thread-protecting caps to keep the threads and o-rings safe and dust-free in my rather dusty garage.

The horn remote is a hella-cool mod (Blimey's idea that I copied shamelessly :D ). I wired in a safety switch that I leave in the off position most all the time, just to keep some stray signal from triggering the horn when I'm not around or even as I'm driving down the road. It's fun to play with at club meets, though! :D

 

Well... at some point a few months ago I must have thrown something up under the car (or did some damage during an off-track excursion) and I broke the plastic pull valve for the horn, along with a couple of other components that tie it to the pull cable. After a bit of ebay searching, I found a heavy-duty cast metal valve and I installed it this weekend, with a handful of new hardware from an aircraft supply shop to tie into the pull cable correctly. The horn is back in service! Woo Hoo!

The electric remote is out of service, though... on my way to a track day, something shifted in the back and smashed the poor little manual switch that I installed. Looks like I'll have to try that again, but at least that's an easy rewire job... it doesn't require getting up under the car and reworking all of the plumbing like replacing the valve!

I've wrapped the CO2 tank threads well with teflon tape, though the nature of CO2 gas connections means that it shouldn't really do anything productive... I figured, why not? It has been 2 days and the horn still works, so my connections are at least half-way decent.

I'll let you know how it holds up. If I can't get over a month of service without a tank change, I might have to break down and install an air tank and compressor.

 

try this:

 

awesome

 

Wow...great job.....real custom finish...

 

Good news, Aaron. Glad you're operational again.

I'm still going strong - except I need to check the fuse on my wireless remote receiver - think it's blown right now. I'm regularly getting a month or more on a tank - though occasionally I'll still have a bad O-ring leak down issue.

 

I seem to have gotten a bit better duration from a tank once I started replacing the o-ring every time and using a drop of gun oil on them to help stop binding during install.

I found a decently small air compressor and tank that I think will fit where my CO2 tank and box are hiding. They even make a snorkel kit so you can draw intake air from inside the cabin (clean and dry). If the tank doesn't hold up, I'll probably go that direction and post more pics when done.

 

OK... I just went back and re-read this thread. I noticed that BC mentioned that NewMINIStuff has a splice kit so you can rig the bluetooth button on the MFSW to operate as a momentary switch. Since I've already got the solenoid in place, it would only require running a wire pair up to the steering wheel, so I just might have to do this, too! :D

 

Nope...they don't have that anymore... why I had to rig a hardware button.

 

Aw crap! I had this great idea to rig one button to my horn and the other button to a custom-built headset mic for my FRS radio! I'm gonna have to figure out how to make that one work!

 

If you want to get deeper into electronics than I do, there's a guy who has worked out another solution... I wish I had the time and patience to play with this... but I don't...

http://www.arduino.cc/cgi-bin/yabb2/...num=1224745614

 

I've already got the tank and compressor in the car, so i may have to jump on the air horn bandwagon just for fun

Good thread guys

 

I've got 2 ways of activating the horn... via the t-pull and a mechanical pull-valve and via an electrical solenoid that is connected to a key-fob remote transmitter (Blimey's excellent idea). I was worried about stray transmitter signals firing off the horn at inopportune times, so I wired the signal receiver to a cut-off switch. That's old news, since I did it last year some time. On my way to a track event, I had the car loaded full of gear and something shifted, smashing the plastic switch that I had installed.

I was at Harbor Freight and spotted a race style switch with a carbon fiber-look cover on it. When the cover closes, it turns the switch off, which is perfect for me as I leave it off 99% of the time. When you flip the switch up, it activates the remote control of the horn and the switch glows a bright red! It is mounted on the side wall of the boot, just next to the 12v power outlet (with my 'SpotLight' rechargable flashlight in the socket).

The horn has made it 5 days and still working on the original CO2 tank. Maybe I fixed the leak when replacing the mechanical valve!

Horn ready... armed... FIRE!

 

Shortly after doing my straight exhaust a few years back I've been thinking about this. Nice job guys! The CO2 is ingenious...

With room under the rear of the car on both the left and right side of the muffler, I've always figured that I had sufficient space for a tank and compressor. agranger, are you going to use air? If so, please do share...

What would you say is the total weight of the CO2 horn system, and about how much heavier would the tank/compressor option be?

Not sure where you guys sourced your horns as I believe the eBay link provided earlier is now dead, but this site has some offerings, including tanks, compressors, and other parts...

http://www.hornblasters.com/products/

And there's some hilarious videos there also.

The longest horn in the group (S4) is 20". Is that problematic? From memory, that would seem to fit... All four horns weigh just 4.5 lbs (ABS, but with ss diaphragms).