Thankyou to the ghetto tubeless compressor inventor.

I had a quick search for his thread but can’t find it.

Anyway thankyou.

I built my own pop bottle compressor ages ago, but my last attempt with just a track pump had nearly killed my brand new Joe Blow and my will to live, or at least go tubeless.

Well tonight I gave it a go. Followed the same simple steps as before but this time with 40psi in the ‘compressor’ it just popped onto the rim 🙂 Painless!!

Stans Flow with yellow tape and a Swampthing (perfect for a UK summer).

Only difference from the inventors original idea was the use of the hose and valve adapter from an old track pump and grips to clamp the hose.

No idea what original thread you’re talking about but do you mean a pneumatic accumulator?

I mean a 2l plastic pop bottle wrapped in Gaffa tape with 2 Presta valves poked through two pre drilled holes in the lid.

One valve is cut in half and has an old hose with adaptor attached. The other is used to fill the bottle via your track pump.

Nip the old hose with some grips/pliers that is attached to your nearly tubeless tyre, fill the pop bottle to 40psi then release your grips/pliers.

Pop go the tyre into the bead then get swishing around until it stopped leaking 🙂

Novel solution, I like it. Yep, it’s a pneumatic accumulator. I like the simplicity of it!

Sadly I can take no credit 🙁 Hopefully somebody will be along to give the right person the props 🙂

He is indeed The Man and I salute him on a regular basis.

I’m even looking forward to my next one..

This one
http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/ghetto-tubeless-inflator-total-cost-9p/page/1
I bless it every time i need to seat a tyre and have saved it on chrome so i can build a new one if i explode it trying to get it to 100psi

Cheers Pridds, that’s the one.

Looks **** deadly IMO…

Really? You’re actually trying for 100psi in an R-Whites bottle?

See here

Search as I might I can’t seem to find any real guidance on using Lemonade bottles wrapped in Gaffa tape as any sort of pressure vessel, probably because even the HSE didn’t think anyone was that stupid…

surely by the time you’ve fired a few presta valves through the window and degloved a hand, it might have been easier and safer to just buy a proper compressor.

Thanks for that, mine is a schweppes one so its probably alright.

How much pressure can they take? Guessing they have to cope with a fair few psi anyway?
The gaffa tapes just to hold it together if it goes pop is it not??

Legend Pridds 😆

Too much cutting sarcasm on here.

Most comercially available accumalators are made of steel, I mean there is a reason for that it’s not just for fun…
But yeah your probably right Gaffa tape reinforced Polyethylene is widely recognized as the best material to shove 7bar into…

A reasonable compressor can be had for about the same price as a pair of posher UST tires, and it’s not like you lot can’t afford it really is it?

The number of posts on STW where people proudly state they’d only ever buy Park’s ‘high quality’ tools or blather on about the right sort of torque wrench making all the difference…

But suggesting that you should actually buy the right tool for the job when working with compressed air, rather than lashing together a stored energy device with the potential to tear your bollocks off, out of discarded food packaging means I’m odd eh?

What next?
The STW thread on making a Small Nuclear reactor out of saucepans and weetabix packets in your shed?

I know most of you work in IT so have no real concept of actual danger but explosive failure of compressed air systems even small ones can have serious consequences, 2L @ 7bar is actually capable of doing you some damage it is potentially a tad worse than a PSU going pop in a receptionists desktop…

I’m sure it works but a few safety recommendations on the original thread wouldn’t have beeen a bad idea….

Still you lot clearly know best. 😉

i’m a geek, as a younger geek i spent a long happy summer experimenting with water rockets.

we regularly pressurised 2 and 3 litre drinks bottles to 150psi, without any ‘incidents’…

i’ve no idea how close we were to finding the limit, cos 150psi was the best we could hold with our best bung.

compressed air is dangerous, and for that reason i wouldn’t recommend this method.

but i’d be very surprised if anything went bang if you kept it below 50psi.

perhaps one of you lot who use these could do some science for us; what’s the lowest pressure you need in a ghetto accumulator for successful inflation?

@cookeaa 😀

For anyone that is (probably justifiably) nervous about using a lemonade bottle, you can do the same trick using either a spare car tyre or a wheel off another bike. I use a spare bike wheel with a nice high volume tyre and just blow that up to 80 or 90psi, which it is quite safely rated for, so not too scary. Then you need to arrange a hose with a valve adapter on both ends, plug it onto the tyre to be inflated first, then onto your pumped up spare tyre and there you go, job done, and relatively safely. ONce you are done, remember to take the hose off your newly inflated tyre first otherwise you’ll let it back down again.
It seems to work better using a bike tyre at 90 psi than a car tyre at 40 psi. The car tyre holds more air but it comes out of the bike tyre much faster which is the important thing to get a tubeless tyre seated for the first time. Blowing a car tyre up to 90 psi seems a little chancy and an enormous amount of work on a track pump.

Well a Bottlerocket sort of demonstrates my point, the same energy required to launch ~1kg or so of water 50ft in the air could put a smaller projectile (say a chopped off presta valve?) through parts of you at a range of 2-3ft.

Just be concious that if you did something like that in a professional setting, just about any sort of engineer/site manager would take one look at it, disconnect it, give you an utter and deserved bollocking and then probably have you chucked off the site…

I’ve had a bit site-safety and CDM drummed into me, and hence looking at something like that my first thought is how would I explain the ensuing accident to the HSE and Insurers.

I’ve said my piece, your all clearly very pleased with your borrowed innovation…

At least Wear substantial gloves, eye protection and cover your arms and legs when operating it for your own safety…

loving this thread 🙂
thanks to mugboo for starting it
thanks to pridds for the link
thanks to cookeaa for the very amusing warning.

Will give it a go at somepoint 😆

The STW thread on making a Small Nuclear reactor out of saucepans and weetabix packets in your shed?

Link please.

By the way, I agree with cookeaa. You know those Darwin awards you lot keep going on about?

Pretty sure I read that fizzy pop bottles are rated for 150+psi but FHCK if I can remember where.

I think the only worry would be the lid, where you have weakened its strength by poking holes in it with valves. Luckily, both valves are covered by 5mm tubing, so that should reduce the distance they travel into you marginally. Also, with presta valves, you have a compression nut (I have two as I worried about this when I put it together) clamping the valve into the lid (and likely supporting it and preventing it from tearing).

And shit, it’s only 40psi for about a minute.

Home made nuclear reactor 🙂

http://www.popsci.com/diy/article/2007-03/popsci-videoteen-builds-basement-nuclear-reactor

IME riding bikes is way more dangerous than fettling them. 😉

…Well a Bottlerocket sort of demonstrates my point, the same energy required to launch ~1kg or so of water 50ft in the air could put a smaller projectile (say a chopped off presta valve?) through parts of you at a range of 2-3ft.

i’m almost insulted.

our 3litre rockets weighed… nearly 2.5kg (water + lead weights in the nose cone)

50ft?/15m? that’s nothing, we were getting over 100m (vertically), and about 250m ‘down range’.

happy days!

There has been *some* testing of PET bottles to see how much pressure they can hold. This is all I can be arsed to find now, but implies that you’ll probably be OK at 40psi.

Like cookeaaa, my job includes quite a lot of risk assessments, including making sure groups of ill-behaved children dont hurt themselves/eachother with various risky activities. However, instead of simply not doing it because it might be dangerous I look at how to reduce the likelihood that something bad will happen. In the case of the ghetto tubeless bong, this means I check the lid for signs of damage before/after each use and make sure the valves are pointed away from anything vulnerable. I remain confident that this will be fine.

A few years ago I was the only person in our street with a “medieval” siege machine.
Lots of stout timbers and powered by gravity and half a tonne of concrete blocks. No one died, but, the “machine” was destroyed by its own power source on it’s first “test” firing. The test projectile, a tennis ball, happily bounced around in the garden, about a metre from where it was “launched”.
In view of the fact, like someone said earlier, my new (ish) Joe Blow Mountain pump is already beyond its best, I reckon I’ll give this a go next time.

Far added fun, and to further alarm the HSE, do this first!

take your accumulator, don’t attach it to anything. Put some whiskey in the bottom, just a little little bit. Accumulate! Release! breath in the vapourised whisky (something nice and peaty works well).

#got this off James may so it must be OK#

Now start mucking with tyres and 150psi! 😉

Right I have to go now, there’s a guy over there says he needs some scissors ASAP, what do you think – run over with them, or throw them ?

Search as I might I can’t seem to find any real guidance on using Lemonade bottles wrapped in Gaffa tape as any sort of pressure vessel

They are pressure vessels, of course. How do you think the drinks stays fizzy?

it’s not like you lot can’t afford it really is it?

Not everyone on here is well off and middle class, seriously.

This one
http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/ghetto-tubeless-inflator-total-cost-9p/page/1

I’m still going to claim credit for far earlier lashing together a stored energy device with the potential to tear your bollocks off, out of discarded food packaging (see pic part way down that thread). Admittedly I just posted the occasional picture on here rather than build instructions – partly because I was concerned about the danger involved to others copying me.

But yeah your probably right Gaffa tape reinforced Polyethylene is widely recognized as the best material to shove 7bar into…

No – I think you’ll find the most widely used material for that is cloth reinforced rubber. Now isn’t that scary?

I am going to make one using an old garden sprayer . You already have the pressure vessel with a blow off valve plus the means to pressurise it with its own pump . The higher volume should make it work well . Watch this space .

cookeaa – Member

Most comercially available accumalators are made of steel, I mean there is a reason for that it’s not just for fun…
But yeah your probably right Gaffa tape reinforced Polyethylene is widely recognized as the best material to shove 7bar into…

A reasonable compressor can be had for about the same price as a pair of posher UST tires, and it’s not like you lot can’t afford it really is it?

The number of posts on STW where people proudly state they’d only ever buy Park’s ‘high quality’ tools or blather on about the right sort of torque wrench making all the difference…

But suggesting that you should actually buy the right tool for the job when working with compressed air, rather than lashing together a stored energy device with the potential to tear your bollocks off, out of discarded food packaging means I’m odd eh?

What next?
The STW thread on making a Small Nuclear reactor out of saucepans and weetabix packets in your shed?

I know most of you work in IT so have no real concept of actual danger but explosive failure of compressed air systems even small ones can have serious consequences, 2L @ 7bar is actually capable of doing you some damage it is potentially a tad worse than a PSU going pop in a receptionists desktop…

I’m sure it works but a few safety recommendations on the original thread wouldn’t have beeen a bad idea….

Still you lot clearly know best.

^ That, is one of the funniest posts I have read on hear in a while!

Classic!!

There was no cause for concern.

I was wearing my steel toe capped flip flops with Kevlar combats & a heavy weight skate T. These are the same flip flops I earlier mowed the lawn in!

I also accept all responsibility for my actions, if you choose to copy then so should you…

I fail to see how this is properly ‘dangerous’. The weight to surface area ratio of a plastic bottle means it wouldn’t carry it’s (very limited) momentum very far. The only problem might be the lid getting a direct hit onto your eye but seeing as that’s attached to a hose and is heavier than the rest of the bottle it seems unlikely. Just wear safety goggles, gloves as some generic clothing and I reckon you’d be fine in an ‘explosion’ of a pop bottle.

Ramsey Neil – Member

I am going to make one using an old garden sprayer . You already have the pressure vessel with a blow off valve plus the means to pressurise it with its own pump . The higher volume should make it work well . Watch this space .

good idea…

But in the spirit of the “You’re all going to die ” post, any chance of a webcam? 🙂

In his younger years my Pa (who worked in a garage) recalls connecting a big pop bottle to the air line, filling it to ABOVE 200psi, then throwing things at it.
Once the ‘target’ was hit, there were a lot of deaf mechanics….
(but the point being, it held 200psi until a sharp thing hit it!)

DrP

I tested my ghetto inflator up to 150psi by filling the bottle with water before pumping it up. My understanding is that water is not compressible so it doesn’t store energy which should make things safer. I’ve regularly used it with 120psi in it, no problems yet so yes, you’ll be fine with 40psi!

Having said that, my inflator is limited in terms of flow rate by the tubing I’m using (long, narrow), so increasing the pressure in the bottle doesn’t have a significant increase in the flow rate (it just ‘flows’ for longer). I suspect that a 3l bottle at 50psi would be better (for this application) than a 2l bottle at 75psi.

In his younger years my Pa (who worked in a garage) recalls connecting a big pop bottle to the air line, filling it to ABOVE 200psi, then throwing things at it.
Once the ‘target’ was hit, there were a lot of deaf mechanics….
(but the point being, it held 200psi until a sharp thing hit it!)

hmmmm

<wonders just how much pressure those dry ice & pop bottle “devices” used to hold>

😳

i made mine using a re-useable german fizzy water bottle. the re-useable bottles here are about three times as thick as a normal 2lt UK pop bottle. had mine up to 150psi before the hose started leaking.

My inflator failed miserably, the screw top on the Tango bottle couldnt handly the PSIs. I think I stretched it drilling the 2 holes in the lid. The Stans kit has been sat on a shelf in the shed ever since, whilst I fix a puncture every 2 months in my High Rollers.

Cookea, by our very nature us bikers are far too gnar to be that risk adverse (just do it while you still have your full face and pressure suit on, having recently returned from Afan…). Nice post though 😉

[..goes back to writing SQL code whilst sat on the office chair, lowering it slightly according to the manner taught in the CBT I recently completed]