Well I have to revise my total length, it's 16.5 inches because being tired I didn't consider the snorkel other than it's 8 inches but screwed into the tank shortens it a 1/2 inch. I didn't tap it all the way thinking if it didn't work, I could thread it in deeper. Sometimes the slightest tweak can make an improvement. The snorkel at .62 inch internal dimension and the paintball tank I can't guess how thick the walls are but the outside diameter of 2.52 inch so whatever ratio that is. Say the walls are .125 inch thick then double that and take that off the 2.52 inch diameter. Maybe something around an actual combustion chamber diameter of ~2.2 inches as a wild guess. The adjacent red and white Budweiser bottle has a diameter of 2.32 inches for reference. So its roughly a .62 snorkel to 2.2 paintball combustion chamber arrangement.
Last night when it trying the snorkel sizes starting with 6 inches, the snorkeler just didn't build enough compression and it gives you a very weak whoosh sound. I've come to recognize other strange sounds like when the snorkel is too long or mismatched to the combustion chamber. Sadly I don't have a bunch of snorkels in the larger diameters to just stage up and find the ideal setting. I've found a safe ballpark though of roughly matching the height of the combustion chamber to the snorkel length. It works with my larger tanks too. Longer lengths can get fussy quickly.
But with the 8 inch long 1/2 snorkel it really ramps up, much like the sound of the silver canister snorkeler that I sent Mike with the same diameter snorkel that I can't get to run more than about 6 noisy seconds at best and even that only in winter. And that canister I sent Mike is 3 inches in diameter and only 2/3 as tall as the 12 oz paintball tank.
Pint canister for reference
download/file.php?id=14813&mode=view
It would be neat if you could make one out of borosilicate or fused quartz and use it/present it as a barking dog chemistry demonstration, granted it's not a traditional straight tube but it does bark phenomenally well and with fuel it's a bark that keeps on giving. In cool dry air these things go from zero to sixty in the blink of an eye when you light them - methanol can be perky in the right conditions. It's sort of a bang start without the bang. Maybe though a spark-ignited corked exhaust tube bang start would be something to try in order to add a gunshot to the instant starting process presentation.
So I got it to ramp up just now using an 11 inch snorkel which is pushing it in this muggy weather but I'm pretty sure in dry air it will run as least for 15 or 20 seconds like other paintball tanks. Yesterday we got some dry air from the north but this morning it's just not right. I sometimes think some of the YouTubers that would have done better with jam jars don't because they live in humid climes and just gave up after meeting with defeat. Normally, I don't even like to toy with them in summer. After all, my favorite little 4 ounce jam jar won't even start up at all in this humid air never building enough pressure to start the flutter effect! It was Mike and his propeller video that got me interested in experimenting again.
When using the 11 inch snorkel, it comes to mind that I could be missing something that exists but would never find unless you created the conditions for it to work. Often with the longer snorkels, they do this back and forth out of sync confused burp as the flame front travels down the tube and I wonder if putting a spark plug in the combustion chamber and bang starting a snorkeler if you couldn't raise the threshold of what sustains that way, something with a larger, more dynamic combustion process still, but hidden from view because of that requirement. Another thing is how much alike snorkelers are to "musical instruments", susceptible to the surrounding air conditions, having to contend with unique particular proclivities.
"Manufacturers specify a room temperature of 72°F (22°C) as ideal for both tuning and performance. Unfortunately, such temperature conditions are not always possible in performance. Even so, the intonation problems associated with variations in air temperature represent a powerful reason why bands should tune-up on the stage and not be entirely dependent on back-stage tune-ups."
http://www.theconcertband.com/index.php ... emperature
I'll get a video of the new 12 ounce snorkeler design running when some cool weather comes and also I want to get one of the base sounding Gatling gun toilet brush holder engine doing its thing. One thing about the Gatling gun is that it really radiates the heat after a run, just standing near it. I've some other pieces of 1/2 inch tubing that I'm going to drill out and widen to vary the snorkel diameter still more. Just now I drilled out a 5/8 inch hole on the lathe and later some 11/16 maybe. The 5/8 didn't do any better after just trying it. It's amazing how a small change in the weather has exponential effects on the chain reaction of events, how the gas molecules cascade releasing energy. You sure earn your stripes trying to get snork jets to run in hot weather, it takes the training wheels off to be sure.
One time a paintball snorkeler was about to die and an augmenter was put in the exhaust stream and that suddenly pepped it back up which makes me want to try some sort of gizmo to hold augmenters in position for testing but it's really much noisier, as in hurts the ears. The thing I want most is a vacuum system to air out/refresh the jets after a run, something that sucks out the bad air and carries it away so that you don't breathe methanol fumes and it would sure beat a hand pump or bellows hands down.