The good folks at Twin Cities Public Television shipped the Burrito Blaster to my house so I could take it on some demos. I was glad to get my hands on it again; part of the fun with this type of project is the endless fiddling and improving you can do. Plus, my kids like shooting socks out of it.
When it arrived, I noticed that the trigger box was smashed in a bit during transit, so I decided to rebuild it in a sturdier enclosure. I got a small, cast-aluminum project box, drilled it out for the solenoid wires, safety, and trigger. I then re-wired and re-soldered it all, adding a braided sleeve for the external wires. I also mounted the switches on top so that the whole thing can be rested on the box; with the old design there was never a convenient way to set it down.
I also added a cutoff valve to prevent the chamber from being filled beyond 65psi. When I went on Attack of the Show! we didn’t trust the gauge on the air compressor, so we were filling it by count. Probably why one of the guys on the firing line got the wind knocked out of him. Hope this helps next time.
Future mods planned: a real PSI gauge, a sling for carrying, and some LEDs to indicate “Safe” vs. “Armed”. I suppose I should fix the slow leak coming from the rear cap while I’m at it.
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