Fitting Foam Cannons to water blasters: do you need an adapter? Which one, and where?

Foam Cannons are awesome fun and work really well, but where do you fit them and do you need an adapter? We get asked a lot of questions so hopefully this will help..

There are so many water blasters out there, wouldn't it be so much easier if they all had the same fittings? Well they do... they just don't use it all the time. There is a universal fitting that nearly all brands use, and most foam cannons are designed to fit these. Its the 1/4 inch brass quick fit connection that looks like this:

Look down the Aisle at bunnings or Mitre 10 and you'll see this fitting on all the big water blasters. If you have a fitting like that then chances are you wont need an adapter, the foam cannon will fit straight on. there can be a bit of "wiggle"/ free play, this is normal, when the pressure comes on this will normally lock tight.

But chances are if you are reading this you don't have an adapter like that on your water blaster. Why? We'll most water blaster manufacturers want to lock you into buying only their accessories, so they make up their own fitting on their smaller water blasters. Its annoying as these are normally the model's that are ideal for you for foam your car, but their own accessors don't normally cut it.. You don't need or want crazy high pressure, around 2,000 psi pressure and 2.0 gallons per minute (gpm) is great, you can go as low as 800 psi and still get good foam, over 3,500 psi and you will be wearing out your foam cannon prematurely and could also risk damage you your paint.

To make things more confusing these can change over time. This is largely because many brands contract out the manufacturing process, and fi they change the manufacturer, the fitting can change. They may also change designs over time, or for different markets. In New Zealand there are a lot of parallel imported machines so fittings might vary.. There are also sometimes multiple places that disconnect often with different fittings, and some models don't come apart at all. Confusing right.. But don't stress its actually really easy to find out if you need an adapter and which one you need.

Step 1: Do you have the brass quick connect as above?

If so don't need an adapter for most foam cannons. You are sorted. If that's not you read on..

Step 2: remove the barrel/lance in front of the trigger to turn it from looking like a "rifle" to looking like a "pistol" and look at the fitting.

The foam cannon needs to clip on after the water goes through the trigger, or you can't turn it on or off. You want to have the lance/barely to waterblast down the car, then unclip it and clip in the foam cannon to foam, then unclip it again and clip back in the lance/barrel to waterblast off later. The above photo is an example of a royobi. The foam cannon doesn't fit in the orange crossed out areas, but in the zoomed in bit with the red dotted circle around it. If needs to clip into the front of the trigger section like a silencer fitting onto a pistol, so you need to be able to remove it here. then look at the male fitting that connects in, and find the matching style of adapter. If there are a few that look similar check the measurements, we have measurements for similar looking adapters in the photos of them, our adapters are here:
Adapters — lovecarsnz>

So for above you would want this adapter which matches the end of the lance/barrel for the water blaster above.

If you weren't sure you could measure the lugs, they are 14mm long in this case.

Simply find the adapter to match and you are sorted.

What if I can't disconnect the lance/barrel of my water blaster, or if I have a unique fitting?

You need to be able to connect the adapter to something, if you can't do this on your water blaster you have 2 main options, 1. buy another water blaster. You don't need high high pressure so these are not too expensive, and this might be an easy option. or 2. replace the trigger section to one that you can connect to like this:

Snubby Spray Foam Gun Attachment — lovecarsnz>

... buy you only need that if you can't remove the section in front.

These are also a good option for detailers working in tight bays., It can be hard to maneuver with a long rifle style water blaster in a tight area, many car dealership groomers have really tight areas to work in, swapping out to the shorter pistol style trigger can make this easier.

You may also need to get some spray ends to clip on this if you don't have them already, like these. Just be wary the fine ones can be too high pressure for paint, I'd recommend hiding those next to the roundup.

Like these:
Different waterblaster ends, 5 pack — lovecarsnz>

I think that covers everything. If not or if anything's not clear let me know in the comments. Cheers, Adam.