My Project

Hello

the Brightest light you can see, is when you look against the stream, 90 deg side its also very bright, but not that bright as when you lookagainst it.
I dont use water enhancer anymore, my new setup is so bright, i dont need it anymore, this was just a funny studdy last year. As you can see on my pictures, the light in my stream is also visible during sunset, i dont need total darkness anymore, this is cince i upadet my setup with the 5W luxeons. Good luck and let me know if i can help. Looks great your
Pictures. you are just a little step away.

Just a thought, try to make turbulance in gthe water by holding a needle or something in ti, is the the light much brighter? the is your stream too perfect and you need to make some tubulance, but this is easy just put the fibers closer to the ouitlet.

Finally on a hot June night with the mosquito's biting at my ankles I got the laminar stream to be completely lit.
It is actually much better in person. Magic - how did you shoot your video?
We can see the well lit stream about 30 feet away.

Now for the fine tuning - build a decent stand - build a second fountain - then sit back and enjoy.
View My Video
View My Video

Congrats!

That's some pretty nice progress in a short span of time and it looks really nice!


I have a question regarding your fiber optic cable. When you polished the ends of the cable that are inside the nozzle, did you leave them flat or slightly domed shaped?

covewi wrote:Finally on a hot June night with the mosquito's biting at my ankles I got the laminar stream to be completely lit.
It is actually much better in person. Magic - how did you shoot your video?
We can see the well lit stream about 30 feet away.

Now for the fine tuning - build a decent stand - build a second fountain - then sit back and enjoy.
View My Video
View My Video

This Looks Great, Conratulation! Looks diferent than mine *FUUNY*, but really great too. As i can see, you have a lot of turbulance in the Water, maybe you are too close at the outlet with the fibers, but its a nice light play like this. Yes to catch it with a cam is hard, i use a simple USB cam on my laptop, its a logitech web cam 9000 or something, newest model. Its also much brigther than the cam can catch.

As i can see, the light is flicking hardly, this has to do about the quality of the stream, also the bright an dark spots.

Hve fun and enjoy the cool Show, Great work!

Thanks - Magic - will try to move the fibers back a little to see what happens - I am around 3/4 of an inch from the nozzle now.

Ike - I polished the fountain end of the fibers and the plexiglass rod mating end "flat" - thought I would get better contact between the two
surfaces. But now I am thinking to leave the plexiglass rod "flat" and "dome" the fiber ends - this may increase the distribution of the light
within the rod.

Thoughts.

Low Pass Filter Problem - today my stream looked horrible. I checked out the low pass filter and shook it - it sounds
like the water level is near the top of the 24" upright filter - looks to me that there is not enough "air pressure" in the
tube to help calm the waters.

What is the proper way to fill the low pass filter to ensure a large cushioning effect from the column of air?

Thanks

covewi wrote:Low Pass Filter Problem - today my stream looked horrible. I checked out the low pass filter and shook it - it sounds
like the water level is near the top of the 24" upright filter - looks to me that there is not enough "air pressure" in the
tube to help calm the waters.
What is the proper way to fill the low pass filter to ensure a large cushioning effect from the column of air?
Thanks

You have a tiny hole in the filter!
My low pass filter is made of a PE Tube sealed in a molten manner with heat, made by a tube worker, 100% Air Tight and water pressure thight. Thats all, 2 holes, 1 at the bottom and one 5 inch above. Noting more, but you need 100% air thight. The Air cusion is filled ub by nature, nothing to do for that.

I made a low-pass filter out of a 2 foot section of 4" PVC, an end cap, and a toilet flange to hold it upright. I used a liberal amount of PVC cement to put on the end cap at the top but even so I still had a few small leaks that caused it to slowly fill with water.

I sealed the end cap around the bottom edge with some loctite plastic epoxy and it worked like a charm! 100% air tight now.

I made mine the same way except for the flange... will try the locktite to seal things up... I have a small leak around the theads of the inlet and outlet adapters....I even threaded the 4 " PVC with a brass bolt... you would think with the plumbers tape the threaded connectors would be water tight... not for me...

Hope this solves my problem...

Thanks

I've made mine out of 4" pvc and about 2 foot long. I used end caps and tapped into the sides for the inlet/outlet. For the inlet/outlet I just got some threaded steel tubing to create a thread for the holes. Then I just used threaded sprinkler parts.

Check these out!

http://www.newark.com/jsp/search/results.jsp?N=0&Ntk=gensearch_001&Ntt=categorynumber136290&displaytext=10W%20LED%20Emitter

http://www.newark.com/jsp/search/results.jsp?N=0&Ntk=gensearch_001&Ntt=categorynumber136291&displaytext=15W%20LED%20Emitter

I need to try one of these - think I will try the 10 w RGB LED first.
It would be nice to carve out a concave surface, in the end of the my plexiglass rod light rod, to match the convex surface of the LED lens and
place it directly in contact with the light rod.

The 15 w LED strips look interesting but would require building a new light box connection system.

That's awesome! Dissipating that much heat on that tiny little area will make those extremely vulnerable to burning themselves out. Make sure you properly heat sink the LED's.

How much do you think an 18 " long 8 " diameter fountain - filled with water - weighs?

Custom Fountain mount. The ring represents the tube.
I will put a screen door closure - something like this

http://www.amazon.com/National-Hardware-V1345-Touchn-Screen/dp/B000BQU5QW

between the top of the tube and the front section of the mount.
It will allow for easy angle adjustment to fit my needs.
It is made out of 3/4 inch PVC.




Really - How much do you think an 18 " long 8 " diameter fountain - filled with water - weigh?

I got some other ideas after knowing this.

I am going to say somewhere around 45 pounds.

The water in the nozzle will have a volume of approximately:
V-cylinder = pi * height * radius^2
= 3.14159 * 18" * 4" * 4"
= 904.8 cu. in.

Since one cubic inch of water weighs approximately 0.036127 pounds, that gives:
weight-water = 904.8 * 0.036127 = 32.7 pounds

Schedule 40, 8" PVC weighs about 5.39 pounds per linear foot. You have 1.5 feet - so that gives:
weight-pipe = 1.5 * 5.39 = 8.1 pounds

That gets you to right around 41 pounds without counting end plates or internal rings and such. That is going to add at least a few more pounds, so I think 45 pounds total is a pretty good estimate.

Hope that helps.


-David

Davo - Thanks - I am thinking linear actuator.

Most recent photos.

https://2img.net/h/oi45.tinypic.com/2m5koec.jpg
https://2img.net/h/oi50.tinypic.com/xf0zrq.jpg
https://2img.net/h/oi48.tinypic.com/2ivib86.jpg
https://2img.net/h/oi48.tinypic.com/30i965j.jpg
https://2img.net/h/oi47.tinypic.com/24cysmu.jpg

WOW, this looks verry cool, great Job!

With the pool light on -

https://2img.net/h/oi46.tinypic.com/4tuhzq.jpg

And the pool light off -

https://2img.net/h/oi50.tinypic.com/vsm7v6.jpg

I cant stop myself - hopefully a second fountain will be done this weekend.

covewi wrote:With the pool light on -

https://2img.net/h/oi46.tinypic.com/4tuhzq.jpg

And the pool light off -

https://2img.net/h/oi50.tinypic.com/vsm7v6.jpg

I cant stop myself - hopefully a second fountain will be done this weekend.

THAT is sweeeeet !!!!!

Second tube, set of rings and top plate all cut today.
All supplies gathered and ready for tomorrows assembly.
I will make a small change in hopes of improving the stream force - I switched to stainless steel perforated sheeting - for the bottom support - with this years build
and will use fiberglass window screening for the top.

Last years fountain had perforated aluminum on the top and bottom of the straws.

I will have one of each fountain - side by side - to compare - WOW an experiment.

That really is pretty!!! Did you use any photoshop, or photography tricks i.e. long exposure?

No tricks - just a long shutter priority exposure.

Just finished installing the second build - you can tell there is a major improvement the stream of the new fountain ( on the left ).

I replaced the top - perforated aluminum sheet - with normal fiberglass window screen.

Could that make the improvement - looks like it. I thought that the light rod might be the problem but its backed out enough
NOT to interfere with the stream.

I guess the only way to tell is to put screen in the old fountain - maybe tonight.
Also put a ball valve in line to the each fountain to adjust each stream individually.



https://2img.net/h/oi28.tinypic.com/zikrck.jpg
https://2img.net/h/oi28.tinypic.com/6hm7a1.jpg
https://2img.net/h/oi29.tinypic.com/25tf0hc.jpg

Well I had to take the fountain apart tonight - it wasn't the perforated aluminum metal itself that caused the problem - it was the Aluminum Chloride crystals
that formed on the metal. Most likely from the Chlorine in the swimming pool.

This is why we should NEVER use aluminum in our fountains!

https://2img.net/h/oi30.tinypic.com/2s76rk9.jpg

More than 50 % of the holes are clogged.
Will cut a a piece of stainless steel for the bottom plate - adds support for the straws - and will use fiberglass window screening for the top.
Live and let learn.