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Atmoz
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Post  John Thu Sep 17, 2009 3:19 pm

IMO, You can cut it with anything you want since you will have to polish it anyway.

The best way that I have found to polish it is just use sandpaper, and get finer and finer grits. Wet sandpaper if possible.
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Post  liteglow Sat Sep 19, 2009 5:23 pm

impressive light !!

How did you mount the LED into the fiber ??

My problem is always to make the fiber hold it`s place directly on the LED..
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Post  covewi Sat Sep 19, 2009 6:22 pm

Actually I am working on that right now 2000 hrs Chicago Time. I mounted the LED in the light tube and the light box like Magic Nozzle did.
I made a very tight hole through the light box to hold each fiber cable and then will run it run it through a piece of wood to hold it straight.
The fit is tight so I can push the cable up against the LED.

I want to try my 3w RGB set up by tomorrow night just to see if everything is going to work - while waiting for the 3w red, green and blue LED'S

Found an interesting problem when I took off the top plate to fit the LED's - There was a white powder on the screen over the straws.
I am running swimming pool water through the fountain (contains chlorine) and I use aluminum screening.

??? Are things reacting and making aluminum Chloride???

Any thoughts or suggestions maybe I have to switch to stainless steel screening.

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Post  John Sat Sep 19, 2009 7:02 pm

maybe aluminum perchlorate??? I'm not sure, my wife is good at chemistry so I will ask her.

You may want to check out the vinyl stuff that is used on screen windows. Let me know what you think. That's what I have been using and it seems to be working great. It's probably not as nice as the aluminum in strength, but it still is pretty nice to work with.
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Post  covewi Sun Sep 20, 2009 4:20 pm

Bottom plate view of fibers
My Project - Page 3 Ehkvm1
And from the top - you can also see the "white" powder that has been forming - I need to scrap the aluminum screening - winter redo project
My Project - Page 3 167pc44
To be lit sometime this week.

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Post  Magic-nozzle Sun Sep 20, 2009 11:04 pm

looks good, White Powder is maybe calc or oxidized, The Powderproblem is easy to solfe, use a Water PH minus or plus, then its gone. Unperforatet Aluminium is oxidizing for shure, maybe with chloride? I dont know. I use stainless steel meshes, no preoblems.
Cant wait to see a test.
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Post  covewi Mon Sep 21, 2009 4:37 pm

Give me a break... I hooked up my light source to the fibers ( just for an idea of its going to work or not) and I found water coming out the bottom end of the fiber optic cable.

Is it running down between the core and the outside covering... what the heck!!!

Possible solutions?

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Post  John Mon Sep 21, 2009 4:45 pm

REALLY? That seems really odd. I've never seen the fiber with the protective coating on it in person, but I thought that they formed the housing around it, instead of say pushing it on.

Can you get some pictures of it?

If it really is coming out of the fiber/housing then I'd say something like silicon. That's an awful solution after you went to so much trouble trying to make it nice without silicon (Home depot/Lowes has it).
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Post  covewi Mon Sep 21, 2009 4:49 pm

Check out the photos in this post. The water is coming out under the black Clad coat. Weird. Too much pressure in the nozzle chamber?
Maybe a clear cap. Silicone might distort the light Thoughts?

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Post  John Mon Sep 21, 2009 4:59 pm

Yes, Silicon probably will distort the lights. Maybe you could cut back the housing a bit and then seal it with some silicon (on the output side). Be careful not to nick the pmma because you will lose light that way.

You could always create a custom housing for the entire fiber so that it never enters the water.

Maybe you could play around with heating it up. Maybe that will warp the housing and tighten it.

You could always email the fiber people they may have some solutions, or they might just say that it is not intended for underwater use. I've found vendors to be very helpful in this project.

I think your best bet (out of these ideas) is to cut the housing back a couple of inches and then seal it with silicon.
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Post  covewi Mon Sep 21, 2009 5:09 pm

WOW - INSTANT RESPONSE

THANKS

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Post  covewi Mon Sep 21, 2009 6:03 pm

Could the reason my stream does not light up is because I don't have a clean flawless laminar stream?
This is the light and water coming out of the nozzle.

My Project - Page 3 2z5ndwn
Heres the start of my light source. 3 switches for RGB.
A Lm2825 simple switcher IC for a fixed 3.3 volts 1amp output.
Just the green LED hooked up.
Hope I can get everything in the box when I am finished wire things up
https://2img.net/h/oi37.tinypic.com/1gg3d0.jpg

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Post  John Mon Sep 21, 2009 10:33 pm

The picture made it kind of hard to see what is going on, but what I can understand is

You are getting light into the fiber.
The light is traveling down the fiber to the output.
This is where I'm not sure of what is happening.

Are you getting light into your stream? Can you see the light from all different angles? Is your fiber directly in the center of the exit orifice?

I'm reworking my lighting right now to play around with different stuff. I have learned a lot of things about the laminar stream and light though.

First, the laminar stream is too perfect a conductor/transmitter (of light). The light will transport all the way through the stream and not bend out of it. If the light doesn't bend out of the stream we can't see it. If you look at where the water is hitting the ground you can see too much light! Ideally you would want that to be very dim, and most of the light to escape out the sides. The laminar stream works like your fiber optics. If everything is absolutely pure the stream/fiber will transmit the light with very little loss. Now we all know that nothing is perfect. Therefore we experience some loss in the stream/fiber and that is what we are able to see. If you are familiar with "sideglow" fiber optics they intentionally put some fibers (or something similiar) in the fiber optics to make sure that the light hits that and boucnes out. Play around with just a touch of something in the water, like cooking oil or something that will flow in the water, but NOT TOO MUCH. You don't want to ruin your pump. If you put something in the water like cooking oil you will see the light hit that and bounce out of the stream. Essentially you are making "sideglow" fiber optics by putting something in the stream. The stream will "grow" brighter (do it very slowly so as not to ruin your pump).

Second, from different angles you will be able to see more light. If you are looking at the stream as the water approaches you, you will be able to see more light since the light more like continue forward after it hits something as opposed to bouncing backwards. I suspect that if you were able to see the stream from above you would see the most light, but I'm not sure on that.
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Post  covewi Tue Sep 22, 2009 3:38 am

Thanks - I see a very bright pool of light when the stream enters the water. Its so bright that it lights a 3 foot area around the entry point.

Cant put anything in the water as the pump is for our swimming pool.

Yes I can see the stream (light) better from straight on. But there are dark and lit spot throughout the stream.

How do you think the professional laminar fountains produce the "sideglow" effect?

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Post  pbracer Tue Sep 22, 2009 5:48 am

You need to create something in the water for the light to reflect off of...or use some type of opaque additive to the water.

The more "pure/perfect" your laminar stream the more light it transmits to the end, just like the fiber you are using to light it.

My Pentair jet has a very small "bubble injector" that scraps the laminar stream after the output and results in very tiny bubbles being added to the stream. If I allow more bubbles I get a very bright light in the stream for a short distance. Medium bubbles lights the whole stream from end to end and no bubbles provides no light and the pool is completely lit, because the light made it all the way to the pool

There is a picture of it under Pentair thread on this forum
My Project - Page 3 Jet_610


Last edited by pbracer on Tue Sep 22, 2009 6:55 am; edited 1 time in total

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Post  John Tue Sep 22, 2009 6:37 am

pbracer,

speaking of the "bubble injector" does it actually use air to create air bubble inside the stream? Does the needle pierce the stream and then inject the bubbles or does the needle shoot air at the stream?

covewi,

Yes I can see the stream (light) better from straight on. But there are dark and lit spot throughout the stream

That's really strange. I'm not sure what is going on. Is your fiber in the center of the nozzle? Once the light enters the stream it should be more or less the same glow throughout it with exception of the top of the arc. More light tends to escape at the top since the stream is getting bent. Is that what is happening?
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Post  pbracer Tue Sep 22, 2009 6:42 am

The injector is close to the stream but not touching it. When a drop of water appears at the tip of the injector it is instantly attached to the laminar stream and then the stream is "pulling" the water from the injector as it arrives. this results in a disturbance in the stream that does not cause it to fall apart but enhaces the light by providing something for the light to reflect off of.

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Post  covewi Wed Sep 23, 2009 3:59 pm

This is probably how the "magic stream" works.
You can also tell what the water droplet would do to the laminar light stream.
Look on page nine http://www.pentairpool.com/pdfs/MagicStreamOM.pdf of this and you can see that the water flows out of a connector an a screw control varies the water flow to the needle.
An easy build.

View My Video

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Post  pbracer Wed Sep 23, 2009 4:48 pm

Notice in your video how the stream seems to grab the drop and it goes with the side

If you decrease the size of your "injector" and put a "screw" control on the pressure you've got it

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Post  covewi Wed Sep 23, 2009 5:08 pm

I plan on drilling a very small hole in the side of the top 2 inch section of still water. Then put a thumb screw with tubing and mount a smaller injector - maybe this weekend

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Post  John Wed Sep 23, 2009 6:10 pm

If you work it right that could also be the valve for you so that you can get ride of the air in the nozzle.
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Post  covewi Wed Sep 23, 2009 6:49 pm

Big set back... I hooked up the new power supply and no was light coming out of the nozzle fibers. WHAT?

Took everything apart and removed the fibers... could not see any light shining though... I kept cutting the fibers shorter and shorter... finally at about 8 inches I could see some green light... I took a short piece and looked at it under a magnifying glass... the clear core was fogged up... must have been the chemicals in the pool water... $50 wasted.

Now what to do?

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Post  John Wed Sep 23, 2009 10:44 pm

Do you know if your fibers were plastic or glass?

I talked to a manufacturer of fiber optics, and they said that glass would not be able to withstand a harsh environment like water. If you are interested I have some PMMA 3mm. It doesn't have the coating on it to protect it, but I have bundled mine using some heatshrink.

It works fine for me. If you are doing a long run then you probably should use some with the housing.
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Post  covewi Thu Sep 24, 2009 4:44 am

John - are you the Mad Laboratory? If so great stuff.
Yes please PM me so we can figure out the 3 mm cable situation. Your help would be great. I need to see this work before the weather changes and I need to close the pool.

Covewi

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Post  covewi Thu Sep 24, 2009 5:19 pm

I don't know the orientation of the injector, in the Pentair - to the stream - is it on the top, side ?
I placed an 18 gauge stainless steel needle about 1/4 inch from the stream positioned at the top.
This way when the droplet of water comes out it "falls" on the laminar stream. It gets absorbed into the stream smoothly and makes a nice effect.
Any other position of the droplet meant the tip of the outlet had to be closer to the stream than the width of the water droplet - hard to do.
Will take some photos when I finish the water hook up and drop adjuster.

Here some horrible video I shot before my fiber cable went bad. You can make out the light in the pool and see the effect of me knocking the tube.
View My Video

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