Rudimentary Thumper Unit

After having added the (working) low-pass jitter filter to my nozzle I was getting a very good laminar stream, which is great during the day, but not so great at night when you want to be able to see the lighting effect as the light is simply carried along the stream and doesn't become visible until the stream hits the water on the other end.

So I was in my garage cleaning up some of the items from my past trial and error experiments when I happened to grab a solenoid valve from a sprinkler system that I tried using as a water cutter, when it hit me that if I just attached the valve to the outside of the nozzle and ran it dry (i.e. no water running through it) and used the timer I built for it to simply turn the valve on and off that the "knocking" that the solenoid produces might be enough to create the slight disturbance in the stream and help to create the visual effect with the lights that I was looking for. And best of all...it's water-proof.

Here's some photos of the setup and some video of the results.

Let me know what you think.

Here is the thumper attached to the nozzle...





This is the 555 timer circuit I built from a kit to control the valve...




Here is some footage of the unit in operation during the day where you can already see the results of the thumping...



Here is what the stream looks like at night without the thumper. You can see an occasional disturbance in the water from the wind, but otherwise the light is not visible...




Here is the effect of a slow thump...



And now a faster thump...

Great idea! Can you give me some details on your fiber optics? Where did you get them from?

I bought the fiber-optic kit from a Canadian Company called Virtual-Village.

Here is a link to to the kit...

http://www.virtual-village.ca/sparkling-decorative-home-lighting-fiber-optic-kit/sku003921-012

The kit has about 75 individual cables in the bundle that attach to an led light box which has a seperate power adapter. The cables are over 6 feet long and I used about half of them in my nozzle. The other half I plan to put into a second nozzle.

The cables run up inside the nozzle in a 3/4" pvc tube which has a clear pvc cap on the end. The fiber cables are in the water, but the led light box and power source are well away from the water.

Daryl

Thanks again for the info - now I just need to finish all my other projects around the house before I can begin building my nozzle.

That is a great knocker
A "must have" if you dont have any cutter on the laminar nozzle.

I did buy 3mm fiber cable from a web page in Germany, dont remember where.
But if it`s in anybody interest, I can try to find it

I'd be interested in where you got you fiber optics...always good to shop around.

The cutter is next!

I just ordered the part I need yesterday, so hopefully it will be here by the end of the week.

I tried making one using solenoids, but I just couldn't get the right action and the water-proofing was going to be an issue, so I came up with another idea...a "why reinvent the wheel" type scenario.

I'll be sure to post follow-up information on that as soon as I have some progress to show...hopefully by the weekend.

Excellent work! I'm glad that you were able to get the filter working!

The cutter is one of difficult things to get working just right. If you get working first try I will be soooooo envious of you!

Hi

Very Nice Donne ! Dont understan me Worong, your System is cool!
The only thing is a little bit more light will be grat. The Kocker is a little noisy, but if you dont care, its ok, I like the idea of it.
Cant wait what you going to do next, use a bycicle as a Cutter! No, i am Kidding.

Your Stream is very nice.

Cheers

yotaRunner4 wrote:I'd be interested in where you got you fiber optics...always good to shop around.

http://www.lichtdekor.de/index.php?language=en


Here it is

No problem ordering to Norway.
Payment on paypal, shipping only 5-10 days , perfect !!

Thanks!

Yes, I agree, more light would be great, but unfortunately that was all I could get using the 3/4 inch (19mm) pvc pipe as the housing for the fiber. I would have liked to use 1 inch (25mm) but with only having a 6 inch (15cm) wide nozzle, I thought that might cause a bit too much turbulence.

There actually is a bit more light than what shows up on the video, but for whatever reason the camera doesn't pick it up all that well.

Hopefully I can get some 8 inch (20cm) pvc for the next nozzle and then I will be able to use a bigger light tube for the fiber, but first I am going to get my cutter working. A bicycle? Mmmmmh, that just might work! But actually I was thinking more along the lines of parts from a higher form of transportation... the windshield wiper motor from a boat!

Stay tuned!

Sounds interesting I will seat on the edge of my seat until I hear more about it.