My tornado machine build!

[Things]

HIMNL9, thanks for those suggestions, I ordered a "50mW" green module from DX last night, I'll try it out when I get it Sure it wont be 50mW, but for $16, nothing much to loose if it only does maybe 20mW.

hakzaw, yeah I have considered the foggers taking away the effect, I'll try covering them up and seeing what happens.

Thanks for the comments

 

[nikokapo]

Tutorial, now.

(Yes, Google has them, but I want a Things-torial).

 

[Things]

Hopefully everyone has left the house LOL!

I definitely need some lighting on it, DX hurry up with my LED's!

I have this week of school left, then I have 2 months holidays, I will do a tutorial then

EDIT: Some more vids:

 

[wolfhunter9154]

Does the mist go out in the air or does it cycle?

 

[Things]

It just shoots straight out of the top fan, into the room.

 

[Flaminpyro]

Very cool machine, how are you creating the mist ? Thanks !
pyro...

It just shoots straight out of the top fan, into the room.

 

[Things]

It uses 2 ultrasonic misters:

 

[Helmholtz Watson]

Do you have any links to where to got the fans from or what sort you are using?

 

[Things]

I am using 5 of these: 76mm x 75mm 12V DC Blower Fan Standard - 2 wire - Jaycar Electronics

4 for the 4 pipes creating rotation, and one down the bottom for fog (You can see it in the pic above your post).
You can get those much cheaper, but I didn't want to wait, so I bought them locally.

The fan sucking air up is a common exhaust fan found in many bathrooms.

 

[Helmholtz Watson]

Do you think These would be ok for the blower fans? They seem suspiciously cheap compared to the ones you linked even though they're better on paper

 

[Things]

They should be fine, Jaycar has a huge markup on their prices

They don't have a pressure rating listed, however. Hmm

 

[Helmholtz Watson]

Yeah I had wondered about that, but tbh I've never seen pressure ratings for 12v dc fans. The cheapo ones claim higher rpm and cfm flow from a smaller outlet so I would assume they must have a resultant higher pressure (forgotten all relevant physics).

Edit: Definitely going to be building one of these! I think it could be done for ~£50-70 from ebay, depending on availability of housejunk for making the cabinet and blower pipes. Out of interest, how much did yours cost in total? Were there any unforeseen circumstances that called for adjustment of plans/budget?

 

[Things]

Edit: Definitely going to be building one of these! I think it could be done for ~£50-70 from ebay, depending on availability of housejunk for making the cabinet and blower pipes. Out of interest, how much did yours cost in total? Were there any unforeseen circumstances that called for adjustment of plans/budget?

Sure were some major changes along the way!

Originally I had planned on the updraft fan pressurizing the top box, which forces air down the pipes. But, turns out the fan is useless at pressurizing, thus why I went with all the blowers.

I then thought about using maybe 1 big blower, and pressurizing the box around the rotation pipe, but finally decided to do what I always did with tornado machines, and mount the blowers directly on the pipes.

Another thing I wasn't planning on doing is the blower for the fog, I thought the tornado would have created a low enough pressure to fix that, but there is too much of a gap between the fog and the top of the plate for it to work.

Also, I wasn't planning on having plastic sheeting on 2 of the sides, as I wanted it almost fully open, but due to the blowers being not as powerful as needed, I had to do it anyway.

 

[HIMNL9]

Hi, i just remembered an old demo about creating a vortex with two blowers at 90 degrees angle, and had another strange idea

As i see in the pics, you're using pipes with holes for blow air all around the box, for create the vortex ..... have you never tried to change a little bit the inclination of the blowing holes rows, for see if the effect is better or worse, with different inclinations ? ..... just matter of few degrees, i mean, like in the draw ..... maybe there is one inclination (the same for all the tubes) that is better than others, for produce a vortex ..... just a curiosity

 

[Helmholtz Watson]

Probably somewhere between 2 & 3. Each air stream should go into the path of the next to get good rotation. How much they need to be angled at to do this will depend on how big the unit is and how tight the vortex needs to be.
If you could add controls for pipe angling and blower speed control, you could probably have significant control over the appearance of the tornado. (low pressure, low angle= fat lazy tornado, high pressure high angle = thin fast one maybe?)

 

[hakzaw1]

You might get lucky and find a free DOA lcd projector- perhaps at a repair shop---besides some cool optics I found two nice mini squirrel cage blowers as well as two other fans. 12 volt I think-I also got a NIB bathroom ceiling fan for cheap at a thrift shop. And from a thrown away cheapy airhockey table ---a fan that fit pefectly on top of my Argon laser Head. Its all out ther if you know where to look.--Len