Building A Tornado In A Bottle

vortex-tornado-machine

Recreate the look of a tornado by building this water vortex art piece. The components that go into it are all very simple and can be found in your recycling bin with the exception of a motor and a way to drive it. The hard part is going to be getting to the point where you don’t have any leaks.

[Ixisuprflyixi] went with an empty salsa bottle to house the vortex. It’s a pleasant shape for the project since it’s both tall and narrow and it’s got a bit of a sexy curve to it. The base of the machine is a plastic bottle which looks like it might have been for Metamucil, but we’re not sure.  The important part is that it needs to be made from HDPE, as a portion of the container will be used to make the impeller. That’s the part that attaches to the motor shaft inside of the container. Give it a spin and you’ve got yourself a tornado in a bottle. See it in action after the jump.

This is a much quicker and easier version than the one we saw [Ben Krasnow] build. He ended up doing some repair work on the gasket that seals the motor shaft. It’s an interesting read if you are thinking of building one of these yourself.

[Thanks Mark]

14 thoughts on “Building A Tornado In A Bottle

          1. Yep, I had a similar one, and it too had a mag drive. With a surprisingly weak magnet and motor. I guess it doesn’t take much force to eventually get the water moving, when there’s nothing there to slow it down.

  1. Very pretty, makes me want one. although I would have to find a way to make it silent and prevent the light from bleeding though the base. Maybe placing a container within a container then having a layer of insolation would work. Cool stuff, I will have to give the build a look at.

      1. Thanks for spotting the broken link.

        It doesn’t use a spinning magnet but a metal rod connected directly to the motor in the base, bent into a circle with a small spring wrapped around it, almost identical to the battery powered whisk linked below.

Leave a Reply to FlushedCancel reply

Please be kind and respectful to help make the comments section excellent. (Comment Policy)

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.