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]
Looks awesome.
Не побоюсь этого слова – буря в стакане.
Use a mag drive like in a lab stirrer. Bar magnet on the motor below and another in the bottle. Way simpler to make and zero leaks.
Thats what I was thinking as well. Plus, you can easily replace the bottle, vase or whatever you wanna place on there.
I doubt that would be fast enough to create a vortex, but I’m just guessing.
It would also depend in the liquid used I guess
I was wrong, here’s a commercial variant, and it exposes a nice idea, dual liquids:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P54M9X42y1M&hd=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.
I guess you have never used a magnetic stirrer.
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.
Kitchen blender.
Or toilet.
I bought a tornado machine from Tesco for £2.50 last week; a self-stirring mug.
Low battery power:
http://www.haku.co.uk/pics/TescoSelfStirringMug1.jpg
Full battery power:
http://www.haku.co.uk/pics/TescoSelfStirringMug1.jpg
I’ve also been undervolting the Tesco £2.50 USB plasma ball to produce just a few strands of light instead of filling up the entire globe::
http://www.haku.co.uk/pics/UndervoltedUSBPlasmaBall.jpg
Full battery power link fixed: http://www.haku.co.uk/pics/TescoSelfStirringMug2.jpg
What kind of magnet in the mug?
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.
Little tip: they sell ‘milk/coffee foamers’ for cheap with a little motor that already have a rubber seal on the shaft, they go for as low as $1 and look like this: http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/534755144/New_Battery_Milk_Foamer_Whisk_Coffee/showimage.html
Image is random from web search.
Not sure the seal as delivered can withstand the pressure of a container filled like that though.