[Mattmopar] figured out how to get a white Christmas even if the weather isn’t frightful. He built a simple DIY snow making machine with a few plumbing parts, and tools you probably already have. Snowmaking machines used on the ski slopes cost tens of thousands of dollars. Even the “low-cost” home versions are $400 and up.
[Matt] cut things down to the basics. Snowmaking requires two ingredients: Water and compressed air. The water is coming from a cheap electric pressure washer he found used. The air pressure is from an old air compressor. [Matt] is using his shop compressor – but even a cheap compressor will do fine.
The cold is an unforgiving environment though – so a few changes are needed. The trick is to use garden hose instead of air hose. Traditional air hose has a rather small hole. This leads to ice clogs coming from the compressor itself. A check valve also ensures that water from the pressure washer doesn’t back up into the compressor.
The nozzles are pressure washer nozzles. Two 40 degree nozzles for the water, and a 65 degree nozzle for the air/water mix. In true hacker style, the frame of the machine is a ladder, and the gun attached via zip-ties.
Of course you still need cold temperatures for this to work, but that’s not too hard in the winter months. Now if you have the opposite problem of too much snow, check out this self clearing concrete.
What if you filled it with liquid manure instead of water? I think it would make for a fine Christmas Odorizing Machine, especially if the area is HOA.
A fan is also needed to make a larger spread.
I question how small of a compressor you need.
My uncle ( P & W engineer)experimented with a snow maker based on vortex cooling. Never got rich.
Ecological aberration, it is sad that our community (Makers) does not integrate the ecological constraints or consequences even when they are just symbolic. The world need a thought switch
…What?
L’amour Toujours.
Much of the USA (and elsewhere, if what I hear is accurate) is either in a water shortage, or officially in a water “crisis”.
We have been pumping our aquifers out like hey have no bottom.
And we have been doing it for a long time.
I think OP was pointing out how selfish and asinine it is to build a water spraying device, when it is likely that the place said device was built has water use regulations.
Just because some people are so self entitled that they think their own personal freedoms “trump” the basic rights of everyone else, doesn’t mean we can’t call them out on their ‘bovine excrement ‘
If you really think this is too much, then replace your lawn with gravel and cacti, wash yourself with a rag and a bucket, eat only plants that aren’t water-intensive, etc. Or, stop people from building datacenters dedicated to AI or crypto mining that consume as much power and evaporate as much water as a small country… Then you don’t need to worry about using a tiny amount of water to make a snowman or to turn your lawn white once or twice in the winter.
That, and a number of ski slopes have a reservoir down hill from the slopes to catch the melt for reuse.
that’s a wild assumption to make. Huge leap in logic. This guy lives in Illinois which borders Lake Michigan.
You produce ~50-70kg of Adenosine Triphosphate per day whose byproducts such as ammonia are not environmentally friendly. It is sad the maker community doesn’t take action against the ecological aberration of existence.
Agreed. We would be so much happier if we just got rid of people. Imagine what our lifes would be like if the earth was free of all of us. The number one source of pollution is humans and if we can eliminate them future generations will live on a planet without it. I’m going to do my part right now and stop exhaling. I suggest you do the same, your future depends on it!
Don’t worry, we’re all going to die.
How is his back-yard snow machine producing kilograms of anything besides snow daily? Perhaps I’m missing some key logical step in how this works but that assertion seems ludacris taken at face value.
It’s a fancy way to tell that person humans are waste and should die. The snow machine doesn’t make any chemicals
You… can’t just tell someone to ride the sewer slide dude, Coen level Barbarism.
Said the person writing that post on a device produced with toxic chemicals mined by children. Hypocrites never dissapoint.
These mockeries or diversions are not counter-arguments, only the sign that there is something disturbing, that is good, it is progressing….
Oh the irony …
Neurotic and deranged
Nice hack. Now if only [Mattmopar] can hack BOEING 737-800 jets so they do NOT attempt to land without extending the landing gear first!
too early. this is not reddit :)
A statement quite centric to some parts of the world. Happily sitting in the UK with 9 Degrees this afternoon. A few overnight frosts this year.
Yep, even if you’re in the right hemisphere, I think people are overestimating how likely it is that everyone has a low enough daily high temperature to flash freeze a mist at midday. Using today as an example, the overwhelming majority of english speakers probably expect to rise above freezing. On a temperature map right now, while Siberia down to the himalayas stays cold, along with Greenland and Iceland, most of Canada, Scandinavia, etc, the majority of the UK and US is not cold enough during the afternoon, especially by population. Exceptions being Scotland or the northern rockies. Inland parts of continental Europe vary.
So, if necessary, the snow machines are run at night instead of midday.
I live in Arizona and I am generally aware of the concept of nighttime. Even though it nearly reached 80 this afternoon, right now at 1AM it is plenty cold enough for this to work.
If it will work in the middle of the Sonoran Desert it will work about anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere.
Nope. Deserts get colder at night than most places, you ought to know that. Anyway, if you do it at night you have to do extra and hope it doesn’t all turn to slush by mid afternoon.
“Of course you still need cold temperatures for this to work, but that’s not too hard in the winter months.”
Speak for yourself. Where I live, winter is like 2 days in January, not months. And even then, cold is a relative term. We might actually get down to the 40s during those 2 days. In fact, yesterday’s high was in the 80s. So, cold temperatures is very hard to do.
That’s why you do it at night. I live in the hottest part of the US and this would work here at night for several months.
It was nearly 80 here today during the day but the overnight low is mid 40’s. Without actually doing the math that should be doable or darn near it. The rest of the week is 30’s and I know it would work then. It would in all likelihood be gone by noon but that’s not the point. I don’t live in the middle of a desert because I like snow…