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Author Topic: Heron's Fountain  (Read 168523 times)

Pirate88179

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Heron's Fountain
« on: August 29, 2012, 03:22:21 AM »
This past weekend I constructed a Heron's Fountain according to the attached diagram.  I will post a video of it in operation when I get a chance.  This is a really cool project and cost me nothing to build.  It is amazing to see the water lifted higher than the starting point.  More later...

Bill

Instructions I used are here: http://blog.makezine.com/2008/06/08/build-herons-fountain-1/  I modified a few things to fit the materials I had laying about.

TinselKoala

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Re: Heron's Fountain
« Reply #1 on: August 29, 2012, 03:43:05 AM »
Good for you! I think I used the same diagram for my first one too.

For my latest version I used some bigger plastic jars from instant coffee, and I stacked the lids and jars a little differently.
I've found that PermaTex (3M) Super WeatherStrip Adhesive, the yellow kind, found in car parts stores, works well for gluing these plastics. Sand the surfaces, degrease with MEK, follow instructions on the glue, and you will get a good, airtight and water resistant bond.

I think it's hilarious that Heron of Alexandria also invented the first coin-operated vending machine: A Holy Water dispenser.

Pirate88179

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Re: Heron's Fountain
« Reply #2 on: August 29, 2012, 04:02:39 AM »
TK:

Good tips, thanks.  I used my hot glue gun and it worked well.  I did have to touch up a few joints but it worked on the first try.  I used small 16 oz bottles and a few tupperware type pieces.  The onlyy thing is, the "supply" bottle empties fairly quickly...so i put a nozzle on the end of the fountain head with a reduced diameter and it makes it last longer but...it still empties.  Is the supply bottle supposed to refill at all during this process?  Obviously it can't on a 1 for 1 basis but, is there any way to partially refill the supply bottle while it is running from some of the drain from the fountain cup?

I showed a friend of mine and he said there is no way that the water was going to go higher than it started out....which is what I thought too.  It sprays out with good pressure with the restricted nozzle.

Vending machine you say?  I had not read that.

Bill

Magluvin

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Re: Heron's Fountain
« Reply #3 on: August 29, 2012, 04:13:12 AM »
So the real trick would be to have the top container drain into the second chamber and that pressurizes the bottom chamber to force the fountain from the bottom chamber.

Now we are filling the second chamber and depleting the bottom. After all is said and done, if its possible, it wont require work to get the water from the second chamber to the bottom again. ;]

MaGs

Magluvin

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Re: Heron's Fountain
« Reply #4 on: August 29, 2012, 04:27:48 AM »
Like this.  ;]

MaGs

TinselKoala

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Re: Heron's Fountain
« Reply #5 on: August 29, 2012, 05:06:42 AM »
I used a lot of hot glue on my first one too. It works well for prototyping, and is removable if you are careful, which is a real plus. A flexible bond that can be quite strong. As with any adhesive the key is in the surface preparation.

It would be great if Magluvin's schematic worked !

The only way for water to get into the bottom reservoir in the original model should be from the upper cup. If the cup empties too fast then there is probably a gas leak somewhere. And you should try to use the minimum amount of starting water, I think, because all the water that goes into the cup winds up in the bottom reservoir, so you don't want it to fill too fast and leave a lot of water "hanging" in the upper reservoir. I've tried flow restrictors in the cup output; this can help, but now I'm just using thinner ID tubes:  I have about a mile of drip irrigation line that has been just taking up space.

Extending the distance between the bottom two bottles increased the output pressure on my version 2. I can pump 13 1/2 inches of head above the cup outlet nozzle.

Pirate88179

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Re: Heron's Fountain
« Reply #6 on: August 29, 2012, 05:51:21 AM »
TK:

Ah, i see.  The thing that impressed me, beside the water shooting up higher than where it started, was that my top cup (tupperware type bowl) when partially filled to start it...it remains at the same level during the entire process.  It neither fills nor empties.

So, if we had a 6' tall fountain, with larger storage bottles, the head would be higher and the flow would last longer?  I saw youtube vids where they were using 2 litter bottles for this whereas I used 16 oz bottles.

I was thinking about adding a fill port to the top starting bottle and placing a partially filled balloon on the nozzle.
This would be in an effort to add additional storage to it for longer operations.


Bill

TinselKoala

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Re: Heron's Fountain
« Reply #7 on: August 29, 2012, 07:41:24 AM »
It's the increased pressure... air pressure in the normal model.... in the top bottle that forces the water up the fountain. So I think the less flexible this container the better, and there may be some advantage to having this be a wide shallow container instead of a tall bottle; at least I think I've seen some drawings to this effect; haven't tried it though. There are some geometry problems here! I think the airspace here should be small but how do you avoid it increasing as the bottle empties?
But for sure, the spacer bottle between the bottom and the middle worked for me, and the way I've got my lids and plumbing arranged I can put it in or leave it out, either way. I think it is the difference between the heads in the top and the bottom bottles that drives the thing, so even in a tall one you still want to keep the bottom head as low and the top head as  high as possible... I think.

Magluvin

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Re: Heron's Fountain
« Reply #8 on: August 29, 2012, 08:14:46 AM »
Was thinking the same thing

Shallower and wide. The only reason I came to that conclusion is that it brings the level of the water being sent up the fountain closer to the fountain opening, so less pressure to get a rise out of it.  So some efficiency would come of it. And wider, more volume to run longer.

MaGs

conradelektro

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Re: Heron's Fountain
« Reply #9 on: August 29, 2012, 10:39:25 AM »
Heron's fountain is mind-boggling. Of course, there is an explanation, but one has to think hard when seeing it the first time. The deceiving part is the very slow use of the water. If one does not look long enough, the refilling seems to work.

It was very clever of the now often wet coala TK to bring Heron's fountain up in the discussion of the mrwayne contraption. I suspect that such a mind boggling effect arises with the many "concentric risers". A "storage tank" above the machine could drive the thing for a while.

Many things catch my attention, but I just can not bring myself to play with this. May be it is the "wetness" of such experiments.

Sorry for the useless contribution, just musing why mrwayne is doing what he is doing, strange, stranger and strangest,

Conrad

Neo-X

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Re: Heron's Fountain
« Reply #10 on: August 29, 2012, 01:50:50 PM »
Is this the same principle on self flowing flask?

conradelektro

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Re: Heron's Fountain
« Reply #11 on: August 29, 2012, 03:06:21 PM »
Is this the same principle on self flowing flask?

Well, the self flowing flask is a thought experiment (first published by Robert Boyle in the 17th century) which does not work in reality. Whereas Heron's fountain does work (if set up properly and when refilled /emptied occasionally).

http://deemaland.blogspot.co.at/2008/01/boyle-self-flowing-flask.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Boyle (see at the end of the page, scroll down)

Many contraptions based on water flow can be made to work by applying heat in order to generate natural convection. The necessary energy (which can be very little) comes from the heat source.

Greetings, Conrad

johnny874

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Re: Heron's Fountain
« Reply #12 on: August 29, 2012, 05:17:00 PM »
This past weekend I constructed a Heron's Fountain according to the attached diagram.  I will post a video of it in operation when I get a chance.  This is a really cool project and cost me nothing to build.  It is amazing to see the water lifted higher than the starting point.  More later...

Bill

Instructions I used are here: http://blog.makezine.com/2008/06/08/build-herons-fountain-1/  I modified a few things to fit the materials I had laying about.

  This is funny Pirate88719. My continuously flowing water uses similar mechanics but includes the use of leverage to make it perpetual. TK, told me such things are junk and I should go back to school, lmao   :o
 But I don't play with children's toys anymore.
 
edited to add; @All, the last comment was aimed at pirate 88719 and TinselfKoala.
  This is something I became familiar with when I went to school for propulsion engineering. The pressures we worked with were up to about 1,320 psi, that's when safeties would lift.
 And with myself, what i learned was how to get work from such differences in pressure.
 As for bill and tk, they might want to consider reading a book on engineering to get a better understanding of the dynamics involved. You know, how compression creates back pressure but by utilizing another force (gravity), back pressure can be compensated for (by using leverage) to have a system that can take advantage of the energy potential that exists.
 

broli

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Re: Heron's Fountain
« Reply #13 on: August 29, 2012, 06:59:48 PM »
That's a neat little heron's fountain design.

@Magluvin the suggested concept would be cool if it worked but I doubt it. Heron's fountain is all about pressure differences. I attached an illustration that shows this. You see a green and a red bar in both, these indicate the pressure differences. When one is higher than the other it should tell you something about the flow of things. In the right, your suggestion, the pressure difference is reversed. So what will happen is that the water in the long tube will fall back until its pressure is equal to the length of the red line, which is the pressure of the water column between the surface of the top bottle and middle bottle.

b_rads

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Re: Heron's Fountain
« Reply #14 on: August 29, 2012, 07:55:04 PM »
This past weekend I constructed a Heron's Fountain according to the attached diagram.  I will post a video of it in operation when I get a chance.  This is a really cool project and cost me nothing to build.  It is amazing to see the water lifted higher than the starting point.  More later...

Bill

Instructions I used are here: http://blog.makezine.com/2008/06/08/build-herons-fountain-1/  I modified a few things to fit the materials I had laying about.

Thank you Bill for posting this.  This looks to be great fun and will look at this weekend to try and replicate.  Really looking forward to your video on this. 
 
Brad S