Help with Design Ideas

[maverickdude]

Ok, so here's the deal, This summer I have the money and the time to make a water show, like at the belliagio (not that big of course), and my problem is that IDK how to do it, currently I have somewhat of an Idea of what I want but I need help designing the system and getting it to be fully automatic and I thought you guys might be able to help me.

Any help would be appreciated.

[Ben]

Welcome to SSC!

I don't know much about water displays, but I can help.

First off, how big do you want this and how long do you want the display to continue for? How much water output do you want per nozzle approximately?

Are you okay with just hooking multiple hoses together and making some sort of nozzle assembly? That would be the easiest way to get a lot of streams, but you will need multiple hoses to get adequate water flow.

Do you know what the water pressure where you live is?

Pressurizing a large system shouldn't be impossible, but I know little about larger pressurized water containers. Maybe larger PVC pipe would work, but that should be more expensive than a larger single container. Some sort of large gas cylinder should be able to contain the pressure and have enough volume to work. I don't know anything about them though.

I'm getting ready to go to bed so I'll write more later. Some others surely will help too.

[Silence]

To control the streams, use either solenoid sprinkler valves or electrically-actuated ball valves (which are more expensive but allow more flow). Both types can be hooked up to a circuit and controlled from there.

How many nozzles? What types of ranges? What's the maximum price? Etc.

[maverickdude]

Originally Posted by Ben

Welcome to SSC!

I don't know much about water displays, but I can help.

First off, how big do you want this and how long do you want the display to continue for? How much water output do you want per nozzle approximately?

Are you okay with just hooking multiple hoses together and making some sort of nozzle assembly? That would be the easiest way to get a lot of streams, but you will need multiple hoses to get adequate water flow.

Do you know what the water pressure where you live is?

Pressurizing a large system shouldn't be impossible, but I know little about larger pressurized water containers. Maybe larger PVC pipe would work, but that should be more expensive than a larger single container. Some sort of large gas cylinder should be able to contain the pressure and have enough volume to work. I don't know anything about them though.

I'm getting ready to go to bed so I'll write more later. Some others surely will help too.

(In order of appearance)

First off anyone wanting to see what a water show looks like search bellagio on youtube.com

Next i want it as big as my pool, aka fit around it, pics up soon, but it must be portable or easily moveable, and the display should end up around 10 minutes long. Probably enough for a 1-8 foot stream.

No, I kinda want it to be 3 big water tanks and 2 air tanks(plus compressor)

No clue.

Also thanks for the help

Originally Posted by SilentGuy

To control the streams, use either solenoid sprinkler valves or electrically-actuated ball valves (which are more expensive but allow more flow). Both types can be hooked up to a circuit and controlled from there.

How many nozzles? What types of ranges? What's the maximum price? Etc.

I was planning on using solenoid valves due to the fact the show will be controlled by a micro controller.

idk, 1-8 feet, not really one set.

[aEx155]

Well, I don't know what the flow rates would be to achieve an 8 foot spray (straight up?) but I'm pretty sure Ben does. If you have that, then you would be able to figure out how much capacity your water tanks would need.

I've been to Las Vegas, and the Bellagio water show seems pretty complex...do you want to have all of that spinning/angling water sprays, or do you just want some straight up streams? Straight up would be easier by a LOT...

I have some plans in my head from when II wanted to do the same kind of thing (after we came back from Las Vegas) so I might be able to draw them up for you.



The picture is just a possibility, you could have several of these hooked up to the water tanks that you want, and just have a big manifold thing. The small tanks would be there to aid flow, and would be filled by electric pumps from the main tanks.

I really don't know right now, I'm kinda pressed for time...when I'm free I'll probably get more ideas up. Hope this helps.

[Ben]

Originally Posted by maverickdude

Next i want it as big as my pool, aka fit around it, pics up soon, but it must be portable or easily moveable, and the display should end up around 10 minutes long. Probably enough for a 1-8 foot stream.

Fit around your pool? Yeah, get some pictures up.

Originally Posted by maverickdude

No, I kinda want it to be 3 big water tanks and 2 air tanks(plus compressor)

There's a few ways to do this. The easiest and cheapest way would be to use an electric water pump, but I'll admit that I know little about that option. You might want to research it.

Alternatively, if you could follow the APH guide on our website, scale it up, and change it to work with an air compressor rather than a hand pump, you'd have a working system. All you would need basically is two pressurized water containers and an air compressor if you're using an air compressor. If your compressor is small you could get some air tanks to store air as well, but that wouldn't be much more complicated. The easiest way to explain this would be with a drawing, and I could provide one if you want.

The main problem here is finding large containers that can be pressurized cheaply. The easiest thing to do in my mind would be modifying large air tanks until they fit your needs. You'd have to add two threaded ports at the least. An example of a metal tank with a threaded port added is here: http://www.thehalls-in-bfe.com/UberS...bersoaker.html

Most welding shops can do that. The advantage to doing this is that you can find larger air tanks on wheels, making the air tanks portable.

I don't know anything about how much these tanks will cost or how much it will cost to have the port added however.

Originally Posted by aEx155

Well, I don't know what the flow rates would be to achieve an 8 foot spray (straight up?) but I'm pretty sure Ben does/

Calculating range and height from water flow is really advanced and would require some sort of CFD program to do accurately. The best we can do is vary pressure and nozzle diameters until we get the performance we want. Guess and check always works.

[aEx155]

Calculating range and height from water flow is really advanced and would require some sort of CFD program to do accurately. The best we can do is vary pressure and nozzle diameters until we get the performance we want. Guess and check always works.

Oops. By flow, I meant nozzle size and pressure. Besides, flow seems too hard now that I think about it...

If you want to do it with air and water, then you have two choices:



The left option would be to have a tube, filled with water, that, when activated, uses air to force all of the water out. An estimated stream is shown beside it, similar to the guns you pay to use at Legoland at the Knights tournament ride (can anyone think of a better example?)

The right one uses a mixture of air and water (like xinventions #2 water cannon) and comes out more "powerwasher style".

The other option is to use the air to force water out of the water tanks, like a big "Ubersoaker". Was that what you were thinking? (I think that was what Ben was, I'm not sure)

The way I see it, you could just ditch the tanks* altogether and use a couple of high pressure water pumps with several APH- or CPS- style setups, like the one I had earlier.



That's what I was thinking.

EDIT: * by tanks, I mean the big ones, and just have several small ones.

[Silence]

Mixing the air and water probably isn't going to work. I used to think that was what happened until I found out how they really work. I'm sure you know how conventional water guns work, but the point is that it's very difficult to create a functional system any other way.

Creating an even mixture is difficult. You could use a power washer but that's expensive, loud, uses a lot of electricity, and doesn't provide much flow (although it does provide lots of velocity).

Or, if you could generate lots of airflow, you could use Bernoulli's principle to inject water into the airstream like in carburetors. But that would also require lots of air and the end result would be a very fine mist. Not what you want.

Most water guns use the first of your two designs, but the pressure chamber is inverted - the outlet is underneath so only water exits thanks to its density.

Or you could separate the water and air using a plunger as in Supercannon II. But resetting the plungers is impractical, especially if you do use lots of little pressure chambers.

Anyway, in the end, you just want to shoot pure water. That's how the jets in the Bellagio show work, at least from what I saw on YouTube after you posted. The real question is how to create a system that shoots from many nozzles with as few components as possible. I think you do want a centralized reservoir, pump, pressure chamber. Even the main flow valve could be centralized, provided it offers enough flow for however many nozzles of whatever size you need.

You could use a pressurized-reservoir system, in which the reservoir is filled with water and then air is pumped in. That's convenient because you can find a huge variety of air pumps, whereas actual water pumps are harder to find and more expensive.

Constant air pressure systems are a form of PR that use pre-compressed air regulated down to a suitable pressure. Ben's SuperCAP is probably the closest to what you want, except that you could skip the tanks and connect the reservoir directly to a pump.

And finally, the easiest solution would be a pure water pump. That means no filling of individual reservoirs, etc., but these pumps are more difficult to find. Whereas air pumps are used often and can pull gas directly from the atmosphere (so the inlets often aren't even exposed in the shell of the pump), water pumps have to have an external inlet. The Mother of All River Cannons is the closest system we know of.

[aEx155]

When I was thinking "power washer style", I was leaning more toward the xinventions water gun #2 on their site, not an actual power washer. But then again, that would be a bit hard to do without putting air in the water lines...

The only reason I suggested having several individual tanks is because of flow.

The advantage of individual reserviors is that each nozzle has it's own supply of water. That way, problems of flow aren't as large because the water source is so close to exit point. Then, having a water pump on a pressure switch, it would refill the individual tanks as needed, rather than having to supply the nozzle directly. It reminds me to the bladder tanks used in Dusty's water gun, how they would supply water so that the well pumps wouldn't have to be on all the time.

Rather than having a water pump, you could replace it with a large reservoir of water connected to an air tank in a CAP configuration.

If you have only a few large reserviors of water and air, then you have to make sure the water can flow fast enough for all that water, otherwise, the streams will diminish, just like a poorly designed sprinkler system.

[Silence]

That's true...the nozzles would have to be small relative to the the tube's bore in order to ensure the same output for each one.

For a system that uses pressure chambers, I suppose you could have individual valves and pressure chambers for each nozzle. It's just a different scale I suppose: many small components or a few large ones. And if you get the right parts, yes, it could be more practical to get high flow that way.

But if you're using a water pump for indefinite shot durations, it's not practical to have one for each nozzle. Plus you would need continual flow to each pump and the flow restrictions from the tubing apply.

[aEx155]

I wasn't thinking about having a pump for each nozzle. I was thinking that there would be one main pump to fill the individual tanks, hooked up to a pressure switch to refill as needed. Did you see my post with the picture of the manifold earlier?

Geez, it seems like the guy who started this thread isn't even responding anymore. I wonder what happened.

[Silence]

His profile page says he logged in yesterday at 10:00 (EST). He'll post when he can, I'm guessing.

Having one pump fill multiple chambers could still be problematic. If you're shooting continuously, then the pump still has to keep up and pump through constricted tubing. Granted, you would be able to increase output by firing intermittently and pumping continuously.

So if the water show uses bursts of water, that might be fine.

[aEx155]

If you didn't need to fire intermittently, then you would just use a regular pump and leave it on.

The individual tanks would be there to sustain while the nozzle are firing, so it wouldn't matter whether or not the pump is on as long as there is water and pressure. When you run out, then that's when you have problems...

[maverickdude]

Sorry for not posting its just I run a theme park podcast and since I'm going on vacation this week I haven't had time to post only time to look at the thread on my iPod touch at school and if any of you have one you know that even a simple answer like this could take forever to type in and spell check.

[aEx155]

Well, I didn't mean to criticize or anything like that, I was just wondering if you could give some feedback...sorry.