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Technical look at a floating solar fountain.
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 10 ก.ค. 2019
- Odd title because I couldn't go as deep as I wanted on this one. The electronics in the pump and the solar pulse module are potted completely in black resin.
If you enjoy these videos you can help support the channel with a dollar for coffee, cookies and random gadgets for disassembly at:-
www.bigclive.com/coffee.htm
This also keeps the channel independent of TH-cam's advertising algorithms allowing it to be a bit more dangerous and naughty.
New camera seems much more pixelated zoomed in.
Yup, it is. Very pixilated
Maybe its using digital zoom instead of optical zoom. That is probably why
@@lets_just_say_im_innocent They were all digital zoom. Cheap phones seldom have optical zoom.
Odd. I'm watching on a 42" display and don't see any pixelation.
@@PaulSteMarie I think they have been watching while i hadnt been fully rendered in HD.
Turn the pump sideways underwater, to make a solar powered jet boat!
Mount a neodymium magnet on the platform to make the whole unit act as a compass, and it should travel in a straight line across a lake for miles.
Just make the water exit 90 degrees from the base and that would work. Take to ocean with note in a bottle and release.
@@dsloop3907 "Help please. Stranded on island with shipping crate full of solar fountains."
@@CptJistuce sending out an army of those thinks lol
I think it better if it would follow an underwater track / guide - then it could go round the pond making the fish dizzy.
@@dsloop3907 Yess! i want to see this done now :)
This video is not as sharp as your usual videos. Your zoomed up shot of the PCB is terribly pixelated
Even on my phone it looks really soft.
With this new camera, image looks much less crisp, and blurry. Hope it's not permanent.
Change the video setting to 1080p
14:43 "it seems to lock pretty well" as the screen is filled with pixelated and unreadable text...
Why do I feel the urge to buy one and I don't even have a pond, must be the Big Clive effect.
That is why I am looking at the comments, for a BC linky
Just search eBay for solar fountain.
Subliminal adverts?
Because it is ADORABLE.
@@dsloop3907 I have this almost irresistible desire to adopt a cat now.... BC is a really dodgy character!
You know who's good at de-potting circuits? Guitar pedal hobbyists.
They do it often to analyze circuits.
Maybe get in touch with them for techniques in de-potting?
Dave Micolichek maybe they only do it if they want to keep the inside secret?
@@JasperJanssen That is usually the case
@Dave Micolichek it usually happens to high end boutique pedals. They even scratch off the names of chips and such so you can't identify them.
Just look around freestompboxes and you'll see a lot of stuff like that.
Hi, Clive. I used to disassemble that fountain too. In the small black box is a circuit that works as follows: The solar panel charges a capacitor of about 4700uF. When the voltage reaches a certain level - I think 5.2V will turn on the power to the pump. This is because the motor needs a higher inrush current in order to spin. In a way, the circuit can be called what is called a "crowbar circuit". A much larger and thus more powerful photovoltaic panel would be needed.
The pump electronics are the same as in any cheap PC fan. Just structurally, it is a miniature of the synchronous pump from the washing machine - the winding is wound twice and the current according to the rotation of the rotor switches the normal 2-channel Hall switch - the same as in the fan
I saw a program that explained how very little surface agitation of the water of a pond inhibits mosquito production.
Other than being a novelty, this may have a practical use..
Thanks for sharing your videos. And keep up the good work.
Ah... So that wasn't my imagination.... I chucked one of these into my dog's water bowl (its more like a kids pool) last summer to see if it would help keep the water cleaner for longer. After a few weeks, I realised I hadn't seen any mosquitoes hanging around like they had been. And it did seem to help keep the water cleaner - probably because it was a little cooler from the increased evaporation.
Mine started falling to bits though so I will probably build a more permanent, non-floating one for next summer.
tin2001 maybe add a uvc light too? They can prevent the reproduction of organisms to a degree
@@tin2001
The article that I saw was about a gadget that was small and solar powered. If I remember right, it flopped around on the surface of the water. It was small and cheap enough to be air dropped into swamps in the 3rd world back countries to try to control the mosquitos.
The program was looking for donations.
Would also help to oxygenate a pond. Could also be useful to pump coolant around pipes on the back of solar panels, increasing their efficiency and collecting thermal energy.
I love the pump. The pump is so tiny and works on DC. All the tiny submersible pumps I've used run on 50Hz and no more. This thing is so quiet and mysterious. A bit like the Dyson motor AvE reverse engineered.
You can buy those pumps on their own from eBay too. It's kinda like an aquarium pump, just it runs on DC.
It looks perfect for making a solar powered sailboat. Turn it 90° upside down, attach on the top the battery, esc, servo control, etc. Add a servo for the sail and one for the pump and voilá.
wow, freaky. I've been looking at getting one of these yesterday and today then you come out with this video. I think i'll just run power to my fountain.
Why is that? I've got two of these and they work just great, provided the sun is shining.
Thanks for your technical breakdown. I have one of these located in our north yard, hence it's shaded from the sun most of the time. So, I found a 6 vdc switching supply and hooked it up to the pump and it is now solar independent. Thanks, Bob
Nice one. Time to build a bench top xray scanner ;)
The "X-Ray" did not get used this time. ;)
I was about to say something similar, too.
Damn! This exact comment was what I scrolled down here to say ;)
Nitecore TIP very good xray for cheap plastic
Yeah, must be loads of old x-ray equipment knocking about. Get 2 Clive as obviously you'll have to take one apart - oh, maybe you won't LOL
i find your voice kind of soothing and youre videos are just great... what a neat combination!
The (pump) power from these tiny panels is amazing. Love this little design. :)
It looked like the camera was doing digital zoom - when you zoomed in on the PCB at the end it was very pixelated.
Agreed... quite blurred / pixelated. The component IDs were essentially unreadable.
Rather disappointingly the close focus of the Honor 8X boasting a 20 megapixel camera is poor compared to the old Moto G6 Play with its humble 12 megapixel camera.
It looks like it only takes 1080 off the sensor then digitally zooms into that rather than native 1080 from the zoomed in section that many other phones do in video mode.
Not all phones have 4-8x optical zoom
+
That little blurp of water it generates in less than optimal conditions is a rather underwhelming fountain experience.
It's a slightly nicer burp if you have a cap on it rather than leaving it bare, but the fact that it stops like that is pretty lame and "less than optimal" is almost the whole day.
He did say he ran it open barrel and not with the caps on it.
@@ColinRichardson I have one. Even with the various tips it is about as exciting as a dripping faucet.
Jeffery Rowan . You get the dripping faucet for nothing. You’ve got to pay for that piece of poo. I know, I’ve got one.😳
Seems a bit vigorous when the sun is out as well... Maybe this needs a battery in there, with the pump current limited to the right level. That would cost a few cents more though.
Thanks Big Clive. I got one of these a I think a year or two ago. Same sort of performance and I wondered what sort of circuitry might be in the mysterious potted resin box. Nice to know the pumps don't typically start in lower voltage scenarios hence the charging capacitor.
Neat. There you go, sacrificing a purchase for the greater good. My questions and then some - answered!
We want to see more of the cats.
agree
Aye. Nothin' like a Manx stubby.
Take apart a cat, Clive.
The Original Gamer
When cat channels start taking electronic tat to bits maybe. Not until then please.
You mean you want Clive to do more outside testing. Maybe more solar power, floodlights, explosives. How about cat repellent 😂
Solar powered cat hydrator.
Great - cat approaches to drink, blocks the sun off - so it stops ;) Needs a NOT gate in there somewhere!
@@millomweb those cats are clever. They could learn to operate technology if we allowed them to be more than pets. What is needed it an interface for cats.
I had a solar powered fountain which was not a floating one, just a panel with a little box on the back and then a long cable to the pump.
When opening the box, it wasn't potted. It was a six-pin chip (unmarked) which went between the motor, solar panel and a huge capacitor.
Under low light conditions, it would charge up the capacitor, and when it had enough energy would dump it all into the motor, then brown out and reset. Based on how yours behaves, I'm sure it's the same circuit under all that potting.
was it any good?
Basically a simple BEAM robotics circuit.
@@NiHaoMike64 56k modems?!
I have a solar fountain too - mine is just a big capacitor, and a completely standard DC pump and solar panel. I replaced the pump after the original one died, it still works fine two years after that. The pump makes a humming sound when there's not enough sun.
@@DerHeilendeLotus That 6 pin chip can be found in some of the larger solar LED string lights, its just a more butch version of the 4 pin device found in the Dollar Store Solar lights
Good of you to have a all Black video, Clive really does make all feel welcome to his channel,,!!
I had a pump like that in a small pond, a couple of years ago, and it didn't last the summer - the solar panel got whitish from dried limestone from the water and the pump got stuck several times with small debris. After one time too many of not cleaning the pump inlet after it got stuck, it no longer worked (probably due to the steep rise in current you noted). I left it in the pond for a few more months and the solar panel de-laminated and was ruined too. From my experience it only works well with clean water indoors - outdoors it goes bad too quickly and it was not cheap.
oh that with a nice led display - what a super combo that would be. Thanks BigClive!
Hi Clive
If the resin is epoxy based there’s a product called “Attack” that will soften and slowly dissolve the epoxy allowing you to see what’s under it.
Perfect timing. My wife wanted to add a fountain in our granddaughter's wading pool. I nixed the idea on grounds of electrical safety, then the same night Clive shows an eBay solar fountain. Here on this side of the pond they cost a little over $6 US. I wonder if eBay prices will go as a result of this video. It never occurred to me to search for a solar fountain.
I had one of these in my bird bath for a while. A bit of wind and the fountain would drift to the side, and basically drained the water over the side :0). Good little gadget though.
Nice video - we have an earlier version of this fountain where the pump floats below a circular disc, the nozzle pokes through and the solar panel is connected by a couple of yards of cable. It doesn't have the purge you showed at low light so sometimes it airlocks
The camera used here is pretty bad, or the settings.
Image quality is kinda garbage, everything is blurry and zooming in doesn't make that better. Audio seems fine for the most part, I think it lacks a bit of clarity as well.
Interesting fountain though.
Clive are you following CuriousMarcs's team's efforts to restore an Apollo Guidance Computer ? They had to CAREFULLY mill and pick out resin to fix a module of it.
Great video Big Clive
"it's a very standard lil' pump" ......*shitty modern rap starts blastin'*
Clive gang, clive gang, clive gang, clive gang, clive gang clive gang, clive gang, clive gang
buying Chinese on the ebay
checking power factor on the HOPI
nope nope, I'm getting Dub Step, OldeSchool DubShuffle...
''it's' a very standard lil' pump''..pump pump pumP pumP pumP pumPPPP pPPump
Sadly, I get this reference
Oh that's just splendid... Clive
Cool fountain. Might help with aeration on some ponds and or fish tanks. I've ben trying to come up with a weather proof aeration system for my dad's pond for years. The best I came up with was a Chevy 350 water pump attached to a windmill with a simple spray outlet. The hurdle is getting the initaial start, And building the whole thing to pivot. Cheers from I smell like fireworks we did ours last night. Kansas
having sold many of these back in the very early 21st century, they failed miserably as water has minerals in it that build up on the inside and outside of the plastic housing for the solar panels and they eventually die, as do the electrics and the actual pump motor, I hope the Modern Version has been improved and lives to pump for all eternity.
That’s a really cool concept!
That is a neat little product! I can imagine having a few of those floating around in a paver encircled kiddie pool!
I absolutely love these little pumps. In my project making an automatic sprinkler for 12 pots I was originally disappointed at the pewny power these put out. However they are so cheap I just bought 6 of them and run them together. There's 3 lines going out to 4 pots each with two pumps in series. The pumps use about 4 watt each so 24 watts total which are split over 2 USBs that are just bused together with a capacitor so the motors can start gracefully. A lot of USB power banks also don't like the ripple and awkward current draw off these motors so you should add a capacitor. Technically you also need a diode to be complaint with USB but since its only the power bank that I plug them into I skipped that.
Nice video Clive! You can peel the epoxy resin using "epoxy paint remover". Dip the potted part for a couple of days and the resin will dissolve without affecting the markings on electronic components! Very handy!
So funny, the wife just bought one of these off Ebay. And here you are digging into one! Ours seems to work ok for the bird bath. Birds are so far unimpressed. Tough crowd I guess!
Hi Clive, firstly great vid and excellent channel. For info I had one of these for a while but after it stopped working I dug into the resin. Your correct there is a capacitor inside but also a small circuit board with an inductor, control chip and a load of smd components. Unfortunately it's not quite as waterproof as you first think, but I suppose 2 odd years use from a Chinese ebay items not to bad :)
Thanks!
You answered a question I just made!
I was wondering if they were using some kind of buck regulator based on the hysteresis of pump as clouds passed overhead... I also suspect they are brushless. Was there a brushed DC motor in yours or brushless?
@@gavincurtis Mine is a brushless motor like in Big Clives video. I wish I'd taken photos when I dug through the resin. The circuit board looked similar to what you get in the little garden solar lights. The problem with mine was water damage/corrosion on the components - I believe the resin seal around the output cable to pump isn't 100% so water tracks up to the circuit board. I got mine working again by removing the circuit board and connecting the solar output direct to the existing capacitor and pump. Probably not the best and although I say it works now it needs a lot more sunlight before the pump kicks in (due to charging the capacitor). Like you say I guess the original circuit must have some form of boost control to allow for low input from the solar panel. If only I'd taken photos I would have sent them to Big Clive after seeing this video as I'm sure he would know or figure out what it did....Big Clive the oracle of all things electrical :)
@@jonathantatler your welcome, maybe I should apply to be Big Clives sidekick, not sure if 'Little Jamie' has the same appeal though :)
This is awesome - keeping the solar panels cool as well ayy
I do like hearing about you filming device experiments .
I paused at 6:00 and I'm guessing it contains a big capacitor - I was given a small solar panel for powering a little water pump once, and it had a potted black box stuck to the back, which contained a big capacitor, but no diode so as soon as the sun went, the solar panels soaked up all the energy from the capacitor...
Ive got one of these, filled an old plastic storage box with water, put a water lily in it, and floated my pump. In full sun its really powerful, to the point I now run it without any nozzles or it sprays all over the gaff. In part sun the intermittent surges are not great but it does circulate the water, for a tenner it's tip top.
I was actually looking at getting one of these, for a small pond.
Doesn't look bad just to keep the water moving a little.
Needs integrated LEDs and a switch. so as to charge in daylight and have a lighted fountain at night.
Great channel Clive, keep it up! Amateurs like me get some education with our entertainment. 👍
We bought one of thsse two years ago, it's still going strong. We bought it to quickly replace the panel/lead acid battery/pump set up I'd made a few years earlier. We had to replace that when I partially de-potted the pump electronics, there was an electrolytic across the input that blew up quite spectacularly when I got the battery polarity wrong *just once*!
I had one of these solar fountain's 15 years ago. Never worked very, well took mine apart as well.
We have one of these. It takes more than just a slightly bright day to make it work, sadly. We were considering adding an extra solar cell or a battery (in our application it's in very shallow water so doesn't need to float), but there may be difficulties keeping it waterproof. Nice cat. We like cats.
The problem with these is the float over to one side of the pond they are in. With any wind the output is blown over the edge eventually running the pond dry.
you could fashion a little anchor for it and tie it to the cable underneath.
I like that, I have a large pond and can't be arsed to take power across, pity there weren't a slightly more powerful one.
Another good idea based on the same system would be a mini low voltage air pump which would benefit the pond in the hot sultry days were the fish gulp at the water surface.
, 👍👍
that is a really good solar panel to be able to pump that much water
I was hoping for the Vice Of Knowledge!
the kittycats replaced it :)
@@maicod I was trying to see if the cats had tails.
Results of my investigation to this point: Inconclusive.
@Pauloo7 clive took the wrong bits apart
Very spooky this thing been all over my amazon and intreged me so I saved it. Now it's here!
I had never heard of (or thought about) solar powered fountains before this video. Bought one off ebay with the larger separate solar panel, and it's just the ticket for a small pond I made last week. Only annoying thing is it blocks very easy with any debris in the water.
Oh and made a tether for it to keep in the middle of the pond, bit of cord and a small scrap of lead as a weight
Could you do a test on the pumping capacity of such a small jet type impeller pump, what its max head height is and maximum liquid throughput? (hold a hose upright until it can't pump any water out, and stop the time it takes to fill up a cup of water?). Would be quite curious what the performance specs are or if anyone knows...
BC is a very clever individual, in many ways. :) Primarily because that any old cheap tat is incredibly interesting once he pays attention to it enough to show us. He just explains and shows and destructs stuff. It's "What's inside" with, the important bit, the little tidbits of absolutely rare knowlege and amazing little stories, expertly, yet naturally explained. The, (can i say 'trick'?) in appeal is the persistent camera adjustment for the viewer.
Otherwise, it's Scotsman smashing stuff up.
Seems like a nice plaything for your kitties
That is pretty neat. It makes me wish I had a Jacuzzi so I can put it in there.
Interesting as ever! New camera is inferior unfortunately. The megapixel count has little to do with quality, it's all about the lens. I can see they've cheaped out on the lens on this device.
I recently modified one of these to run either from it's solar panels or from a 5v power pack for demonstration purposes, as you just can't rely on the sun to always show up on cue!
That pump is identical to several pumps I have seen in water fountains made for cats drinking water. I have had several of them, where the bowl was in different design but the pumps was identical. They where powered by a little AC-adapter. I don't remember what voltage they run at, but as the pump you had here looked identical I presume the voltage was the same too.
Your right, our cat has a water fountain that uses the same pump with 3 suction cups that stick to the base. It runs off a 5V USB phone Charger. Great little pumps but not very powerful. I wanted to make a BIG waterfall for the cat but it wasn't powerful enough to get the required head :-)
Just got one of those, underwhelming as a fountain, but perfect for standing water to eliminate mosquitoes!
Another great video. Any chance you could review some full scale solar cells / mppt chargers / inverters Clive. I'm sure they'd be extremely popular. In the diy market the panels can be had for around 33p a watt and chargers and inverters becoming much cheaper and a little better. But it would be great to have a properly impartial in depth look at the tech.
A couple of those would be pretty good to use to aerate a small outdoor koi pond or something like it if it wasn't convenient for you to use a electric pump of sorts. Plus breaking up the water surface would keep stagnation keeping bad microbes/algae/mold from gaining a foothold in any outdoor garden water feature. But I could be wrong with it's aeration potential, but it could definitely be able to compliment a underpowered pump and add some water feature action. I got a turtle in mine and she likes to climb stuff so I could see her sinking it when she would try. Shes got plenty of basking rocks but will climb the tiny head of my fountain trying to balance like a spinning plate on a stick. At least the small jet of water will power wash her shell bottom while she attempts climbing the impossible.
G'day,
Yay Team !
What a ripper of a little Solar Fountain...; I might have to look out for them, when Winter is over and they appear here, in the shops in Oz.
A snippet of Feedback, regarding those Thermo-Electric Stove-Fans which you pulled apart several months ago...
I aquired one in about March, and it worked very well as a Drive Unit, but the sheetmetal "Fan" it came with was so Aerodynamically vile that after a month, ever time I saw it I ground my teeth thinking that, by the homemade handcarved Propeller hanging above my front door - one of two I've designed and built and then flown behind....; I could CARVE something FAR more efficient, out of Timber cut with a Chinsaw, which will work and look vastly better than that thing (!).
So, the first attempt at an 8-inch diameter Airscrew with a 6-inch perfectly Helical Pitch, and an Aerofoil sketched off the top of my head..., laminated in Toona-Australis & Casuarina Sub-rosa (Red Cedar & Black Oak...) - using my grandfather's Wood-Rasps..., took me 21 Hours to finish ; but it's since run nearly 200 hours, and it shifts 4 times as much Air, and blows it at twice the velocity, sending it 3 times as far accross the Room (realtime Smoke-Trail Analysis...., using an Incense-Stick, tape-measure, and a Torchbeam shining onto the Airscrew, y'see).
So, my first attempt is about 4 times better than the factory fitout..., goodly goodly.
Before trying again I bought a 350 Watt Powerfile, and the second attempt using identical Diameter & Pitch (aiming for the "150 CFM" as claimed on the Box, at the 300 RPM at which the Chinesium original was observed to be running , when the Temp. Gradient accross the Peltier-Device was 30- degrees Celsius....) but with a specialty High-Lift/Low-Speed Aerofoil designed by Irv Culver the noted Aerodynamicist, in Black Oak and Pinus Radiata..., and it only took 14 hours, but it had a Tip-Tracking Error, and Dust-Accretion Studies plus Smoke-Trail Analysis proved it to be only about 3 & 1/2 times better than the original.
So, High-Lift/Low-Speed was a mistake.
Then I bought a Drill-Press (for the Central Hole in the Laminae.., to beat that Tip-Tracking Error), so in Black Oak and White Stringybark, I made the 3rd one with a Low-Drag traditional Boomerang Aerofoil, quite thin, and having sharp leading & trailing edges, with a flat bottom and a Cylindrical-Tangential, symetrically-curved upper-surface - with the maximum Camber at 50% Chord....; and that one took 12 Hrs :17 minutes.
As I had expected, and hoped, the traditional Aboriginal Aerofoil works best of the lot (which I have now tested-out, and proved by observation of experimental results - rather than trying a Boomerang Aerofoil from the outset, and then merely asserting that it "should" work best...) - blowing about 5 times as much Air as did the pressed Sheetmetal Disaster.
So, by interpolation, if my third unit is about 90% Efficient, then my first was 72%..., my second was 63%..., and what the Chinaman sold was perhaps 18% efficient.
With the same 30-degree C. Gradient, at which the Chinesium thing did 300 RPM and moved almost no Air, my first attempt turns at about 350 RPM, apparently because it sucks more cool Air through the Fins on the Heat-Sink, thus increasing the Current available to the Motor (?), the second unit ran at 320 RPM, & the Boomerang Section Propeller ran at 375..., all on the first Drive-Unit.
So, I bought 3 more Stove-Fans, and the new ones have more efficient Heat-Sinks and Collector/Conductors..., but their new Fans are almost as bad as the old one...
My 82 year-old mother is DELIGHTED with the Black Oak/White Stringybark Propeller on her new improved Stove-Fan....
After another 2-Bladed one for practice, then I'm going to have a go at laminating a 4-Blade Propeller.
There's a very upmarket Aboriginal Art Gallery in my home town, in which I hope to charge Eye-Watering prices for tiny little handcarved Propellers laminated from rare commercially-extinct Chainsaw-milled Quarter-Cut NativeTimbers, Trees which the Wind blew down on the Endangered Species Sanctuary on which I reside ; each one coming with a free Chinesium Peltier-Effect Drive-Unit !
Backtrack me to my Videos, for both the "Woodcarver's Challenge..." and the "Propeller-Carving..." series ; within which I show how it can be done.
The goal is to get the construction down to a mere 10 Hours for a 2-Bladed Unit...(!).
So, thanks very much for the Video in which you pointed me at the Stove-Fans...; it took over my life for a while....
Take it easy,
;-p
Ciao !
Hi Clive,
20 Megapixel doesn’t mean anything without a decent lens, and when its using digital zoom (as you are) its really poor quality, i cant make any detail out and thats using 1080p at my end.
Either the camera and lens is poor quality or the focus is way out of alinement, i don’t blame the operator in this instance!
Clive now I want one of these fountains.
Yeah I already built one from scratch that I have a video on but this one is like a black flower looking fountain. :)
And no did not build a solar fountain just a regular plug in to the wall type.
But I am now thinking this might be my next project is a solar panel fountain faucet that runs off of the sun. ;)
Also you could heat shrink tube the length of what you cut and put the wires that were cut in resin then see if it still works or goes out with a bang. ;)
That's definitely poor digital zoom... not optical. Everything goes pixelated - on 1080 youtube full screen on my 55 inch tv is very obvious. But it should have more than enough pixels to do that. Maybe a poor algorithm...
Clive, you always find some of the craziest stuff on eBay.
I should get one of these and launch it on Lake Nipissing! :)
... or maybe record a video of it going over Niagara Falls!
There's a temptation to let one loose in the sea.
@@bigclivedotcom If it is sealed well enough, should be tolerant of salt water too.
I don't know if you have this where you are but in NZ and Australia we have a product called ESOL (Epoxy Solvent) which will for alot of things like that potting material if you leave it soaking will disolve it all away leaving the PCB and components mostly untouched. Maybe worth trying it out if you can get it and reveal the secrets within
Happy New Camera Era! There is noticeable pixelation when zoomed, as if you are going into 'electronic zoom', rather than using mechanical zoom. There might be a way of stopping that from happening. Anyhow, thanks for the video, Clive.
That solar panel unit has interesting possibilities for making a more weatherproof nightlight, maybe coupled to several decently sized NiMH cells, or even to a larger capacity Li-Ion pack with suitable cell voltage regulation.
The bit around the impeller is called a 'volute'. #nowyouknow
Oh that darn potted resin, I was hoping to see the "Vise of Knowledge" come into play!
That was excellent.
Dissolving the resin can often be done with any paint remover that contains Methylene Chloride aka dichloromethane. At the least it will turn it into a crumbly consistency. Fairly unpleasant stuff in pure form, and hard to obtain, but not so bad in paint thinner
Methylene Chloride is a pretty dangerous chemical as it can cause a person to go unconscious or even death if the fumes from these chemicals are not properly vented. You'd have to wear a full suit with breathing apparatus.
That's a cute little design
Clive please show us more of the cats!
Hi Clive ....I think its called a "Volute" in bigger pumps. Thanks for upload :-)
thank you for using open camera
you can adjust the video settings in the settings menu to set the Video Quality and crank the video up from the default Mbps. It can go from 1Mbps to >50Mbps
Black cables and especially black plugs are a real pain. I usually lop them off, slip two bands of coloured heatshrink onto the the cable (one at each end) and replace the plugs with white ones that I can write on.
I have had 2 of them, they work great as long as you keep water where ever it is, Ours was in the bird bath and i would go out and it sounded like it was grinding rough. I just ad to water and it was fine at first. It was fine for the price I just noticed you did one on my american Cheap/awesome stuff ( being silly ). then I had to pull side cover off there was no more fountian but it still made the water shimmer for the birds. Last before it stopped I would spin spinner to get it stated. I was really suprised it needed the water? I came to the same conclution though motor sealed and box sealed in epoxy.... soooo.
I wish the motor wasnt so sealed up id love for you to tell me why it qiut...
i think this is the perfect solution for my cat's always asking to drink from the tap....
the running water makes them wee :)
My cats love the tap, even over a clean fountain... The fountain excitement only lasts a day or two, then it's back to preferring the water dishes or waiting at the tap.
@Matt Quinn this is why I love cats they don't care what their owner wants they go their own way and still are either cuddly creatures or nice passers by
What if you make it smaller and put it in drink, you would not need a A plastic straw. Solve the problem of plastic straws ending up on the sea.
Yeah the camera isn't quite as sharp when zoomed, also the white balance/color temp
might need very small tweak, your hands looked oddly reddish compared to previously,
but maybe you've been out in the sun.
He's Scottish, I'm sure his hands are always oddly reddish.
The new camera sounds pretty good. The colors of the videos seem good. When zoomed in however, the video looks like it has been recorded in 720p and up-scaled to 1080p.
Very interesting!
I absolutely love how the Isle of Man just has random cats everywhere and they're always in Clives vids when hes outside.
That thing is very interesting, didn't know these existed
I've bought several of these solar power floating fountains and I've noticed that some work great and others don't work at all. I don't know why but that;s my experience with these gadgets.
This is a fantastic concept but wow what a janky unit.
You could do such cool things with this idea. It could be like the dancing roomba of the garden pond.
The "pulse" starting of motors is also prevalent on two things I've got; the Toyota hybrid air conditioner compressor motor is variable speed and when it is on its lowest setting, it will pulse itself on and then drop down a few milliseconds later to a constant speed. Dyson fans also seem to use a brushless motor and pulses when turned on.
I think your're new telephone (camera) is a little soft in comparison to the former, also slightly low on contrast. Might , as you said be down to the settings, time will tell.
awesome video! just a quick input on the new camera. the quality isn't nearly as good when zoomed in as your older setup, i think it was an ipad?
I watched this and then did a quick search to see if one can remove resin potting. Apparently it may be possible if you put the device in water and bring that water to a boil. This brings the epoxy above the glass transition temperature so it's easier to pick away. See this video /watch?v=OiPe6f4Oh8E
I might buy one of these
Looks nice to drink from...
Apollo potted plot!
When I saw the LED I thought of a very cheap floating beacon of some kind, possibly transmitting a distress signal, um in teresting
@bigclivedotcom, the water control port ( as you called it ) is called a volute ( source - i am an electo-mechanical engineer/ motor winder )
Same kind of pump that's in my cat's drinking fountain. The intake grate has a different pattern and the impeller 3 blades and its cover is slightly different. Mainly same idea, different manufacturer imo.
i wonder if it can be retrofitted with real spray nozzles, and how much pressure the pump can sustain