Plastic Beach - Traveling Water Wave Machine

[rhizotron]

Made some headway with the ripple tank user interface electronics...

The mini screen will display a rotary encoder menu with digital HIGH & LOW and current for the electromagnet.

It was quite a tight fit making the connections on that 1/2-breadboard. I still have to squeeze three more on there for the electromagnet power, ground and signal...

Unfortunately, I purchased the wrong flex cable connector for the screen, so I wasn't able to power it up yet. I ordered the correct one and now just waiting for that to come with the mail.

I really like Adafruit boards and controllers for this kind of visible hardware project. Most of them are on black & white screenprints, rather than the usual PCB ugly green. They cost generally twice as much as the cheap eBay versions, but they're made in USA and with excellent support.

This will all just slide into the section of 80/20 above the ripple generator nice and tidy...

 

[BeanAnimal]

Some where on my site or archives I have rotary encoder code that i built to debounce and stabilize the results even on fast spin. Otherwise, sometimes it would twitch backwards due to pulse bounce.

 

[rhizotron]

Some where on my site or archives I have rotary encoder code that i built to debounce and stabilize the results even on fast spin. Otherwise, sometimes it would twitch backwards due to pulse bounce.

Hey that might be handy if you can dig it up!

 

[rhizotron]

I did a quick plant trim + glass cleaning and put up a quick Instagram reel...



The epiphyte branch is growing in pretty nice. I planted some sweet little mini ferns and other little epiphytes there...

 

[rhizotron]

This thing is pretty cool...



The SOARS uses a paddle wave generator in combination with blowers to move air around simulating winds. But I've also wondered about aquarium wave or ripple generation with air flow. This could energize the tank with anything-but-impeller water motion and indeed without any machinery touching the water at all. CPU fans would be the easiest solution, but I have looked into mini air compressors as well. Apparently there's no such thing as a silent air compressor, but some of the airbrush compressor are apparently only moderately noisy. I don't how they would hold up with continuous or very frequent operation(?)...

AVANTIAirbrush Compressor Combo Kit

 

[BeanAnimal]

You want compressed air so that you can store it and release it in volume?

Alita makes very quiet and efficient linear air pumps.
emissions blowers from cars produce a lot of volume amd can be mounted and belt driven with a motor.

 

[rhizotron]

You want compressed air so that you can store it and release it in volume?

Alita makes very quiet and efficient linear air pumps.
emissions blowers from cars produce a lot of volume amd can be mounted and belt driven with a motor.

Wow those Alita air pumps look pretty nice. Thanks for that tip!

Yes storage of compressed air is part of what I have had in mind. For one thing, hardware over the aquarium could be minimized with nozzles directing air flow while the pump/compressor is out of sight elsewhere. For a display aquarium, you wouldn't want continuous high-volume air flow because that would cause quite excessive water evaporation. So instead you would direct shorter bursts of air coordinated with a microcontroller at the water for ripple or wave generation.

I've also wondered about compressed air as piston actuator power for the same kind of wave paddle I described in earlier posts.

 

[BeanAnimal]

The major issue with compressed air is efficiency (20% efficient at best). A tremendous amount of energy is lost as heat (the act of compression as well as friction).

 

[rhizotron]

The major issue with compressed air is efficiency (20% efficient at best). A tremendous amount of energy is lost as heat (the act of compression as well as friction).

For ripples, since it would just be quick bursts of air flow mediated with a solenoid, efficiency might not be all that critical.

I've gotten some pretty cool ripple patterns with corresponding water reflections on the ceiling by just blowing puffs of air at still water in the tank. I'll try to post some pics or video of that to show.

Inefficiency would be more of an issue for continuous air piston power.

 

[Sushiboy225]

Well it was rather fussy work and took quite a while to complete, but I got the ripple mechanism updated and installed with one of my shallow 24" X 24" tanks. It still needs substrate and an aquascape, but the ripple generation seems pretty good. This is a freshwater setup. I might add a few nano fish eventually, or just leave it as kinetic water sculpture with a sparse planting. The center of the square space will remain as bare sand for the best view of the water ripples....

There is 16" of space on the 80-20 aluminum extrusion above the mechanism and I intend to build an enclosure for the micro controller to position there.

I like how some of the finish details turned out ...

The spring (an RC car shock) at the rear is stiff in comparison to the electromagnet pulling strength, but the elastic band provides opposing force. Both are adjustable...

I also uploaded a quick Instagram video clip which should be viewable if you have a login...

The link isn’t working. Do you have another video. I’m setting up a similar ripple machine

 

[rhizotron]

The link isn’t working. Do you have another video. I’m setting up a similar ripple machine

I deactivated that Instagram because the feed was all full of ads and the account kept getting Russian login attempts. I'll put together a YouTube video for this eventually.

What kind of mechanism are you using?

Tank is now stocked and scaped with this freshwater microbialite setup. I might add fish later this spring.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

I deactivated that Instagram because the feed was all full of ads and the account kept getting Russian login attempts. I'll put together a YouTube video for this eventually.

What kind of mechanism are you using?

Tank is now stocked and scaped with this freshwater microbialite setup. I might add fish later this spring.

Tank is looking great! It's such a neat idea doing a ripple tank like that

 

[rhizotron]

Tank is looking great! It's such a neat idea doing a ripple tank like that

Thanks for stopping by.

I have a journal discussion for that tank too. It's coming along. More updates on the way pretty soon.

Green Lake, New York - Building a Freshwater Microbialite Reef