[Cyborg] fluid dress

[Sean Cusack]

As a guy who (for a living) does a *lot* of work trying to prevent getting
bubbles in pumping lines, I can tell you that generating air gaps isn't too
hard. I think the real question is if they need to be perfectly periodic. If
not, if you simply have a pump where it sucks fluid from a reservoir where
the line for fluid uptake is almost exactly at the fill level of the
reservoir, you will have air due to teensy tiny variations in the liquid
level height compared to your intake line height.

Also, from the sounds at the end of the video, it sounds like the guy is
using a self priming diapragm pump to do the fluid movement. I can't think
of a pump better suited to creating bubbles in a fluid flow (diaphragm pumps
work by moving a flexible diaphragm back and forth to generate vac/pressure
cycles that move liquid. Typically, since this pressure swing happens really
fast, you'll get some air from an uneven liquid level, leaks, or cavitation
in the pumping fluid).

In short, if anyone is interested in trying this out, I'd forgo the crazy
liquid/liquid mixtures at the beginning, and try selecting the most useful
pump style first. If you still can't get the effect you want, move into
mixing liquids/slurries/etc.

Sean

On Sat, Nov 20, 2010 at 11:38 PM, ben lipkowitz <fennfoot at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>
> On Wed, 17 Nov 2010, miloh wrote:
>
>> On Wed, Nov 17, 2010 at 10:24 AM, Eric Boyd <mrericboyd at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>      http://laughingsquid.com/fluid-dress/
>>
>>      It's awesome.  I thought perhaps they were using glow-in-the-dark
>> fluid,
>>      but actually it's a UV-reactive ("blacklight") fluid.
>>
>
> I had this same idea, well, not a dress though. You can get various colored
> water soluble blacklight dyes from glowbottles.com for pretty cheap (~10
> shipped for 4 colors)
>
> anyway, one large problem is that you need to have a black light shining on
> you. instead you could use glow in the dark powder* suspended in a liquid
> and illuminate the fluid with UV LED's at intervals. this is like glow in
> the dark paintballs, which have a UV flashlamp at the end of the barrel to
> "charge" the paintball as it leaves the gun. except instead of a paintball
> you have a stream of liquid.
>
> * http://www.unitednuclear.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=28_45
>
>
>
>       the boundary where the fluids change will become mixed.  I wonder if
>> you
>>
>> Is it using air gaps as separators?  I only watched once but it seems like
>> air gaps and a compressor for flow control.
>>
>
> yep. looks like he's mixing the fluids in the earlier videos though.
> paraffin (lamp oil) works pretty well too, if you don't mind being covered
> in tubes full of flammable fluid.
>
>
>  Is there a sorting sensor at the input?  Heard of stuff like this in water
>> control dishwashers.
>>
>
> please elaborate?
>
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