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Help! I'm building a trapped air bubble fixture

Posted: Fri Apr 10, 2015 12:11 pm
by alicuakapeshka
Hello! I'm new here just relized that your water rocket construction is exactly the type of info I'm looking for! I am building an art installation with water bottles. Imagine a bunch of tall rockets side by side with air pumped into the bottom that can escape at the top and light up with less for underwater effects in a club. I am going to try the slip joint method to combine bottles. I was not originally thinking about putting the bottles on stands. Do you think they could be supported a different way? I currently have weaker junction points that are essentially a hole drilled in the water bottle with a piece if air tubing stuck into it with silicon call and JB wet weld. They are holding but I have no flat bottom to set them down. Any ideas for supporting it? They are skinny tall 1 liter water bottles planning on four tall to make them 5' How much support will they need when they are filled with water? Weight estimates? All help greatly appreciated!!

Re: Help! I'm building a trapped air bubble fixture

Posted: Fri Apr 10, 2015 8:05 pm
by Blenderite
I am a little confused as to what you are looking to do. A drawing might help out.

Re: Help! I'm building a trapped air bubble fixture

Posted: Thu Apr 23, 2015 1:55 pm
by bugwubber
Use 1/2" pvc passing through beam at base to provide support and structure. Since you arent launching, just use sealant to prevent leaks between bottles and the tubes. Calc the total volume of all the bottles to understand how much weight you'll need to support. It will be a lot.

My launcher is set up this way, just subtract the metal release bar and valves, add some one.way valves so they don't drain out when air is turned off.

Re: Help! I'm building a trapped air bubble fixture

Posted: Thu Apr 23, 2015 2:17 pm
by bugwubber
Also, consider using the clear protective covers for florescent light tubes instead of gluing a bunch of bottles together. They come in 4 and 8ft lengths. They are polycarbonate and can be glued to pvc or such with a polyurethane based glue such as PL Premium.

Re: Help! I'm building a trapped air bubble fixture

Posted: Sun Apr 26, 2015 10:13 pm
by U.S. Water Rockets
If you add a lot of bottles together to make a very tall cylinder, the water weight will not be an issue, but the tall structure will not be very stable and may tip over easily. The bottle at the base will not be able to handle a lot of torque and will probably collapse and let the whole thing tip over. Consider hanging the pillars from a bottle on the top with a wire around the top bottle neck.

Re: Help! I'm building a trapped air bubble fixture

Posted: Thu Mar 02, 2017 9:23 pm
by China_WaterRocket
bugwubber wrote:Use 1/2" pvc passing through beam at base to provide support and structure. Since you arent launching, just use sealant to prevent leaks between bottles and the tubes. Calc the total volume of all the bottles to understand how much weight you'll need to support. It will be a lot.

My launcher is set up this way, just subtract the metal release bar and valves, add some one.way valves so they don't drain out when air is turned off.


good picture.