20$ Tornado(vortex) Generator

thingiverse

*** Background History First *** About a month ago.. I was about :the half of my peanut butter toast when my wife mentioned me that my older son has selected his subject for his third grade presentation... Tornado! Seriously! That's great... That kind of subject spark my interest... So I went here to find something kick-ass to spice up his presentation, I've found a pretty cool tornado vase... So i start printing it... I was looking at my print starting up, finishing my toast (lol)... And my brain was already at the next step... This looks great... But.... It's so... Passive... So i went back, and i remembered playing with bottle and tornado coupler when a was a youngster... Great found that one and start the print on another printer... Ok now the bad news... I didn't drink soft drink so 2L bottle didn't exist at home... Humm ok, that's right... You could be surprised what I'm ready to do in the name of science ;) I went back to ask my wife to buy some 2l bottle fill with any liquid , after giving explanation why i leave the table as.... She agreed to add those to the groceries list... So i go to work... But you know... My brain was working over that... Traffic jam are a great reason to go in my wonderful alternative reality lol So I made a great kit... Right?... Great, yes! But not awesome... Need to add some mad scientific stuff... So I search and didn't find something that would fill my needs...Tornado + motor = awesome! So ... I fired my freecad! **design details** This as been designed to be affordable as possible... About 20$ and that includes at least 2L of your favorite soft drinks ;) Basic system need a 5-10$ ultrasonic mist generator 24v, and a 50-60mm 24v centrifugal computer fan and a cheap standard on-off rocker switch ... Since my 24v fan and my cheap PWM pot didn't find their way to my home in time...I was forced to create that "CSL Editdion" (Chinese Shipping Latency Edition). Currently i use a 60mm 12v fan... Since i was forced to take down the voltage to 24 to 12 v I've used an lm317, some resistor and a pot that enable the operator to play with wind speed... This design as been build with 150x150mm delta in mind... So almost any 3d printer could print that project... *Please Note: This is the first release.... post printing explanation in progress so stay tuned ;)* *** end of story *** So after countless hours of printing and prototyping... I've got that working design... Which work really well... I'm not equipped with professional photographer rig... And droplet of water lighten by led seems to saturate camera sensor... So pictures or video of the tornado are all over exposed... But no issue up to now with human eyes... It looks great if you use your bare eyes to look at it ;) I've holded this design until my kid completed his presentation... You know people with 3d printer have tendency to hide between normal people...lol ... Would be a nightmare if other kid in is classroom show up with the same kickass tornado generator... Lol Be warn: the hardest part of that project was to successfully convince the teacher that my kid designed this by himself... Just joking :D Hope it would be useful for you... Also it make a great room humidifier :)