I am starting a plan for modding one of my cases, and I had an idea to put a 2-3 inch diameter tube on the side with a bubbling colored liquid. Has anyone done something like this, or have any ideas. I would think I need some sort of one way valve and maybe a fish tank pump. Any thoughts would be greatly appeaciated. Thanks.
yah you could make do with a fish tank air pump and prolly just use its bubbler or make your own from a length of tubing
You could also experiment with fluids of different viscosities. The Viscosity of the fluid will effect the speed which the bubbles rise in the tube. Just a thought
Buy a cheap aquarium valve, less than £1. Make sure you put something in the water to stop it going green. Also, the webpage that tm36usa linked to has no lid, the bubbles can "spit" water at your pc - not good. Also, aquarium pumps are seriously load, and don't run off a molex. Could you put the pump in a sound-proof box/another room, and run some cheap air hose to the bubble tank? Also, if you got a cheap submersible filter, they can incorporate bubbles into the water jets.
Some sort of oil might work. Although you would have to find out if you can change the colour (oil soluble dyes?), and you might want an oil which is very light in colour. Something like a light olive oil. You would probably want to seal the system if you used oil. Otherwise your comp would either smell like an old car, or a Fish & Chip shop. If I think of or come across any more suitable fluids, I'll let you know
Both oil, and water, that way the bubbles will go faster in the water, then slower in the oil, you will also need to have the air pump retrieving its air from the top of the cylinder if you are having it compleatly sealed.
let's think a little bit further... 1. idea: Use 2 liquids of different viscosity, that wont mix (oil and water for example). oil swims on water. so fill a tube mostly with water and then add some oil on top of it. then you could use a normal pump to pump the oil from top of the water to the valve under the water. with the right setup you could have oil bubbles moving through the water, and of course give a different color to bubbles and water (blue water and red oil for example, but you'll have to find colors that won't mix with both water and oil) 2. idea: if you could get some temperature sensitive coloring (coloring that changes it's color depending on the temperature it has) you could use these tubes outside your computer as compensation tank for water cooling. make sure the water inside the tank is always cooler than the water coming out of the cooling cycle. You could have a nice gradient in the tank.
