Case Mod - In Progress Reactor Meltdown |20-07-2014|Illumitube crowdfunding only 1 week left!

thanks

small update:
currently reworking the fittings as i found the finish of to low quality, did test the pressure tightness and they work great, now it is just a matter of perfecting my manufactering method and some small design tweaks

 

very small update, have been busy with some cables, i will be using coated copper wires instead of sleeved wires for the 8 pin and 24pin motherboard, both using extenders.

got blisters on my fingers now but here is the first result of the 24 pin:




they are 2mm thick laminated copper wires, they soldered onto the connectors remarkably easy.

also this build is going a bit slow because im working on plans to make a large production batch of the illuminated fittings between 100 and 1000 pieces, currently have parts on the way to make me some second stage prototypes. biggest difference will be the production method and the use of a tiny pcb inside the fitting for 3 0603 leds or 3 leds on their side.

 

Good grief. That's going to look really sharp if you can get all the wires to line up neatly, like tiny little copper tubes.

 

it is something that has to be done at the very end, i have tried doing it while working on it but as soon as i bend it a little bit it goes back into chaos

the actual plan was to remove the isolation and tin coat the wires and use the clear plastidip to provide the insulation but tin coating the wires turned out to be very troublesome
maybe the copper version wil someday be replaced with a silver coloured version

 

You can zinc coat copper quite easily, which should give you a nice silvery finish. If you plastic coat it soon after, it should stay nice and shiny I think. Just bring a solution of NaOH (aka sodium hydroxide, lye) and zinc powder to a boil, and dip the copper in for ~1min. Both NaOH and zinc powder are fairly easy to come by.

Alternately, you could always use aluminum wire. It got a bad rap for starting house fires when used as in-wall wiring, but as long as you don't bend it back and forth too many times it generally works just fine.

 

i will try this when i have again some spare time. thanks for the tip, i will also try again with the soldering iron since last time i tried to do it with a burner and i think it may have become to hot because the connectors soldered easilly onto the wires.

 

That 24 pin is going to look sweeeet! If you don't mind me asking, where did you get the wires?

 

i got the wires here: conrad

 

it has been a couple of weeks but i havent stopped working on my solid tube designs, needless to say i have reviewed about 6 concepts and i now have a final design that im going to prototype in about 2-4 weeks.




i have also finished my previous design to see how the light element will work with the tubes and the water.

the first parts i got in were the 0603 leds and resistors to create a more profeccional pcb rather than using the leds in the side


to compare the performance of some different led types i have made a couple of versions using the same pcb. from top to bottom this is:
sideled(white), white 0603 led, uv 0603 led.



the next step was to find a material that could reduce the brightspots that you get with the led lights so i got some samples of special led plexiglass:
the first is a single layer of the white version:


next we have the white sheet combined with a second layer of yellow plexi:
the top nut is there to show the size of the hole that would be used in the fitting.



red version:



uv red version:


i tested a lot more colors and i have suitable material for all basic colors: blue, red, green, orange and white.

since i didnt want to waste the sample material on making old parts i inserted the led ring in the old fitting using the old type inserts, it does not fit perfectly but in general it shows what the effect will be on the tube and water

no led on:


with the uv leds inside:






next up are the white leds:



all i can say is that in reality it looks much more awesome, the camera really creates bright spots and reduces the effect the light has on the tube and water.

in the next weeks i will be busy making the final prototypes.

 

wow man, they're getting better and better!

 

Wow they look brilliant! Loving this log so far dude, can't wait to see where it goes

 

thanks man
the newest design is really compact and because im planning to make more than 10 i can make a special jigg to enable precision 2 sided milling on the nut and threaded part.
its only 24mm in diameter so it is quite small considering there is a pcb inside

 

Well done, especially the downsizing

And more than 10? How about more than 100 at least?!

 

If the making of the final prototypes goes well i will most likely start a kickstarter or indiegogo campaign so people can kind of pre-order them, that will give me a clear estimation on how many i should make. That is if the prototypes are of sufficient quality and im really strickt on that kind of thing

 

Major Kudos right there Skyrip, Those connectors look freakin' amazing

That's a fine looking design you have there. What is it rendered in?

 

thanks

the renders were made using the solidworks photoview 360 render tool, it really sucks at displaying the light effect for some reason so its not really great but at least its better than the rough sketches

 

I like that 24 pin. It looks dangerous. Dangerous is good.

 

thanks man, that is what i was going for

i would also like to share the other concepts that i have rendered, i will not attempt to make these in the near future since their increased complexity would be a little bit to hard to begin with.

the first is based on a ER32 nut:


The second has slots to tighten the fitting with a special tool:


the second version is the same but this time the color ring also has the slots that run untill the edge of the tube:



The fouth is inspired on a tire profile:


The fifth has round holes for a tool to tighten the nut:


The sixth has the same round holes but much closer to the tube so the holes are half in the nut and half in the color ring:


These are some concepts that might be interesting if this ever takes off
so dont expect them anytime soon