this video is sponsored by Squarespace
whether you need a website a domain or
an online store make it with Squarespace
check the link in the description below
for 10% off your first order hey guys
I’m Nate welcome back to the workshop
not long ago we had a video where we
showed you how to make your own tornado
tube using a couple of 2-liter soda
bottles my favorite part of that video
was the look of when we had the swirling
glow-in-the-dark water next to a
blacklight I thought that the glowing
swirls really resembled the look of the
Northern Lights
but in that vortex all of it drained out
and stopped working very quickly so the
purpose of today’s video is to see if we
can build a lamp that gives us that
continuous glowing swirl that I think
looks like the Northern Lights here are
the supplies that we’re gonna be using
for this build I have a clear plastic
jar with a lid that screws on water
tight a simple backlight keychain a
low-volume submersible water pump some
extra wire some heat shrink a couple of
on-off switches the top of a bendy straw
and some glow-in-the-dark paint
to help with the build I also have
soldering iron equipment some wire
strippers and a heat gun I’ve also got a
glue gun for attaching some small pieces
together and making sure everything is
watertight as a first step let’s drill a
small hole in the bottom of the
container where the cord to the pump
will come out of our hole lamp now we
need to cut off the cord so we can fit
it through the hole
[Music]
now with our cord split we need to run
one end through the hole in the bottom
of our container
[Music]
in a video where I showed how to build a
desktop vortex fountain some people
pointed out that my cord splicing
technique was pretty poor so I’ve tried
to upgrade that and improve it so it’s a
little more safe
[Music]
so instead of just twisting the ends of
this cord together I’m going to twist
them then solder them then heat shrink
them together
[Music]
there we go those pieces are now nicely
soldered together slip our heat shrink
over the soldered parts
[Music]
now just to keep the two wires from
coming apart I am going to wrap a little
bit of electrical tape around the joint
now some of you may be wondering why I
didn’t add a switch in since I already
had the cord splice well I am planning
to add an on/off switch but it isn’t the
type of switch that requires a cord to
be cut like that so I had to cut it just
to fit it through the edge of the jar
but now I need to add the switch in a
little bit farther up the cord so here’s
how this type of switch works with our
wires we’ll take our electric cord and
split it down the middle a little bit we
won’t cut it across so we’ll still be
intact
well we’re splitting our cord we want to
make sure that we don’t cut into any of
the wire itself just through the plastic
housings now let’s clip in the middle
and just to make sure that it will fit
and line up nicely without the wire ever
touching let’s clip off just about
eighth of an inch so that we now have a
gap even if we lined it back up one side
of our wire goes around to the side and
the other side has a split in the middle
at the plastic partition now we should
be able to take the other side of our
switch fit it back on and have those
spikes stab down into our split wire and
just like that we’ve installed a switch
in the middle of the cord with the cord
cut pass through the wall of the plastic
container spliced together and with the
switch added in the middle of the line
now let’s attach our pump to the bottom
of our plastic container permanently we
want to make sure we have our pump lined
up where we know we want it we’ll gently
pull it out and then let’s add some hot
glue to the bottom both on the suction
cups and on the main body itself after
that’s applied we’ll lower it back down
into place and hold it firmly there
until the glue has begun to cool with
the pump where we want it we can pull
the cord back out so it’s as tight as it
can get and then seal up the hole around
the cord using more hot glue with the
pump in place let’s take the cut section
of our bendy straw and fit it down into
the nozzle in our pump
now I’ve got the straw pointed back in
the same direction that the cord is
going that’s because we’re going to be
adding a small light into the side of
the container and we want the flow of
the straw to be aimed almost directly at
that light this way we can keep the
light and the wires coming out of it
pointed in the same direction as our
power cord
now this little blacklight keychain is
an extremely simple mechanism it does
have a small switch you can turn or it
can be activated just by squeezing it on
the inside of this one of the wires
coming out of the light bulb is being
held up at an angle so it’s not making
contact with the power source which is a
couple of button cell batteries we want
to remove the light bulb but still use
the casing and the power source because
of that we have to add in our own switch
somewhere else in the line we’re going
to remove the small LED light bulb and
that will end up being installed in the
side of the plastic container up here
we’ll then use some extra wire to
connect the power source to the light
bulb through the switch and see we’ve
got our button cell batteries it says
three volts which means that the two of
them together is giving us six volts to
power our LED let’s take a length of
four or five inches from our red and
black wire and cut that off separate the
wire these are wire strippers and take
off just a small bit at the end of our
wire less than half an inch about one
centimeter now we want to fit this wire
back into the casing one on top of the
batteries and one on the bottom of the
batteries
[Music]
there you go I think we’ve got the wires
in contact with the battery so now let’s
put the screws back in place
we also aren’t going to need these
keyring pieces so let’s get rid of those
let’s actually split this wire all the
way down so we’ve got two separate wires
coming out of our battery pack
let’s pull off the ends of these wires
and see if touching the ends of our led
will get it to light up and go you have
light just we want to see now before we
start permanently attaching wires
together we need to get some good
measurements so let’s drill a hole in
the side of our container where we can
attach our LED light bulb
there you go now let’s use a drill bit
the same size as the body of our LED and
drill a small hole through the side of
our plastic container our LED now fits
very smoothly into the side of our
plastic container which is just what we
want so now we can have one wire go
straight from our battery pack up to the
bulb and the other wire we’ll take a
small detour through our switch before
it goes to the bulb as well
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
those Sauter’s and heat-shrink should do
a pretty good job of making sure that
our bulb is well attached to the wires
and that it’s not in any danger of
shorting from any wires touching each
other however it just to be sure because
is going to be near liquid let’s use a
little bit of hot glue and make sure
that the leads on the back of the LED
are completely covered and we have it I
think every bit of exposed metal is now
covered with our hot glue at this point
we just need to connect the other end of
the on/off switch to the other end of
the battery pack and we should have a
complete circuit before I solder these
together just holding it together as
soon as I turn the switch perfect that’s
exactly what we want to see on ah there
we go at this point we have our complete
circuit our switch is working our light
bulb is working everything is working
perfectly just what we want to see now
the light bulb will go right here
battery pack will go right here and our
wires will all run together like this so
I just want to tape these all together
so we have one consistent cord
one more step to make this nice and
permanently attached is to use some hot
glue to go all the way around this light
bulb so no water or liquid can leak out
of that gap at this point I think we’ve
got all the electronics sucked up so
it’s time to make our glow in that arc
fluid and fill our lamp we don’t want to
necessarily mix up our glue Menard fluid
inside the lamp container itself I’ll
show you why in a minute so we’re going
to be using a separate larger container
to mix it up in and then we’ll transfer
it once we’re ready to make sure we have
the right amount but not too much let’s
fill our container all the way up pour
it into this container and then add a
little bit more to the pitcher this is
also gonna work as a test to see how
well our two holes filled with hot glue
are doing so far
perfect it’s all the way to the very
very top now let’s pour that into our
picture
and now let’s add mmm maybe another cup
or so it’s not very important we want to
make sure we have enough but not so much
that we’re going to end up with a ton of
extra liquid in the pitcher now we want
to take our bottle of glow-in-the-dark
acrylic paint and pour about half of it
into this water now let’s stir that up
until it’s all dissolved into the water
at this point if we use our blacklight
and hold up against the water turned on
we should be able to see it picking up
the glow from the paint there you go
it’s pretty faint right there but I’m in
a well-lit studio so it’s not gonna show
up too well but you can still see it
swirling away to increase the contrast
between the glowing portion of our
liquid and the non glowing portion let’s
also add several drops of blue food
coloring this will darken the liquid
overall but it will still shine brightly
when it’s glowing we’re not trying to
make squid ink here we’re just going for
a little bit darker of a shade there we
go we have our glow in that arc liquid
and we now want to transfer it back into
the smaller container but we are going
to go back to the sink to do that
because we’re going to fill it so much
that it’s on the brink of overflowing
now let’s start adding the liquid and as
I said we’re going to fill it up to the
very very top
it’ll be so full that when we put the
lid on the jar that should actually
cause more of the liquid to spill out
over the container here goes combination
of the glow in that art paint and the
blue food coloring you can’t even really
see any of the internal components the
pump is now invisible fill and let it
overflow even a little bit to try and
get rid of some of those bubbles there
we go now as I’m filling it’s just
running down the sides of the container
which means it is very full which is
just how we want it so now while it’s
still overflowing like that let’s
carefully put our lid on and screw it
down tight as you can see as I’m
screwing it on it’s actually squishing
some extra liquid out perfect
there we go nice and tight and by doing
that we minimize the amount of bubbles
that show up there’s still a couple of
them but for the most part they’ll just
be hidden up inside the cap and we’ll
never see any of the bubbling we have
our glow-in-the-dark liquid our pump and
our blacklight in the jar so at this
point we should be able to plug it in
turn on those switches and have a
swirling glowing liquid all right light
on pump on
I think we’re getting a good effect now
we are still in a very well lit Studios
so you can’t see almost anything of this
but let’s turn out the lights and see
how this is looking
so while we are trying to get some shots
of this aurora borealis lamp we’re
having a hard time picking up some of
the contrast that we can see with the
naked eye it looked best on camera right
where the pump was pointing all of the
glow in that arc liquid right at the LED
light bulb but the LED light itself gave
off so much light that was pretty
distracting so to add to the decor
effect what I did was take some opaque
black tape and cut it in the profile of
a mountain range so now it looks like
we’re kind of seeing a moon rising
behind a mountain with some Northern
Lights flowing around the sky as well
I’m actually really happy with the look
so there you have it I think we have
fairly successfully built a Northern
Lights lamp it looks pretty cool there’s
a lot of good swirling motion going
along and that’s what I really wanted I
really wish that our camera could
capture how it shows up to the naked eye
because the contrast between where the
LED is and the green swirling lights is
not quite so exaggerated so it really
looks like this slight blue glow behind
a mountain and then the swirling green
of the aurora borealis behind it once
again thank you to Squarespace for
sponsoring this video
Squarespace provides a wide variety of
designer templates so your website will
reflect your vision they’ve got
award-winning 24/7 customer service to
help you build the site that you need
and it’s easy to set up or transfer an
existing domain over to Squarespace head
to Squarespace calm for a free trial and
when you’re ready to launch go to
Squarespace comm slash king of random
for 10% off of your first purchase of a
website or domain thanks for joining us
for this project today and remember to
come grab your hats shirts and other
cool merch at the king of random comm
see you there
right hey guys thanks so much for caring
about our content in our channel so much
it really is amazing to have great
people like you jumping in to watch
every new video that gets uploaded and
watching it to the end you really are
amazing and we appreciate you for that
[Music]
whether you need a website a domain or
an online store make it with Squarespace
check the link in the description below
for 10% off your first order hey guys
I’m Nate welcome back to the workshop
not long ago we had a video where we
showed you how to make your own tornado
tube using a couple of 2-liter soda
bottles my favorite part of that video
was the look of when we had the swirling
glow-in-the-dark water next to a
blacklight I thought that the glowing
swirls really resembled the look of the
Northern Lights
but in that vortex all of it drained out
and stopped working very quickly so the
purpose of today’s video is to see if we
can build a lamp that gives us that
continuous glowing swirl that I think
looks like the Northern Lights here are
the supplies that we’re gonna be using
for this build I have a clear plastic
jar with a lid that screws on water
tight a simple backlight keychain a
low-volume submersible water pump some
extra wire some heat shrink a couple of
on-off switches the top of a bendy straw
and some glow-in-the-dark paint
to help with the build I also have
soldering iron equipment some wire
strippers and a heat gun I’ve also got a
glue gun for attaching some small pieces
together and making sure everything is
watertight as a first step let’s drill a
small hole in the bottom of the
container where the cord to the pump
will come out of our hole lamp now we
need to cut off the cord so we can fit
it through the hole
[Music]
now with our cord split we need to run
one end through the hole in the bottom
of our container
[Music]
in a video where I showed how to build a
desktop vortex fountain some people
pointed out that my cord splicing
technique was pretty poor so I’ve tried
to upgrade that and improve it so it’s a
little more safe
[Music]
so instead of just twisting the ends of
this cord together I’m going to twist
them then solder them then heat shrink
them together
[Music]
there we go those pieces are now nicely
soldered together slip our heat shrink
over the soldered parts
[Music]
now just to keep the two wires from
coming apart I am going to wrap a little
bit of electrical tape around the joint
now some of you may be wondering why I
didn’t add a switch in since I already
had the cord splice well I am planning
to add an on/off switch but it isn’t the
type of switch that requires a cord to
be cut like that so I had to cut it just
to fit it through the edge of the jar
but now I need to add the switch in a
little bit farther up the cord so here’s
how this type of switch works with our
wires we’ll take our electric cord and
split it down the middle a little bit we
won’t cut it across so we’ll still be
intact
well we’re splitting our cord we want to
make sure that we don’t cut into any of
the wire itself just through the plastic
housings now let’s clip in the middle
and just to make sure that it will fit
and line up nicely without the wire ever
touching let’s clip off just about
eighth of an inch so that we now have a
gap even if we lined it back up one side
of our wire goes around to the side and
the other side has a split in the middle
at the plastic partition now we should
be able to take the other side of our
switch fit it back on and have those
spikes stab down into our split wire and
just like that we’ve installed a switch
in the middle of the cord with the cord
cut pass through the wall of the plastic
container spliced together and with the
switch added in the middle of the line
now let’s attach our pump to the bottom
of our plastic container permanently we
want to make sure we have our pump lined
up where we know we want it we’ll gently
pull it out and then let’s add some hot
glue to the bottom both on the suction
cups and on the main body itself after
that’s applied we’ll lower it back down
into place and hold it firmly there
until the glue has begun to cool with
the pump where we want it we can pull
the cord back out so it’s as tight as it
can get and then seal up the hole around
the cord using more hot glue with the
pump in place let’s take the cut section
of our bendy straw and fit it down into
the nozzle in our pump
now I’ve got the straw pointed back in
the same direction that the cord is
going that’s because we’re going to be
adding a small light into the side of
the container and we want the flow of
the straw to be aimed almost directly at
that light this way we can keep the
light and the wires coming out of it
pointed in the same direction as our
power cord
now this little blacklight keychain is
an extremely simple mechanism it does
have a small switch you can turn or it
can be activated just by squeezing it on
the inside of this one of the wires
coming out of the light bulb is being
held up at an angle so it’s not making
contact with the power source which is a
couple of button cell batteries we want
to remove the light bulb but still use
the casing and the power source because
of that we have to add in our own switch
somewhere else in the line we’re going
to remove the small LED light bulb and
that will end up being installed in the
side of the plastic container up here
we’ll then use some extra wire to
connect the power source to the light
bulb through the switch and see we’ve
got our button cell batteries it says
three volts which means that the two of
them together is giving us six volts to
power our LED let’s take a length of
four or five inches from our red and
black wire and cut that off separate the
wire these are wire strippers and take
off just a small bit at the end of our
wire less than half an inch about one
centimeter now we want to fit this wire
back into the casing one on top of the
batteries and one on the bottom of the
batteries
[Music]
there you go I think we’ve got the wires
in contact with the battery so now let’s
put the screws back in place
we also aren’t going to need these
keyring pieces so let’s get rid of those
let’s actually split this wire all the
way down so we’ve got two separate wires
coming out of our battery pack
let’s pull off the ends of these wires
and see if touching the ends of our led
will get it to light up and go you have
light just we want to see now before we
start permanently attaching wires
together we need to get some good
measurements so let’s drill a hole in
the side of our container where we can
attach our LED light bulb
there you go now let’s use a drill bit
the same size as the body of our LED and
drill a small hole through the side of
our plastic container our LED now fits
very smoothly into the side of our
plastic container which is just what we
want so now we can have one wire go
straight from our battery pack up to the
bulb and the other wire we’ll take a
small detour through our switch before
it goes to the bulb as well
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
those Sauter’s and heat-shrink should do
a pretty good job of making sure that
our bulb is well attached to the wires
and that it’s not in any danger of
shorting from any wires touching each
other however it just to be sure because
is going to be near liquid let’s use a
little bit of hot glue and make sure
that the leads on the back of the LED
are completely covered and we have it I
think every bit of exposed metal is now
covered with our hot glue at this point
we just need to connect the other end of
the on/off switch to the other end of
the battery pack and we should have a
complete circuit before I solder these
together just holding it together as
soon as I turn the switch perfect that’s
exactly what we want to see on ah there
we go at this point we have our complete
circuit our switch is working our light
bulb is working everything is working
perfectly just what we want to see now
the light bulb will go right here
battery pack will go right here and our
wires will all run together like this so
I just want to tape these all together
so we have one consistent cord
one more step to make this nice and
permanently attached is to use some hot
glue to go all the way around this light
bulb so no water or liquid can leak out
of that gap at this point I think we’ve
got all the electronics sucked up so
it’s time to make our glow in that arc
fluid and fill our lamp we don’t want to
necessarily mix up our glue Menard fluid
inside the lamp container itself I’ll
show you why in a minute so we’re going
to be using a separate larger container
to mix it up in and then we’ll transfer
it once we’re ready to make sure we have
the right amount but not too much let’s
fill our container all the way up pour
it into this container and then add a
little bit more to the pitcher this is
also gonna work as a test to see how
well our two holes filled with hot glue
are doing so far
perfect it’s all the way to the very
very top now let’s pour that into our
picture
and now let’s add mmm maybe another cup
or so it’s not very important we want to
make sure we have enough but not so much
that we’re going to end up with a ton of
extra liquid in the pitcher now we want
to take our bottle of glow-in-the-dark
acrylic paint and pour about half of it
into this water now let’s stir that up
until it’s all dissolved into the water
at this point if we use our blacklight
and hold up against the water turned on
we should be able to see it picking up
the glow from the paint there you go
it’s pretty faint right there but I’m in
a well-lit studio so it’s not gonna show
up too well but you can still see it
swirling away to increase the contrast
between the glowing portion of our
liquid and the non glowing portion let’s
also add several drops of blue food
coloring this will darken the liquid
overall but it will still shine brightly
when it’s glowing we’re not trying to
make squid ink here we’re just going for
a little bit darker of a shade there we
go we have our glow in that arc liquid
and we now want to transfer it back into
the smaller container but we are going
to go back to the sink to do that
because we’re going to fill it so much
that it’s on the brink of overflowing
now let’s start adding the liquid and as
I said we’re going to fill it up to the
very very top
it’ll be so full that when we put the
lid on the jar that should actually
cause more of the liquid to spill out
over the container here goes combination
of the glow in that art paint and the
blue food coloring you can’t even really
see any of the internal components the
pump is now invisible fill and let it
overflow even a little bit to try and
get rid of some of those bubbles there
we go now as I’m filling it’s just
running down the sides of the container
which means it is very full which is
just how we want it so now while it’s
still overflowing like that let’s
carefully put our lid on and screw it
down tight as you can see as I’m
screwing it on it’s actually squishing
some extra liquid out perfect
there we go nice and tight and by doing
that we minimize the amount of bubbles
that show up there’s still a couple of
them but for the most part they’ll just
be hidden up inside the cap and we’ll
never see any of the bubbling we have
our glow-in-the-dark liquid our pump and
our blacklight in the jar so at this
point we should be able to plug it in
turn on those switches and have a
swirling glowing liquid all right light
on pump on
I think we’re getting a good effect now
we are still in a very well lit Studios
so you can’t see almost anything of this
but let’s turn out the lights and see
how this is looking
so while we are trying to get some shots
of this aurora borealis lamp we’re
having a hard time picking up some of
the contrast that we can see with the
naked eye it looked best on camera right
where the pump was pointing all of the
glow in that arc liquid right at the LED
light bulb but the LED light itself gave
off so much light that was pretty
distracting so to add to the decor
effect what I did was take some opaque
black tape and cut it in the profile of
a mountain range so now it looks like
we’re kind of seeing a moon rising
behind a mountain with some Northern
Lights flowing around the sky as well
I’m actually really happy with the look
so there you have it I think we have
fairly successfully built a Northern
Lights lamp it looks pretty cool there’s
a lot of good swirling motion going
along and that’s what I really wanted I
really wish that our camera could
capture how it shows up to the naked eye
because the contrast between where the
LED is and the green swirling lights is
not quite so exaggerated so it really
looks like this slight blue glow behind
a mountain and then the swirling green
of the aurora borealis behind it once
again thank you to Squarespace for
sponsoring this video
Squarespace provides a wide variety of
designer templates so your website will
reflect your vision they’ve got
award-winning 24/7 customer service to
help you build the site that you need
and it’s easy to set up or transfer an
existing domain over to Squarespace head
to Squarespace calm for a free trial and
when you’re ready to launch go to
Squarespace comm slash king of random
for 10% off of your first purchase of a
website or domain thanks for joining us
for this project today and remember to
come grab your hats shirts and other
cool merch at the king of random comm
see you there
right hey guys thanks so much for caring
about our content in our channel so much
it really is amazing to have great
people like you jumping in to watch
every new video that gets uploaded and
watching it to the end you really are
amazing and we appreciate you for that
[Music]
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