hey guys welcome back thanks for joining
us today on the king of random not too
long ago we showed you how to make a
desktop vortex fountain something that
used to pump in a small cistern of water
pumped it up into a cup in a spiral so
that as it drained out it forms sort of
a water tornado well that was pretty
cool but today we’re gonna try and suit
that up to make a larger full-size
vortex fountain and we have a couple of
twists we’re gonna add in as well the
basic idea is the same
this orange bucket we’ll be using as our
cistern down below we have a pump that
can move up to 550 gallons of water per
hour instead of the drinking straw we
used on the miniature one we’ve got this
flexible vinyl hosing will make this
drink dispenser the part of our fountain
that houses the vortex we also have this
plastic 16 inch diameter tray one of the
first things we need to do is to take
off all of the excess pieces that come
with this drink dispenser it’s got a lot
of cool accessories but we’re not going
to use them now we also want to remove
the spigot here but after we remove it
we do want to keep this thicker rubber
seal that’s on the outside one of the
first steps will take is giving
ourselves an attachment method for the
hose outside of the container that will
also angle the water on the inside of
the container at Ace Hardware I managed
to find these plastic pieces that turn
at an angle and are smaller on one side
than at the other so that they link
together nicely the smaller end also
fits perfectly with our three-eighths
inch vinyl hose what we’re going to do
is fit the narrow end of one of these
elbows through the hole where the spigot
was in our drink container will then
attach the other elbow to the first one
through the container because the hole
is larger than the piece of plastic
going through it we’re also going to
take the rubber seal that was on the
spigot and use that to seal everything
up now that may hold water a little bit
but we want to make sure it’s 100%
waterproof so we’re also going to take
our hot glue gun and spread a ring of
warm glue around this edge and then
we’ll put this on and press the rubber
down into that that should give us a
really nice seal that will never leak
now while that’s cooling let’s also
drill a hole in the very center of the
bottom of our vortex chamber a 3/8 inch
drill bit is smaller than the diameter
of the pipe leading into this chamber
and our pump should give us enough
volume of water that it can keep up with
a hole 3/8 inch wide
with the point of entry and exit for the
water we need to drill similarly placed
holes in our plastic tray just a note
about this plastic tray I found this one
at a thrift store for about two bucks if
you don’t happen to have any of these
available at your local thrift store any
plastic tray about this size should work
as long as it has a little bit of a lip
on the edge this one is 16 inches in
diameter
first we’ll drill a hole in the very
center that’s where the water will drain
down through after it leaves the vortex
chamber now the water after it leaves
the vortex chamber and is going through
this tray it doesn’t need to come
through a perfectly sized hole that just
barely lets all the water through it can
have plenty of space on the sides so I’m
actually going to use a larger drill bit
and just give a hole about an inch wide
in the middle of this tray
[Music]
when we have the hole in our vortex
chamber lined up perfectly with the hole
in our plastic tray we can see
approximately where we need to drill the
second hole that will let the tube come
up from the pump to feed water into our
tank once again this hole doesn’t have
to be exactly the same size as the hose
it can be a little bit larger I’m not
gonna stick with the 1-inch I’m gonna
take it down just a little bit I’ve got
my three-quarter inch drill bit and
that’s what I’m gonna use for our second
hole in the tray we’ve got two holes
drilled into our tray one hole drilled
into the center of the bottom of our
vortex chamber and of course one spot
where the piping is going to take the
water up from the pump into our vortex
chamber once our hole fountain is up and
running some of the water will be
filling out of the vortex chamber and
landing on the tray to help it drain
faster back into the bucket we’re gonna
drill just a few more holes in it I do
want to make sure all of the holes are
set fairly far in if they’re out near
the edges that will actually be wider
than where the bucket was and all the
water will just drain onto the ground
for these holes I’m going one step
smaller and using a 5/8 inch drill bit
our plastic tray now has eight holes
drilled into it now let’s set this aside
and work on our pump for a minute this
pump is designed to be submerged
completely underwater as it’s working it
has a nozzle at the top where all the
water will spray out what we need to do
is use our hose to connect this nozzle
to the input of our vortex tank when our
pump is in the bucket you can see we
won’t actually need all that much hose
it will need to connect from about here
to here to make sure that we have enough
while we do our accurate measurement I’m
just gonna cut off an extra six inches
of it and then do our measuring from
there this 3/8 inch hose is a little bit
too small to fit over the nozzle easily
but I found if you just kind of wiggle
it and press it you can actually get it
on fairly well as you can see this vinyl
tubing really likes to curl itself up
and we want to be pointing basically
straight so what we’re gonna try and do
is use a little bit of heat to make it
soft enough that we can straighten it
out and then have it cooled down like
that there we go that’s way better in
terms of shape we’ll just let that cool
down a little bit and it’ll be a lot
straighter alright our hose has now been
warmed up reshaped a little bit and
cooled down and it’s being much more
agreeable standing mostly straight up so
let’s try throwing the pump into the
bucket putting the tray on top and
running the hose through the hole to see
how long we need to cut this off now see
that we want to cut our hose off right
about here beautiful
that right into the nozzle hole in the
center of our vortex chamber lines up
wonderfully with the hole in the tray
that’s just how we want it to look at
this point I think we are ready to put
water in the bucket and give our vortex
chamber a test now we need to make sure
that we have enough water in the buckets
what we’re going to do is we’re going to
pour water in until it completely covers
the pump and then we want to add at
least the volume of this container on
top of that that way no matter how full
this gets our pump will have enough
water to keep going
all right that’s a bucket full of water
and since we’re at the sink let’s just
do some testing right here in case it
spills anywhere all right here goes the
see quite a good volume of water comes
out of this thing it’s a good little
pump already got a little bit of a
vortex forming in there and even though
the water is draining out the bottom
it’s pumping in fast enough that the
water level continues to climb this
whole apparatus is a little bit of a
slope right now partly because it’s in
the sink which I think has a sloped
bottom and also because the power cord
from the pump is in between the bucket
and the tray over here and it’s making
it tilt on one side that is a whirlpool
from top to bottom just what we want to
see all right we know it’s working I’m
gonna unplug it and let it drain
now of course there’s no more water
coming in but still draining out the
middle so it just keeps going with the
whirlpool as the water level drops all
right that worked great now there are a
few changes I want to make so it works
even more smoothly one of the first
things I want to change is I’m going to
cut a notch in the top of the bucket so
that when the cord fits in that notch
the tray can sit flush on the top so I’m
just going to mark a spot on our bucket
where I want the notch to be then I’ll
get a saw and cut that down perfect now
our cord can just sit right there and
our tray will sit flush on top of that
cutting a notch in the bucket is the
first modification I wanted to do the
second is a little bit more colorful I
have here a string of LED strip lighting
which can be made to shine in a whole
big variety of colors and patterns and
the power system that drives it all the
plan is that the strip of LEDs will come
in through the side of the tray and wrap
around the inside of the bottom of our
vortex fountain that way we can choose
the color of our fountain lights we’ll
drill a small hole in the bottom of the
tray run the lighting through there and
then we’ll use hot glue to seal that off
there should be plenty but just to be
sure I’ll give myself another foot and
that’s where I’ll cut it off now these
LEDs are designed to be cut every two
inches or so with a little mark that
fits nicely up through where we just
drilled a hole that’s good alright so I
think the best position is going to be
for this box to be vertically up and
down next to the bucket I’m going to use
some tape to secure it in place
I’m also just gonna tape this piece in
place I’m leaving a fair amount of slack
in our LED line because I need to be
able to lift the tray a little bit
without it just immediately
disconnecting everything I’ve got in
there and yes in case any of you are
wondering this lighting system is
actually waterproof it’s not good to get
any of the control box pieces wet but
that shouldn’t be a problem let’s give
our lights another test ha beautiful
lighting right up at the bottom of our
vortex chamber just how we want it to
it’s beautiful
alright I’m gonna use a little bit more
tape and just sort of secure these two
power cords so they’re together and near
the bottom now our fountain is looking
pretty good but we still have this
bright orange bucket and a bunch of
exposed wires and cables and stuff so we
don’t want that we want it to look a lot
more sleek and professional on our
tabletop vortex fountain we use popsicle
sticks glued to the bottom container to
make it look a little bit more classy
well that’s not gonna work so well with
our bucket but I do have an idea that
will give us a similar look these are
some bamboo window blinds that I picked
up at Home Depot for about $15 I think
what I want to do is cut them at just
the right height so they fit right
underneath this lip so they go all the
way around our bucket and all of our
wiring and cables it looks like the
right height right about here almost
exactly halfway
between top and the bottom of our blinds
here now I want to cut off the edge of
this set of blinds because it’s got some
hardware that I’m not going to need but
before I do that I’m just gonna add a
little spot of glue everywhere so that I
don’t have these other lines of string
unravel
[Applause]
bad we got a little bit of splintering
on the back but overall I think that
worked quite nicely all right now I’m
just gonna take our bamboo screen here
I’m gonna wrap it around also I’m just
going to snip a couple of these to let
our cords out over on this side of the
bucket this is the IR receiver for
controlling our lights so I also just
want to sort of wedge that through in a
spot so we can have it sticking out and
able to receive signals from our remote
control we do have some excess bamboo so
I’m gonna seal off the strings using hot
glue again and then cut it off there
isn’t any difficult there we go I think
we have ourselves a fountain if you
remember from the desktop vortex
fountain we used a bunch of little
pebbles to go around as decoration I
really liked how that looks so I’m gonna
do the same thing with a little bit
larger of rocks for this one all right I
have here a power strip that has an
on/off switch to it so that we can
control the pump even when it’s plugged
in here goes nothing let’s get some
lights going with it oh yeah all that
looks awesome
oh I got leakage I didn’t use glue to
seal off where the lighting went down I
forgot about that remember when I said I
was gonna use hot glue and seal it off I
need to use hot glue and seal it off all
that not really supposed to happen
doesn’t look like it’s dripping think
we’re good all right Wow with the lights
off this thing looks incredible the LED
lights at the bottom do an amazing job
of just lighting up the entire fountain
there are tiny tiny little bubbles
swirling through the water and I think
it does a really good job of lighting
those off and it also reflects off of
the top of the water pretty well so the
whole thing looks like it’s glowing all
right let’s try this again outside I do
have one more little thing that I’ve
added to this one I talked about how I
really like the look of the tiny little
bubbles mixed in with the water swirling
around because they do a good job of
catching light well just to take things
another step farther I actually added a
hose going into the bottom that wraps
around in a circle with some tiny little
holes pricked in it so I’m gonna add
some pressure and we’ll see if we can
get some larger bubbles swirling around
in the mix with it
there we go now we’ve got much larger
bubbles swirling around in there you can
see that makes the tornado a little bit
less effective as there’s gaseous
bubbles running around the overall
density of the fluid in the container is
lower so it has a harder time
maintaining the tornado now there’s one
other thing I didn’t mention these
aren’t oxygen bubbles they’re propane so
now we have a colorful glowing fire
vortex fountain this is one of the
coolest things I’ve ever built look at
this
it’s colored and vortex and it’s on fire
I love this thing that looks so good you
could roast marshmallows on a fountain
what have you ever been able to roast
marshmallows on a fountain before I love
it there you have it guys not just a
vortex fountain and not just a light-up
vortex fountain but a light a for Tex
fountain that lights on fire this is
basically the same build as our tabletop
vortex fountain it’s just a lot bigger
and we added some lights and some
propane gas to it so you can ignite it
but it’s a pretty simple build I built
this whole thing in just a few hours and
it works out very well like this is
something that I definitely want in my
house maybe not with the fire all the
time but if it’s an outdoor fountain
then probably with it thanks for joining
us for this project today and we’ll see
you in the next one talk to you then
there it is
strobe light sees your effect a little
piece of leaf floating around in there I
wanna grab it
[Music]
can’t spin a basketball
you
us today on the king of random not too
long ago we showed you how to make a
desktop vortex fountain something that
used to pump in a small cistern of water
pumped it up into a cup in a spiral so
that as it drained out it forms sort of
a water tornado well that was pretty
cool but today we’re gonna try and suit
that up to make a larger full-size
vortex fountain and we have a couple of
twists we’re gonna add in as well the
basic idea is the same
this orange bucket we’ll be using as our
cistern down below we have a pump that
can move up to 550 gallons of water per
hour instead of the drinking straw we
used on the miniature one we’ve got this
flexible vinyl hosing will make this
drink dispenser the part of our fountain
that houses the vortex we also have this
plastic 16 inch diameter tray one of the
first things we need to do is to take
off all of the excess pieces that come
with this drink dispenser it’s got a lot
of cool accessories but we’re not going
to use them now we also want to remove
the spigot here but after we remove it
we do want to keep this thicker rubber
seal that’s on the outside one of the
first steps will take is giving
ourselves an attachment method for the
hose outside of the container that will
also angle the water on the inside of
the container at Ace Hardware I managed
to find these plastic pieces that turn
at an angle and are smaller on one side
than at the other so that they link
together nicely the smaller end also
fits perfectly with our three-eighths
inch vinyl hose what we’re going to do
is fit the narrow end of one of these
elbows through the hole where the spigot
was in our drink container will then
attach the other elbow to the first one
through the container because the hole
is larger than the piece of plastic
going through it we’re also going to
take the rubber seal that was on the
spigot and use that to seal everything
up now that may hold water a little bit
but we want to make sure it’s 100%
waterproof so we’re also going to take
our hot glue gun and spread a ring of
warm glue around this edge and then
we’ll put this on and press the rubber
down into that that should give us a
really nice seal that will never leak
now while that’s cooling let’s also
drill a hole in the very center of the
bottom of our vortex chamber a 3/8 inch
drill bit is smaller than the diameter
of the pipe leading into this chamber
and our pump should give us enough
volume of water that it can keep up with
a hole 3/8 inch wide
with the point of entry and exit for the
water we need to drill similarly placed
holes in our plastic tray just a note
about this plastic tray I found this one
at a thrift store for about two bucks if
you don’t happen to have any of these
available at your local thrift store any
plastic tray about this size should work
as long as it has a little bit of a lip
on the edge this one is 16 inches in
diameter
first we’ll drill a hole in the very
center that’s where the water will drain
down through after it leaves the vortex
chamber now the water after it leaves
the vortex chamber and is going through
this tray it doesn’t need to come
through a perfectly sized hole that just
barely lets all the water through it can
have plenty of space on the sides so I’m
actually going to use a larger drill bit
and just give a hole about an inch wide
in the middle of this tray
[Music]
when we have the hole in our vortex
chamber lined up perfectly with the hole
in our plastic tray we can see
approximately where we need to drill the
second hole that will let the tube come
up from the pump to feed water into our
tank once again this hole doesn’t have
to be exactly the same size as the hose
it can be a little bit larger I’m not
gonna stick with the 1-inch I’m gonna
take it down just a little bit I’ve got
my three-quarter inch drill bit and
that’s what I’m gonna use for our second
hole in the tray we’ve got two holes
drilled into our tray one hole drilled
into the center of the bottom of our
vortex chamber and of course one spot
where the piping is going to take the
water up from the pump into our vortex
chamber once our hole fountain is up and
running some of the water will be
filling out of the vortex chamber and
landing on the tray to help it drain
faster back into the bucket we’re gonna
drill just a few more holes in it I do
want to make sure all of the holes are
set fairly far in if they’re out near
the edges that will actually be wider
than where the bucket was and all the
water will just drain onto the ground
for these holes I’m going one step
smaller and using a 5/8 inch drill bit
our plastic tray now has eight holes
drilled into it now let’s set this aside
and work on our pump for a minute this
pump is designed to be submerged
completely underwater as it’s working it
has a nozzle at the top where all the
water will spray out what we need to do
is use our hose to connect this nozzle
to the input of our vortex tank when our
pump is in the bucket you can see we
won’t actually need all that much hose
it will need to connect from about here
to here to make sure that we have enough
while we do our accurate measurement I’m
just gonna cut off an extra six inches
of it and then do our measuring from
there this 3/8 inch hose is a little bit
too small to fit over the nozzle easily
but I found if you just kind of wiggle
it and press it you can actually get it
on fairly well as you can see this vinyl
tubing really likes to curl itself up
and we want to be pointing basically
straight so what we’re gonna try and do
is use a little bit of heat to make it
soft enough that we can straighten it
out and then have it cooled down like
that there we go that’s way better in
terms of shape we’ll just let that cool
down a little bit and it’ll be a lot
straighter alright our hose has now been
warmed up reshaped a little bit and
cooled down and it’s being much more
agreeable standing mostly straight up so
let’s try throwing the pump into the
bucket putting the tray on top and
running the hose through the hole to see
how long we need to cut this off now see
that we want to cut our hose off right
about here beautiful
that right into the nozzle hole in the
center of our vortex chamber lines up
wonderfully with the hole in the tray
that’s just how we want it to look at
this point I think we are ready to put
water in the bucket and give our vortex
chamber a test now we need to make sure
that we have enough water in the buckets
what we’re going to do is we’re going to
pour water in until it completely covers
the pump and then we want to add at
least the volume of this container on
top of that that way no matter how full
this gets our pump will have enough
water to keep going
all right that’s a bucket full of water
and since we’re at the sink let’s just
do some testing right here in case it
spills anywhere all right here goes the
see quite a good volume of water comes
out of this thing it’s a good little
pump already got a little bit of a
vortex forming in there and even though
the water is draining out the bottom
it’s pumping in fast enough that the
water level continues to climb this
whole apparatus is a little bit of a
slope right now partly because it’s in
the sink which I think has a sloped
bottom and also because the power cord
from the pump is in between the bucket
and the tray over here and it’s making
it tilt on one side that is a whirlpool
from top to bottom just what we want to
see all right we know it’s working I’m
gonna unplug it and let it drain
now of course there’s no more water
coming in but still draining out the
middle so it just keeps going with the
whirlpool as the water level drops all
right that worked great now there are a
few changes I want to make so it works
even more smoothly one of the first
things I want to change is I’m going to
cut a notch in the top of the bucket so
that when the cord fits in that notch
the tray can sit flush on the top so I’m
just going to mark a spot on our bucket
where I want the notch to be then I’ll
get a saw and cut that down perfect now
our cord can just sit right there and
our tray will sit flush on top of that
cutting a notch in the bucket is the
first modification I wanted to do the
second is a little bit more colorful I
have here a string of LED strip lighting
which can be made to shine in a whole
big variety of colors and patterns and
the power system that drives it all the
plan is that the strip of LEDs will come
in through the side of the tray and wrap
around the inside of the bottom of our
vortex fountain that way we can choose
the color of our fountain lights we’ll
drill a small hole in the bottom of the
tray run the lighting through there and
then we’ll use hot glue to seal that off
there should be plenty but just to be
sure I’ll give myself another foot and
that’s where I’ll cut it off now these
LEDs are designed to be cut every two
inches or so with a little mark that
fits nicely up through where we just
drilled a hole that’s good alright so I
think the best position is going to be
for this box to be vertically up and
down next to the bucket I’m going to use
some tape to secure it in place
I’m also just gonna tape this piece in
place I’m leaving a fair amount of slack
in our LED line because I need to be
able to lift the tray a little bit
without it just immediately
disconnecting everything I’ve got in
there and yes in case any of you are
wondering this lighting system is
actually waterproof it’s not good to get
any of the control box pieces wet but
that shouldn’t be a problem let’s give
our lights another test ha beautiful
lighting right up at the bottom of our
vortex chamber just how we want it to
it’s beautiful
alright I’m gonna use a little bit more
tape and just sort of secure these two
power cords so they’re together and near
the bottom now our fountain is looking
pretty good but we still have this
bright orange bucket and a bunch of
exposed wires and cables and stuff so we
don’t want that we want it to look a lot
more sleek and professional on our
tabletop vortex fountain we use popsicle
sticks glued to the bottom container to
make it look a little bit more classy
well that’s not gonna work so well with
our bucket but I do have an idea that
will give us a similar look these are
some bamboo window blinds that I picked
up at Home Depot for about $15 I think
what I want to do is cut them at just
the right height so they fit right
underneath this lip so they go all the
way around our bucket and all of our
wiring and cables it looks like the
right height right about here almost
exactly halfway
between top and the bottom of our blinds
here now I want to cut off the edge of
this set of blinds because it’s got some
hardware that I’m not going to need but
before I do that I’m just gonna add a
little spot of glue everywhere so that I
don’t have these other lines of string
unravel
[Applause]
bad we got a little bit of splintering
on the back but overall I think that
worked quite nicely all right now I’m
just gonna take our bamboo screen here
I’m gonna wrap it around also I’m just
going to snip a couple of these to let
our cords out over on this side of the
bucket this is the IR receiver for
controlling our lights so I also just
want to sort of wedge that through in a
spot so we can have it sticking out and
able to receive signals from our remote
control we do have some excess bamboo so
I’m gonna seal off the strings using hot
glue again and then cut it off there
isn’t any difficult there we go I think
we have ourselves a fountain if you
remember from the desktop vortex
fountain we used a bunch of little
pebbles to go around as decoration I
really liked how that looks so I’m gonna
do the same thing with a little bit
larger of rocks for this one all right I
have here a power strip that has an
on/off switch to it so that we can
control the pump even when it’s plugged
in here goes nothing let’s get some
lights going with it oh yeah all that
looks awesome
oh I got leakage I didn’t use glue to
seal off where the lighting went down I
forgot about that remember when I said I
was gonna use hot glue and seal it off I
need to use hot glue and seal it off all
that not really supposed to happen
doesn’t look like it’s dripping think
we’re good all right Wow with the lights
off this thing looks incredible the LED
lights at the bottom do an amazing job
of just lighting up the entire fountain
there are tiny tiny little bubbles
swirling through the water and I think
it does a really good job of lighting
those off and it also reflects off of
the top of the water pretty well so the
whole thing looks like it’s glowing all
right let’s try this again outside I do
have one more little thing that I’ve
added to this one I talked about how I
really like the look of the tiny little
bubbles mixed in with the water swirling
around because they do a good job of
catching light well just to take things
another step farther I actually added a
hose going into the bottom that wraps
around in a circle with some tiny little
holes pricked in it so I’m gonna add
some pressure and we’ll see if we can
get some larger bubbles swirling around
in the mix with it
there we go now we’ve got much larger
bubbles swirling around in there you can
see that makes the tornado a little bit
less effective as there’s gaseous
bubbles running around the overall
density of the fluid in the container is
lower so it has a harder time
maintaining the tornado now there’s one
other thing I didn’t mention these
aren’t oxygen bubbles they’re propane so
now we have a colorful glowing fire
vortex fountain this is one of the
coolest things I’ve ever built look at
this
it’s colored and vortex and it’s on fire
I love this thing that looks so good you
could roast marshmallows on a fountain
what have you ever been able to roast
marshmallows on a fountain before I love
it there you have it guys not just a
vortex fountain and not just a light-up
vortex fountain but a light a for Tex
fountain that lights on fire this is
basically the same build as our tabletop
vortex fountain it’s just a lot bigger
and we added some lights and some
propane gas to it so you can ignite it
but it’s a pretty simple build I built
this whole thing in just a few hours and
it works out very well like this is
something that I definitely want in my
house maybe not with the fire all the
time but if it’s an outdoor fountain
then probably with it thanks for joining
us for this project today and we’ll see
you in the next one talk to you then
there it is
strobe light sees your effect a little
piece of leaf floating around in there I
wanna grab it
[Music]
can’t spin a basketball
you
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