– Time Fountain

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I was very excited the first time I heard about Time Fountain.  The idea is to mix the water with fluorescent dye, and make it dripping.  Then you adjust the LED lights to flash at the same frequency.  This creates the illusion of the droplets are hanging in the air.  Or you can adjust the LED lights flash faster than the water droplets. The water droplets will appear to flow upwards.

Since the water droplets glow in the dark and hanging in the air. It gives a very mysterious look. I decided to make this a nice display to decorate my living area. But I do not want to accidentally knock it over and spill the fluorescent dye water everywhere, so it has to be sealed and secure. I also want to really PLAY with it. I want to be able to adjust the water dripping speed. I also want to change the LED flash frequency and pulse width to create different effects.

Thanks to my husband Brad – the most creative and smart person on earth, I got the electronic part done very quick. I got an 8-pin micro controller to control LED flash frequency and pulse width, and I got a model airplane fuel pump to pump the water. Then we spent some time to optimize and improve the energy efficiency. We experimented several circuit designs. We finally come down to two final designs. One for AC power source, one for DC. We reduced the LED lights from 48 to 24 still managed keeping the same brightness.

That was the easy part. It had been months since my first enclosure design. Not only it has to look pleasant, but also safe. I cannot handle the mess if it is knocked over. I had enclosure design draft 1, 2, 3, 4, …. Then I had my final design, it became final design 1 a week later. Now I am working on my final design 4. My husband and I went to the local hobby store and bought pretty much everything we can think of to secure every joints.

I will post my final design 4 soon.

Time Fountain Enclosure