Spark Bong question/WIP/construction

[Cushing H.]

No.

Hmmm. ok, lets make this more personal. the thing you breath through, your trachea, is roughly the diameter of your thumb.

try breathing forever through a cocktail straw held in your lips....... it does not work very well...

 

[Horsewright]

There ya go! So if I put one bull in with 35 cows and I have 35 calves 9 months later I now have 71 cattle. See Cowboy math....easy.

 

[Randydb]

So basically you are checking that the area allowed below/above(depending on the style you choose) the baffle is not smaller than the area of the intake hole. I get it.

I am probably close to a year from my house being built and actually making one of these, but I certainly will make one when I get going again.

 

[Randydb]

There ya go! So if I put one bull in with 35 cows and I have 35 calves 9 months later I now have 71 cattle. See Cowboy math....easy.

I pointed another cowboy observation out to my wife that this shows that one bull can do the job of 35 cows! I'm making my own lunch now....not sure where my math went wrong.

 

[Cushing H.]

I pointed another cowboy observation out to my wife that this shows that one bull can do the job of 35 cows! I'm making my own lunch now....not sure where my math went wrong.

LOL. I am not going to be the one to explain it to you!!!

 

[Tyson A Wright]

I’ve always liked the word “kludge”. A more elegant and sophisticated usage I think.

As an IT guy, a "kludge" is usually an inelegant engineering solution, a "hack" is a creative solution that uses things in ways that their original designer did not envision. A kludge may be short-term necessary, but it's not respected. A hack is impressive. So, looking at Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith idea here, I would respectfully say it's a hack.

-Tyson

 

[DanF]

Following along, my next, next project.

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

What the area issue has to do is low air speed vs higher air speed.
The larger volume of air space for the dust to pass through, the lower the speed of the particles in the stream. This allows the dust/grit to fall into the drum bottom. Once the air reaches the tp of the other side of the bucket and exits out the smaller vacuum port the air velocity increases and moves the remaining dust rapidly through the air hose/piping and gives the particles no time to settle until they reach the catch drum/collector and enter another low pressure zone.

The space between the divider and the water should be about 1" in a 12" wide bucket. Technically, the divider should also be placed so the inlet (bong) side is 75% of the bucket volume and the outlet (vacuum) side is 25%, but that is more work to do than it really gain's. Down the center works fine in a 12" wide bucket.

 

[Cushing H.]

As an IT guy, a "kludge" is usually an inelegant engineering solution, a "hack" is a creative solution that uses things in ways that their original designer did not envision. A kludge may be short-term necessary, but it's not respected. A hack is impressive. So, looking at Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith idea here, I would respectfully say it's a hack.

-Tyson

Interesting. To me, they both actually connote inelegance. But, even though I have done a LOT of IT work, and took part in some of the foundational work, my training pre-dates the current lexicon, and I’m not really part of the community, and so don’t know how words are used. So ... I shall bow to the current usage.

ok, it’s a “hack”. .

 

[Cushing H.]

Ok Stacy ... I know I’m getting nerdy here...

I think you mean that in the small cross sectional area, the pressure *difference* across that area increases, and so the velocity increases, which affects how particles settle. Absolute Pressure itself has Very little effect on the ability Of a particle to settle (unless you are talking about an extreme, like a high vacuum)

actually, when the air velocity goes up, the pressure goes *down* (Bernoulli principle - which produces the Venturi effect, and also allows aero plane wings to produce lift)...

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

You are correct. I meant to say low velocity and high velocity air .. not pressure. I edited the post to make it clearer.

Properly built, there is little or no pressure differential within the bucket. The air will not speed up in velocity as it crosses under the divider as long as that is larger in area than the inlet pipe. My 12"X1" was based on a 4" bong tube. The 2.5" shop vac port will create faster air velocity as the air exits the spark trap buck and enters the shopvac hose or dust collector piping.

 

[Cushing H.]

Got a little more time in the shop today (scary how little I can eke out....). hole carefully carved out of the plastic lid (dremel tool again to the rescue) to just barely pass 2 inch PVC pipe:


two 2 inch straight connectors with a piece of pipe between them **just** long enough to seat fully and leaving no pipe exposed:


assembled with PVC cement to sandwich the lid between the two connectors


a vertical riser and elbow, with riser of appropriate height to allow a horizontal run of PVC to seat into the inlet of the dust deputy:


all glued with PVC cement, **except** the horizonal piece, which I think I will leave removable to make the thing less cumbersome.

This will replace the big ugly series of metal ducting behind it (which I think I can safely call a "kludge" - it works, but not very well as it collects ground metal in the horizontal run, and I need to vacuum it out often....)

also got the internal wood baffle measured out and penciled in. Out of time for today, hopefully tomorrow I will cut it out and screw into place on the lid....

 

[john april]

lookin good ! is that plywood ? i wonder how long it will last in the water i use a piece of sheetmetal for a divider. its cut slightly large so its a pressure fit to the sides of the bucket so it does not need any attachments, and it pulls out for cleaning with a hose. even though its galvanized, it only lasts 2 or 3 years. it rusts and falls apart.

 

[Cushing H.]

lookin good ! is that plywood ? i wonder how long it will last in the water i use a piece of sheetmetal for a divider. its cut slightly large so its a pressure fit to the sides of the bucket so it does not need any attachments, and it pulls out for cleaning with a hose. even though its galvanized, it only lasts 2 or 3 years. it rusts and falls apart.

Yes, it is plywood. This will be suspended from the cover via screws. It is short enough that it’s bottom sits a couple inches above the water line. It will get wet, but Will not sit directly in the water. Stacy says with this approach the wood actually lasts a long time...

 

[Cushing H.]

Ok - got that piece of plywood cut out and sanded to fit at the top, and screwed into the lid...




then a little heat gun action on th ePVC to get the connections on either end of that horizontal run to fit cleanly, and be removable easily, and it is done...


I have not sealed up the (smallish) gaps with silicone caulk - not sure I am going to, as I would like the down-tube to be removable/rotatable.

There seems to be good draw at the inlet to the rectangular register, and (after filling the bucket with 4" of water) you can definitely (looking down the tube) see the "waves" indicating the air is flowing towards and under the baffle - but they are pretty gentle (no "whitecaps"), so this should not produce much water being drawn into the outlet.

Nice design! Thank you everyone for your input.

(next task - get that KoolMist running - then I can get back to grinding. Ive got several blades I need to finish and handle! )

 

[DanF]

That’s not in your way when grinding?
Nice looking setup.

 

[Cushing H.]

That’s not in your way when grinding?
Nice looking setup.

Not sure what you mean ...but re the koolmist, I’m getting pretty tired of feeling like I have the “ feel” of what to do while grinding, only to have to stop to dunk the darned blade. It might be misplaced, but I am hoping the misting system will help with that...

 

[Randydb]

Okay...out of the spark bong and into...a dust deputy? The Dust Deputy collects what is missed by the spark bong? I had imagined that the spark bong was a diy version of a dust deputy.

 

[A.McPherson]

I think the idea is to eliminate anything that could be hot before it reaches the actual vacuum.

That way you can have an expensive filter (hepa) at the end that is really only filtering super fine stuff at the end, and it will last a lot longer. Not to mention be more effective.

But I could be wrong, maybe cushing just likes Rube Goldberg machines...

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

One more thing to do:
Get a piece of stainless screen and cut it to sit in the bong funnel. Otherwise everything that slips or gets dropped ends up in the bottom of the sludge pool. Cut out the four corners to create tabs on each side and bend the tabs so it sits along the sides of the funnel.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Stainless-...4a129623c673c7e71f29|ampid:PL_CLK|clp:2334524

Don't ask how I know this is a good idea.