/diy/ - Do It Yourself

Yes it has to be pressurized. The fountain drink machines run off bags of syrup in boxes. The bags are not pressurized, it's the plumbing they're connected two. It involves a compressor and other fun stuff that creates carbonated water that mixes with the syrup at the spout.

So you'd have to create a mini-pneumatic system that either uses a 2-liter bottle of drink (which would go very fast remember that water fountains have drains because you don't catch everything with your mouth). Or you'd have to hook up a syrup baggy. Either way it's tedious, expensive and unnecessary.

>>330956

The reason this kind of idea is on movies like Mr. Deeds and Idiocracy is because it's impractical, wasteful and just a really bad idea.

I understand that it's unnecessary, I just like the idea of doing it once for fun.

Is there any way I can use the pressurized water to push another liquid through the spout by connecting it right before the spout? I know if I attached some kind of liquid reservoir to the tube that leads directly into the spout that the water would mix with it and be forced through the spout, but is there any way I can push the liquid without mixing them - almost like using the water to push like a piston rather than flow with the different liquid?

>>330977

You can do it like fertilizer and put a container of powder right under the spout and when water goes through, it'll mix with the powder and drink will come out. But it won't be consistent and the powder will clump badly if you can't mix it by hand.

>>330978
Is there any way I can use the water to push an actual liquid through the spout though, without mixing the two?
This would already be solved if I were using it for some kind of soft drink or something like gatorade, but that's not my aim.

>>330956

tbh, i'm surprised you dont know how municipal water systems work. you really should read about it for 5 minutes. it's like not knowing about gravity or electricity or something.

i assume you live in a house or appt, have you never wondered how water comes out of the faucet?

seriously, its the same thing in a school or commercial building, only larger and maybe more complex. if you do a bit of research it'll become fairly obvious.

>>330986
I do know how it works, i'm asking how to utilize the water pressure to pump out a different liquid through the spout since I don't have an endless/pressurized supply of the secondary liquid.

On another note, is there any way I could style a mechanism like a hydraulic ram pump to push the secondary liquid out with the force of the water, without mixing the two?

some thing like a tube from the concentrate connecting with the pressurized water maybe. similar to how a carburetor works, although carbs use pressure changes, so i dont know how well the idea works with water which doesnt really compress.

>>330990
>I do know how it works

>I opened one up and noticed that it's connected to a water source, so I guess my question is whether or not that source of water is pressurized

>>330997
I have gained knowledge throughout the life of this thread. Which is how I got from "is that source pressurized" to "how do I use that pressurized water to do things I want."

I'm just looking for some information here...

OP here - I'm onto a new question now.

By making a small hydraulic ram pump, and instead of using gravity but the pressurized water, can I fill the second, upper, chamber with a different liquid, without mixing in that chamber? Like pushing the piston up and delivering the liquid instead of increasing the volume in the second chamber with water.

>>331004

hyd rams use like 10X the water in to push 1X water up. they are useful only in narrow contexts... i saw one installed permanently in a deep valley in Utah, up from a river over the embankment; the excess water just dribbled back into the river, no waste. very neat when applicable.

it's a safe bet there is no simple solution to what you want. pop up on level -- go find a junk one somewhere, attach it to a base that LOOKS LIKE a real fountain, put a pump and car battery in it, etc.

some ideas don't always pan out as doable. not saying you shouldnt think 'em out!

>>330977

Would using a plastic/elastic bladder as show in the brawndo image actually work if combined into a ram-pump design? That sort of solves my issue with the mixing of the liquids, since the water pressure built in the chamber would push the second liquid up.

Since i'm using a pressurized water source and not gravity, would there still be a lot of 'waste' as in an actual ram pump?

>>331021

I'm confused on what you're trying to do now. Why are you trying to use a hydraulic ram pump if you have access to pressurized water from your plumbing at home?

>>330979
existing beverage fountain systems use 2 connected impeller pumps to opperate, one is run on air pressure, the other pushes syrup.. when you dispense a drink and hear the "click click click" noise thats compressed air or co2 escaping from the drive impeller, the whole thing runs till you stop dispensing a drink and the syrup pressure equalizes with the air pressure... what you'd want to do is use the dual impeller design and have it dump the supply water into a tank with a mixing device that drops powder in at a steady rate when drinks are being dispensed.. then you use the dispensing impeller to pull drink from the holding tank and out the nozzle... spray distance will be determined by nozzle design.. and you'll need an overflow on the holding tank so that you can keep the mix of water and mix in reasonable limits... probably something like the ball float valve on a toilet something that can be adjusted to the specific density of the drink your making...that way you can exploit the difference in density of the drink vs regular water to keep the mix right....

well you can pressurize it with gravity perhaps
can you access an area directly several floors (the roof at best; im presuming this is for a prank, and if so then people will go great lengths to achieve it) above it? put the reservoir there and replace the water source connection with a connection to the secondary reservoir. seal the reservoir at that highest elevation if possible.

>>331025
Well i'm using a ram-esque pump, not an actual ram pump. My main idea is to use pressurized water to push a different liquid through the spicket, and after looking through several ideas it seemed like this could work.
Is there a simpler means to my end that i'm overlooking?

>>331037
this>>331029

>>331037

I feel like you're overcomplicating things, a ram pump is used to convert a low pressure and high flowrate stream of fluid into a high pressure and low flowrate stream. Using a ram pump will waste alot of water compared to just using the bladder design to pressurize your fluid from a household water tap. You just need to have some control over the three valves when the pressure reservoir needs to be refilled with fluid. My main concern with this whole thing though is bacterial contamination of your fluid if it's going to be warm and stagnant most of the time in some of the tubing and reservoirs.

actually, are there any problems with the brawndo membrane design? I don't really see any, the membrane pretty much solves my mixing problem with water and liquid 2. What substance/object would work as a feasible membrane for this?

This is also going to be a fairly small system, the entirety of it will fit into the empty space in the water fountain itself.

>>331047
Also, I figured the ram pump would solve my need for control over the valves, but if I had a control for them I can simply just use the bladder design.
Also - my source of water is the tube which the the water flows through to the spicket on the fountain.

>>331052
>>331055

You should be able to use any food grade plastic that is in the shape of a bag, the bags used to hold the syrup for soda fountains would work great if you can get one. Just make sure that the bag your using is larger than the pressure vessel so that it won't rupture. You can use some small solenoid valves to control the flows using a small electric switch to refill the reservoir when it is depleted.

>>331085
THANK YOU.
Although people said "this is dumb, blah blah why don't you understand what you're talking about."
You were able to answer my question. I'll post pictures after the weekend.

>>331161
Also, on the top left could I go without a valve and just have gravity drop the second liquid back into the middle chamber once the pressure was reset by letting out the waste water with the valve on the bottom right?
The valve on the top right and bottom left is already in place - the button on the water fountain that I must press to allow water to flow.

>>330956
You could just attatch the liquid above the fountain so that the hose runs down and through the spout (will ms a picture shortly)

or just put it in a water tight bag system in a five gallon bucket and then put weights on the bag so that the whole thing is pressurized and when you open the valve on the fountain it goes out the spout (sorta like squeezing a capri sun bag)

>>331164
You will need a valve in the top left corner to prevent the brawndo from gushing out of the inlet when water pressure is added. In theory you could just use a one-way valve but you have to force the liquid through the valve with a bit of pressure and since the brawndo coming in isn't really pressurized it will make it a pain compared to a solenoid which is either full open or full closed.

As for the other valves, you can make use of existing valves already in the fountain if possible.

>>331161

I should also mention that solenoid valves usually require water pressure on one side of the valve to operate properly. For the valves in the top left and bottom right corner you should actually be using a motorized ball valve.

>>330956
Here's why you don't want to do this:
o Sugar is corrosive to metals
o It'll eventually clog the valve, which is meant for water only
o It's not sterlized, it's a bacterial breeding ground
o The drain pan and drain itself will become a sticky mess, also more bacteria
o Frankly, it sounds childish