Since I'm about to do something incredibly foolish.
I've decided to video it.
Just in case it all goes horribly wrong!
So what I'm going to be doing here is using this
butane lighter fuel to fill this bit of silicone tubing.
and I'm going to try and make a flexible bubble tube
it might work, it might not work, but here's the plan
The bottom of the tube...
I've already stuffed
an LED into it.
So that's blocked up by an LED
which I've just used because of it's shape,
it was an old LED in my pile of LEDs I took out of stuff and couldn't bear to throw out.
So I've put a bit of heat shrink around that.
to trap that in
and I've also heat shrinked on a couple
of resistors on the side bridged together
150 ohm resistors and brought the leads out
and they're going to be the heaters and
I've poured down some crushed rock salt
so there's some jaggy salt in there and
the purpose of that is that when the
butane is in liquid form in here it
it will permeate in through those the
crevices in between the salt and it'll
stop it circulating
it means it will heat
up in a very controlled manner and it's
more likely to bubble and what I'm going
to do is I'm going to squirt this lighter fuel down and quite alot of it
will just spray back out but I'm hoping to get a
modest amount and then cap the other
end with an LED and with a modest
space and folding the silicon tube over
so it's a kinked to stop any gas
spraying out and then heat shrink that on
which will involve heat which is
probably the dogeist bit and hopefully
in the end hopefully the LEDs aren't
going to come out like bullets because
that would be quite unpleasant also I
forgot i didn't think about the time I
could have actually used the LED to
light that inside the tube are
actually going to put active LED at the
other end for experimentation but anyway
enough of the waffle let's try this and
it's gonna be very messy there's going to
be lots of butane spraying everywhere
now so
initially a lot of this butane will
probably just spray out because it's
hot well it's warm and it's needs to
chill the tube down to the point it
cannot stay in liquid so some has gone
down to the bottom oh and it's
boiling and spitting out oh yeah this is
this is just blowing gas everywhere this
is exciting but it is a gradually
freezing how much do we have in there it's
very hard to tell it's starting to
cryogenically freeze the tube a bit
which is good oh the tubes gone
very hard with the cold temperature but
most of it's just trying to get back out
the vapor from the bottom is pushing
it out I'm not sure is going to work
maybe I should have frozen
everything beforehand how much gas can
squirt out into my workshop before
the place goes bang I think that's quite
exciting that's a pretty promising so
I'm going to heat this and then I'm
going to fold it across I think I've got a
modest amount of gas in there oh and i'm
going to warm this with my fingers and
then push this led which could well
become a missile shortly into the end of
it oh that is a potentially going to be
a missile i'm going to a bit of heat
shrink sleeving over that and this is
where i'm going to be applying heat to a
liquid that probably isn't that keen on
heat so this could all go horribly wrong
and there's a motor in here so that
could even go worse it could ignite all the gas it's in the vicinity now
I actually do shit like this all the
I'm not a good role model technically
ok I think that's
actually quite wet which I didn't really
think of the condensation is actually
going to make this a wee bit at risk of
all flying out with explosive force like
a bullet right ok so now i do have
liquid in this tube up to about here oh
this is just a wee bit scary at
the moment release the pressure this is
hot I'm not really sure want this to be
hot at the moment it's certainly not the
hot ones oh blind me it's trying to get
out no it's a trying to escape I'll let
that cool down a bit first and I'll get
the power supply onto this this and see if
heating the resistors at the bottom will
start making bubble it may take a while for
it to warm up to spiff before it starts
doing that let me just go bang on all
the gas me squirt out and it may combust
the tube itself is still quite rigid
because it's still very cold because of
the cryogenic effects let's say
tensilvly just let some of the pressure
through and see what happens in there
think that's all right yep that's kind
of holding I'm not sure if the gas will
just like how this over time this is
very wet because of the condensation so
I'm this should theoretically be heating
up and may bubble
I could give a wee boost
I could use the heater on it which is
probably terrible idea
there's bubbles but uh.
okay this is looking promising
but is it going to stay working I don't
see that slowing down actually I think that's
actually working and this would let me
do things like make a oh it's just stopped
probably cause are disturbed it or now
trying to start again or you know what I
think it heated somethin to increase the
pressure at this end so after a while it
should stabilize if I just hold it like
that the bubbles are gradually working
their way back up again they're starting
the bottom but they're condensing back
into liquid and the way up but now
they're back up at the top that's working
that is actually working but the
question is how long will it work for
okay I think I shall do another little
bit of experimentation the LED colour
and see if I can illuminate these
bubbles okay so lots of experimentation
later with quite a few loud bangs and
sudden explosive release of volatile
vapors with force from rupture tubes and
and things fly out it's been violent
it's been quite exciting but it's also
been very violent and but I've admit a
bit of progress with trying to make a
bubble tube the hardest bit is getting
the beauty industry in the tube because
it's easy enough to glue an LED or other
obstruction in one end and fully seal it
up and put some heat shrink on deck
clamps in nice and tight and I think
that end is pretty reliable but
previously I've just been squirting the
beauty and down the inside of the tube
and relying on the fact that the butane
as evaporate cools and which is how
refrigeration works and that has chilled
the tube gradually down to the point
it's gone it's got to the cryogenic
level that the butane is stayed in
liquid form the trip and then I've been
able to kind of roughly pinch off the
tube and then try and put obstructions
in to block up but at that point it's
very hard gluing anything in because no
matter how tightly you squeeze that
there's always vapor coming out it
there's always just molecular levels of
favorite me out and it's putting
pressure in that
if you try gluing things then before the
glues properly said it the pressure
behind the obstruction builds up until
it pops right off so it's not really
been working that well however i have
been using the I'll call a Schrader
valve that's not really a Schrader valve
but it's the refill valve out of lighters
and in this instance I've blocked this
end up added a little bit of just table
salt just for the crystals to actually
absorb the liquid and below to vaporize
easily without the turbulence spoiling
that effect and the other end I've
really gone to town on putting the fill
port out of a later into this with
multiple layers of heat shrink and resin
but I don't know if that's going to hold
there's only one way to find out here's
the canner later fuel so let's say try
it out and see if it goes bang
so far it's holding
the pressure is not letting me put too
much gas into this though which means
it's actually holding because I think it
was the evaporation the gas before that
cooled it and allowed me to actually put
more liquid in so I'm you have to do
this in multiple installments yeah I
think you're going to have to do that
I'm just not getting this equalizing the
pressure which is almost dead center
which just about fits right for the for
the current state of the liquid in the
can so it's going to go in little
bursts but that's a good start and
hopefully if I just hold this at the
bottom and it starts to warm up for the
fact it's very chilled at the warming is
going to take maybe a while for this to
start but it should hopefully start
bubbling it's probably not going to
start bubbling just out of badness
because I'm videoing I have found that
they're the ones that have worked by the
time they've actually held the held the
actual amount of liquid it's gradually
gone down as it's oozed out those ones
have bubbled just through the heat from
the LED itself there any resistors there
it goes there's the bubbles
and I think that will increase
progressively yeah is it increasing so
now that's got an LED stuffed in there
let's try this my LED tester is not
overly thrilled at the fact that large
quantities of solvents have gradually
been injected down it so let's see em I
shall try putting the lights off we'll
see how this works however visual looks
it's going to take a while for that led
to warm up enough to do the effect or
there it goes the bubbles zigzag is they
go up the tube just because of its size
or shield that if item I make a look
let's kind of swamped the camera out
with the light isn't it yeah it kind of
works there just have to find a surefire
way of keeping the actual liquid in that
tube because that is there that is the
tricky bit oh I should mention that the
butane I looked this up at room
temperature see roughly 25 degrees
centigrade a warm room the pressure
inside this tube will be about 50 pounds
of square inch which doesn't film with
much confidence for doing fill me with
glass oh yeah this is a going in little
bursts oh yes as round end in tears at
some point it hasn't exploded yet all
right here let's see we can get that
bubbling again the whole tube will have
changed thermally because of the the
chilling effect of putting the new
liquid in them yeah you gotta gist of it
you know it's kind of a it's kind of
working I think once this tube
stabilized it should bubble and then I'm
so I'm going to leave this overnight I'm
going to mark the height of the liquid
in it and see if it remains intact I
don't know of them with the pressure
don't know if it's going to liberate
gradually through just even any portis
nature of the silicon I think the
silicon tubing should be fairly robust
yeah that's so don't know if the gas is
going to escape or not but there's only
one way to find out and that's to leave
it overnight and then I'll leave our and
mention I'll tell you what happens in
the description down below so yeah
interesting that's been quite
entertaining I'll be it slightly violent aswell
yeah. Good stuff.