Desktop Fire Tornado

thingiverse

It's Your Desktop Inferno! Now You Can Enjoy a Dancing Pillar of Fire on Your Desk. Be the Envy of the Office with This Swirly Whirly Fiery Thingie. It's Not for Kids, by the Way. Or Irresponsible People. Originally Created as a Going-Away Gift for a Colleague Who Left Us to Research Future Energy Sources, this Thing is the Joint Effort of Several Creative Minds and Our Unused Bits and Bobs from Desktops and Workshops. My Friend, Science Showman PK, Had the Idea and the Tiny Basket, While Roger the Astrophysicist Supplied the Old 80 mm Computer Fan and Some Solid Design Advice. Workshop Wizard Fredric Saved Us from Disaster with a Small Step-Down Power Converter and I Scavenged Our Science Centre for the Rest of the Stuff We Needed, Designed the Laser Cut Bits and Put it All Together. It Was an Ad Hoc One Off, and I Didn't Document the Process, But I'll Try to Describe the Basics. To Put this Together, You'll Need: * The Laser Cut Parts * Some Glue for the Laser Cut Parts * Two Short Screws for the Battery Lid (it's the part inside the large circle among the laser cut parts) * One 80 x 80 x 25 mm 12 V PC Cooling Fan * A 9 V Battery Clip with Ditto Battery, or Some Other Power Supply * A Tiny Adjustable Step-Down Converter to Get the Speed Right * A Two-Way Switch like the one in the picture, 6 mm in diameter where it goes through the box * One Metal Mesh Circular Desktop Pen Holder Basket Thingie * Some Accelerant for the Fire, We Used Bio Ethanol * A Small Cup to Keep the Accelerant Centered in the Basket. One of those Aluminum Cup Thingies from a Tea Light Works Perfectly. * A Lighter * Soldering Equipment Putting it All Together: Check the fan first. It Should Run at Some Speed with 9 V Supplied. It Probably Runs Too Fast. It Should Run at a Leisurely Speed. Enough to Make the Air Move, But Not Spray Your Office or Workshop with Burning Accelerant. When You Know that the Fan Works, Thread the Leads from the Fan through the Laser Cut Plate with the Small Hole in it. You Should Thread it through this middle panel before you go any further. Otherwise, you're in for a de-soldering job later on (Don't Ask...). Solder the Circuit so that the switch can turn the power on and off (Yeah, that's how I roll) on the battery (upside) side of the step-down converter, not the fan side. Otherwise, the converter will draw power even when the power to the fan is off. Solder the leads from the fan to the terminals on the downside. Check that your circuit works. Glue the aluminum cup to the centre of the basket and glue the basket in the exact center of the fan. Let the glue set. After the glue has set, it's time to adjust the speed of the fan. There should be a tiny trim potentiometer on the step-down. Turn it all the way down to the slowest speed while using a fresh battery. Put some lighter fluid/accelerant in the aluminum cup. Light it whilst laughing manically. Now slowly turn the speed up until you're satisfied with the tornado. I believe we ended up somewhere between 4 and 5 V for a decent speed. Smile and say WOW! All the electronics go into the lower compartment of the box. Make sure you fasten the switch before you assemble the box, and check that the step-down isn't interfering with the battery lid. You should be able to slide the battery in without problems. The large, square panel with the big circular hole goes over the fan with the basket sticking up through the hole, the solid square panel is the bottom of the box, as you've probably guessed. If you're happy with the fit of the parts, glue it together. There you go. Hours of Fun. Just don't leave it unattended, don't use petrol/gasoline as the accelerant and don't let kids play with it. In other words, use it at your own risk, with care.