It's Sunday morning, late morning, and I'm here in my 'jammies cruising the 'net on Marla's 'puter. My laptop is in the shop... Big Shop, the Great Manufacturer's Place of All Fixing... because it has power issues.
It's not the battery. It's not the power plug. It's not the power control circuitry on the motherboard. So it must be the cabling? Which is integral to the laptop's case, and not a "part" that the local repair place has easy access to.
I hope I get it back next week, because school is starting again!
I ordered parts yesterday for the Ruben's Tube experiments, and shopped around Lowe's to see what was available locally for it (darned little, actually). I found a nice 4-channel amplifier, 500watts per channel, that will run on 12 volts (car audio, yayy!) for fairly cheap. I hope to run 4 tubes.
Then there is the car subwoofer, actually a mid-range woofer, with what looks like should be good Xmax throw, a high power and Db rating, and a lovely blue color! Plus, it was cheap.
That covers the audio side of things.
On the fire side, I ordered a valve and quick-release hose set from a cajun supply shop in LA, much cheaper than from the more technical stores.
Now, at home, I'll buy a tank, some tubes some fittings, some this and that, and assemble the tube itself. Today, I think, I'll start this. Once the other bits come in, maybe next weekend! I'll fit it together, fire it up, and see if I can keep my eyebrows.
There are only a few variables to explore in my experiment.
I want BIG DRAMATIC FLAMES -- not like the wimpy little flames in the standard physics experiment. This is, after all, to be a dancing-flame backdrop to dancers (or something) around the effigy burn at Flipside! To get these flames, and to keep them doing something with the music, without blowing themselves out, I need to experiment with the sound pressure (volume) of the feed (of which, I have a lot of upper end to work with); the frequency tuning, if any (I want to favor bass, for best effect); the gas pressure (as high as I can get it without totally damping the audio signal); and the spacing and diameter of the holes in the tube. Oh, and the diameter of the tube (a binary choice of 4" or 6").
The question of hole size has me puzzling the most... big holes for a lower pressure but higher volume? Or small holes for a higher pressure, but cutting back the volume?
I'm thinking that a higher pressure in the tube will provide for stronger coupling to the audio signal, as long as I can still create pressure waves in the gas with the speaker. Too much pressure and the speaker will "stall".
So I think I'll start with very tiny holes and I can increase their diameter as needed, during the experiment. Fortunately, the HVAC sheet-metal tubing is dirt cheap.
I think I'll also stick to 4" tubing. I have an 8" speaker and I will be funneling it down to a 4" tube. This will have the effect of decreasing the pressure of the sound-wave, but increasing the velocity in the tube; I'm thinking it will amplify the change in the flame height.
We'll see soon enough!
As for the rest of today... I think I need to do more writing. I've been slacking something terrible lately.