The stream will stay in "one piece" longer if you can arrange for it to have a "laminar flow". Get ahold of some of those little teeny tiny straws that they put in cocktails at bars, and stick a bunch of them into a piece of PVC pipe, and run your water through it. That makes the flow less turbulent, and the stream won't break up so soon. Plus, you could put your light on the "upstream" side, and it should be gorgeous. ;-)
Here ya go:
Good Luck! Rich
Sounds a valid idea.
ISTR a demo of total internal reflection using a laser shone through water pouring sideways out of a largish hole. The beam reflected several times.
A simple plastic fibre inside the flow will be surrounded by water instead of air, so the critical angle will be different. Proper optical fibre will have the reflection done at an internal layer and will work as well as it does in air.
I notice fountains need a lot of pressure to create a tall jet. You might create fake tall jets by pumping the water up a transparent tube. This does look nice. I saw an amusing one with a brass tap stuck on the end: the water appeared to be pouring out of a tap in mid air :-)
Anyway, you could shine the LED light up the transparent tube.
Have fun, and put the photo on the net!
K.
Well it's sort of on topic.
Anyone played around with building a swimming pool or outdoor water feature - in particular embedding a narrow emission angle high brightness LED in a water jet (along the axis of flow)? Perhaps a led coupled into some plastic fibre in the flow path.
I guess the light escapes when the critcal angle is exceeded and that when and where this happens will vary as the water stream moves around. Might look ok if the effect lasts more than a few inches from the jet exit point.
comments / flames / ideas?? rob
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Hi Rich, Kryton, thanks for the replies - I'm more enthused now, I think I'll give it a go. regards rob
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Be sure and keep us all up-to-date, preferably with pictures! ;-)
Good Luck! Rich
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