Evolution of a Bong Cooler
 

At brad's special request, I've put together this quick overview of my bong cooler, and it's evolution over time. Many changes were not documented, partly because work on the bong started before I got my digital camera. Nonetheless, the biggest changes in my bong are clearly visible.

http://theforumisdown.com/uploadfiles/031502/bong1.jpg

This is one of the earlier incarnations of my bong, by no means the earliest though. The head in use is not the original one I had designed, and I only added the external res some time after the original bong was assembled. You can tell this was pretty long ago by how clean the floor was back then :D

Note the clear level gauge on the res, a feature you will also find present in later pics of the main bong.

At this point the head was still a straight-out design. The main issue with this was that tiny water particles would get blown straight out of the top of the bong. Various particle-trapping meshes proved to be cumbersome, airflow-killing and ineffective.

http://theforumisdown.com/uploadfiles/031502/bong2.jpg

Here you can immediately see several major changes. most notably the new bonghead incorporating the 90 degree elbow. this elbow, combined with the added upper fan, helps to substantially cut down water loss through escape of small water particles. This escape of particles has come to be known as spriting.

You may also notice the new tape-wrapping on the lower fan, meant to ensure that all the air blown by it went straight into the bong tube.

If you look in the gap between the chair and the table you can see an old AT case. The electronics were stripped out from in it and it was used to house a larger pump that I had sent to me from NZ by a certain staff member here :D. Problem with it was that it was EM unshielded. Putting it in the steel case reduced its effect considerably but did not eliminate it entirely. This and other factors eventually led to the larger pump being retired. At this point in time the bong was making use of three pumps, which allowed for a variety of flow designs.

http://theforumisdown.com/uploadfiles/031502/bong3.jpg

Major changes from the last photo here include the reorientation of the intake, the addition of a inline wet thermal probe, and the addition of a auto-switching powerstrip.

The bong was reorienter for two reasons:
1) to adapt to the new tubing layout that used one less pump
2) to point the damned thing away from my leg, where it caused an air current and subsequently chilly feet

The inline wet thermal probe was something I had known I needed for a long time, and finally got around to assembling. I have a full set of assembly photos for it, just need to sit myself down and do a write-up. Nothing original of course, I've seen it done by several other sites, and I pretty much drew my inspiration from them.

The auto-switching powerstrip is something more original by me, and you can see my write-up for it at http://www.voidyourwarranty.net/revi...rip/index.php3 . It's still in service, problem-free.

http://theforumisdown.com/uploadfiles/031502/bong4.jpg

This show highlights one major change, the addition of my water recollection system. It's essentially a funnel glued to gather the water coming out of a hole i made in the bottom of the head to allow water gathered up there to be drained. Works in that respect, but I'm still having some leakage beyond it. Hope to address that with a new design for my bong fan holder that I've had in my head for months but never got around to building.

Note that up until here I still had a small submersible inside the tank to pump water around to the CPU. You can see its wire running out.

http://theforumisdown.com/uploadfiles/031502/bong5.jpg

And this brings us up to the present-day implementation. Main changes include the expanded reservoir, which lets the bong last somewhat more than the about 4 hours it did before. Now, depending on usage and if I activate the fans, the bong will last from 2 days to a week on a single reload. Also measured it, holds about 4.5 Liters of water.

Another significant change is the addition of the electronic level gauge. Without it I would only know my tank was empty when my pump began sucking air, and having to prime the damned pump every time I reloaded the bong got extremely annoying. So now with the water level gauge it's easy to tell when it is time to refill.

A note on refilling. Refilling is done through the secondary tank. In the past this involved filling the secondary tank, sealing it, and blowing air into it to force water into the primary tank. Now I have put the submersible pump I removed from the main tank into the secondary tank, and it makes the refilling of my main tank so much easier and less painful.

Now, just a quick touch on the possible future of my bong, just mainly some ideas I've been chewing on.

I want to adapt the electronic level sensor into an intelligent monitoring and maintainance system for my bong. I want to add a siren that goes off when the water level in the main tank becomes critically low, and a relay-operated system to automatically pump water from my secondary tank to my primary tank when the water in the main tank drops below a certain level. Of course, this would mean building a much larger secondary tank. Also, the secondary tank would need its own level gauge to protect the pump in it if it were to empty. A mechanism to completely shut down the system if water were to run out is also being considered.

Another direction I've been thinking in is controlling the fans based on temperature. Fans help evaporation by supplying drier air to the insides of the bong, but they also blow water out. Furthermore, there is no need to keep the water continually at below ambient. In fact, that is a waste of water, and it would be much more efficient to just activate and deactivate the fans as and when needed to keep the water in a specific temperature range. Sadly, my knowledge of electronics is not quite sufficient to allow me to easily design such circuits. Help/suggestions are appreciated!

sweet write up, I hope it does evolve into a machine that can keep water temps and water levels at the exact right amount. I wonder if Joe would like to steal another person from VYW.

/me ducks and runs like hell

Hi, great post, nice pics, but... For the non-bong-literate folk (such as myself). How are you exposing the water inside your bong?

You know, if you want the reservoir's to auto-refill themselves when they start to get low, look into a dishwasher. They have an electrically controlled water valve in them, supply power to the valve and it opens.. In comes water.. Pretty simple, you'd just need to have one sensor at the level where you want to add water, and another sensor at the level where the water is high enough to know to close the valve.. ;) Oh, and you'd need to plumb some water from your house's plumbing over to the computer. heh.. ;)
Nice review, btw.. ;)

i personly would use some mosqito mesh made in metal positioned like an \ in front of the fan(upper) to trap more water particles from escaping.
im coulkd have drawn something but im *not so good* at drawing. (understatement).

khleder, using a shower head

ksw, restricts too much airflow

Bong?
 

I saw some a couple of bong type cooling. I was wondering how it works and its effectiveness. Can you explain that please?

Sonix

the water goes down the bong itself, and a small amount evaporates, and cools the rest of the water down

er....the water is dispersed into small droplets (so there's a lot of surface area thats exposed to the air inside the bong). the air (which is cooler than the water) then rapidly cools the water as it falls down the bong. evaporation helps cool the water below ambient, but thats not how the water is mainly cooled.

Dishwashers are rare over here on the wrong end of the planet. I've looked into solenoid valves but they are seldom in my price bracket. Another thing is that having something like that would require the water level in the secondary tank to be higher than that in the primary tank, at which point one might as well just use a simple connecting tube to keep both water levels equal.

I don't want to do this for two reasons:
1) A smaller volume of water cools faster
2) Having holes below the water line makes the system more prone to leakage. Aside from my questionable ability with a drill, a line might also get disconnected by accident, or the tank get filled without the line connected. I know the above all can be solved by paying a little attention, but as we all know shit happens, and my philosophy has always been to give it as little opportunity as possible.

Thus I envision an electronic system that responds to two water levels. If water is below both sensed levels, a pump is turned on in the secondary tank, and pumps water into the primary tank until the full level is reached.

What I need help in is figuring out how to actually build such a circuit. I am thinking that it will involve some kind of very basic logic circuit with some kind of memory. The logic table would be something like: (let the two levels be EMPTY and FULL)

EMPTY FULL PUMP
0 0 Turn On
0 1 Hold State (theoretical situation, in practice this would never happen for obvious reasons)
1 0 Hold State
1 1 Turn OFF

Can anybody suggest me what I need to look into? Preferably something solid state except for the pump relay, and operating directly from a 12VDC source.

Thanks!

what about a one way valve? once the water goes into the first tank it can't come back out, and it will be fully automatic

I don't see how that applies... Aside from the fact that one-way water valves at 1/2" are not easy to find and often require quite some pressure to operate, i still don't see how it would be relevant...

I realize this is a little low tec but have you concidered using a fill valve from a toilet tank? You could easily set the low and high water level, they are very low maintanance and you could hang a sign that said " I do not cool with your toilet please do not pee in my BONG" Just a thought.

hehe, I love the idea of the sign

Yes it's an option I have considered and rejected for two reasons:

1) They tend to take up quite a bit of space. I know there are smaller varieties but I don't know where to find them around here, and nonetheless installing one may prove to be a technical hassle.

2) You'd still need a pressurized source of water to drive water across. The easiest way to achieve this would probably be to use a tank of water taller than the primary res. What I don't like about this is that the tank would have to be drilled below the water line, and clumsy as I am that is inviting a leak. That's why one of the design principles in my bong has been to keep all holes above water level.

Hey I recognize that bong! Nice write up.

I have a bong too, different in concept and design from the one shown at the top. I've come with some ideas about refilling it as well. Petsmart has containers for feeding and watering cats that allows water to flow down from a tank once the normal level of the water decreases, this happens because air bubbles get into the tank and rise to the top thus pushing the water down, but only enough until the air stops entering.

I figured i could attach a seperate tank to the side of the bong and run a hose down to where the normal water level is, once the water level in the bong gets below this point, the second tank will atomatically refill it. No electronic hassels, no expensive valves.

maybe it's too simple but why don't you put your secondary tank on the table behind it. Just connect the bottom of the sec tank to the top of the primary. By gravity the first one will always be full. Their wouldn't be much energy transfer since the water would go up. The only thing you would have to check is make sure that water won't go back to the bong since the sec tank would be higher than the bong itself.

Also, is your water electricaly conductive? (if it's pure water, it might not be enough conductive for what i think)
if so, you could simply put 4 fire in the gage to see the level, 2 at the bottom and 2 at the top. Each wire would be set appart by around 1/2 inch. On the first one, you put a reverse relay (when current is flowing throught the 2 wire, the relay doesn't let current pass and when the current doesn't, the relay will let current pass so you wire youre pump on it.) then on the 2 wire on the top, you use another reverse relay, when current flows, it stops the pump.
I tried to make an image of what i wanted to show
To explain a little, the circuit is set so the relay on top is always closed (ie current flows) and opens when current flow via the 2 little wire on the top of the level metter.
The bottom relay is always open until current doesn't flow via the 2 little wire.
so the end result. relay 1 (the top one) will always let current flow until the level as reached the 2 top wire. Relay 2 will never let current flow until it goes lower then the 2 bottom wire.

Need for info... ask questions and i will answer it

Yes that would work. But three issues:

1) Tank has to be entirely above minimum water level line
2) Tank must have holes in it below water level
3) Tank must be airtight yet refillable. An air leak could produce a most unsightly overflow :D

I'm afraid your have totally confused me. The lower relay will let current pass when the two lower contacts are not underwater right? So wont the pump just fill up to where the lower contacts are, at which point the relay stops letting current pass, thus turning off the pump?

To start with to control your water loss, you should try using a piece of gore-tex fabric between you funnel and the fan. I think it can flow enough air that you should be alright, however i can't tear my winter gloves apart just yet to test this for you. (it's still snowing here). I am looking into some fill ideas for you and will post when i have one written up. Gore-tex is a two sided material so if u try u must have the right side facing the fan....

oups you are right marco, i forgot about that point.
I will try to make another circuit to correct that problem.
I think just changing the relay to another type would solve the problem.
I will be back with more info asap

ok marco i updated my design to take the error i made in account

Top relay is relay 1 and bottom relay is relay 2.

relay 1 is always open (current doesn't flow) until water level goes over the lines.
relay 2 is always open (current doesn't flow) until water level goes under the lines.

The switch is used to control the current for the pump.
I think it would be called a relay but i'm not sure.
There would be 2 sides of it and the latch inside would move depending on the magnetic field which relay 1 or 2 will generate.
It functions is this: when current flow trought relay 1, it moves the latch away from the connectors so cut the current to the pump. When current flow trought relay 2 it moves the latch to the connectors and will enable current to flow trought the pump.
Now the trick to this is the latch need to move only when a relay is closed and doesn't move when the relay opens. Much like a wall switch but activated by the relay.
I will try to find relay that does it.
the drawing is not perfect. i will try to do an exact drawing when i find the exact relay to do the function of the switch

Gore-tex is an idea that has been thrown back and forth but never tried. Thing is that I don't think it was meant to pass large volumes of air. I would try if I could get some cheap, but i bet it would be airflow killer. Not only that, things that kill airflow also often make alot of noise in the process.

Thankx nuclear. The switch you are talking about sounds like a kind of reed relay.

I think I can understand what you are driving at. But how do you make the "switch" only respond to a relay closing?

I'm thinking that in any case this device would require some kind of memory, so it can "know" if it is currently in use and water is draining, or if it is currently refilling. From there it would be fairly straight forward I think. Can anyone suggest how I can do this with as few components as possible?