Underwater Tests

So a very smart friend of mine brought up the point of the mechanism working underwater. I didn't know. So I had to find out.

Test
Cutter Mechanism Underwater test

Objective:

To observe whether the mechanism will work in an underwater environment.

Introduction:

The cutter mechanism is going to be used in order to deflect the water from the air to the underwater piping system giving humans the illusion that the water is jumping. Each nozzle will be timed in such a way that the water will appear to be jumping or leaping from place to place.

In order to cut the water the Cutter mechanism will push and pull a plate in from of the orifice in order to deflect.

We must be certain that water will not affect the mechanism. The mechanism must be able to cutter the water in either a partially or fully submerged environment. This test is designed to find out if the water will cause any problems. We are particularly concern with the solenoids and how they will perform.

Setup
The setup for the cutter mechanism is the same as the setup in other cutter mechanism tests with the small addition on waterproofing. I applied a liberal amount of hot glue to the connections and any point that might have a leak.

I filled a 5 gallon bucket with a small amount of water just enough to cover the mechanism.

Results

The cutter mechanism was suciffiently waterproofed and I was able to contain the magic smoke. The cutter operated as designed.

The video below show the results.



Conclusion

The cutter mechanism performed well underwater. The proof of concept was succesful and the mechanism will be introduced into the design.

The mechanism was observed to be a bit slow moving from position to position, but has not be confirmed. However, the majority of the drag is probably due to the vertical plate. The Laminar Nozzle will have a significantly reduced drag since, the cutter mechanism will have a U-channel instead of an L-bracket. This should alleviate any drag induced problems.