Building a better bubble machine

[Somatek]

I’ve finally got some time in the chaos (new room mate with a young dog just moved in and got a kitten, so the puppers is having a lot of separation anxiety plus I had two job interviews at a place with a lot of interesting potential) to post about my DiY bubble machine.

So the goal was to improve the design, make it easier for one person to run alone, use only stainless steel/food grade plastics and reduce the cost.

So you can see the whole pot with the inverted pot lid in one pic, I simply used tin snips to make cuts every inch or two and the folded the sections of lip upside down to form a new rim with the lid upside down so it’s in contact with the water inside.  I was also originally planning to have the agitator on top so it’d be separate from the trichs as the settled down but have since changed my plans after testing it a bit.

The rest show the process of making the drain hole in the bottom with a 1/4″ drill and a curved metal file to round/smooth the edge.  I made a gasket out of some spare rubber I had around by tracing the outside diameter of the whole 1/2″ drain and another of the outside diameter of the actual drain spout.  Before drilling the hole I used a piece of 2×4″ pine and a hammer to beat the bottom of the stock pot into a slight concave to help the water drain instead of pooling around the edges.

• This topic was modified 2 years, 1 month ago by Somatek.

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[Somatek]

Next we have the bubble bag slide made with simple wire copper bent into a ring around the top of the bag for it to fold over and hold it in place.  I attached to hooks on opposite sides of the ring to attach to a support holding them vertically and space so the water flows through with enough space to drain (220 and 160 micron work bags have barely any space, a bit more for the 120 first screen and progressively more for the 75 and 45 micron collection bags where the water pools as it drains slowly.  The idea behind stacking them vertically under the stock pot is to reduce/eliminate the hose, make a smaller foot print that’ll easily fit in a bathtub for apartment renters like me so all the water is contained in a water proof area and can’t damage the apartment. Most importantly I realised there’s no need to use 5gal bags to drain a 5gal pot if one gallon bags are stacked vertically, although I’ll probably have to buy a 5gal 45 mic bag for the bottom when I shorten the hose and add a ball valve to drain it more efficiently (currently the hose is long enough I just have the end above the water level to control when it drains).

Next is a shot of the agitator I bought off amazon, I had to add bigger fins right off the bat to get a good vortex and it’s been the weakest point in the design but more on that later.  With added fins cut from a plastic seed pack I had it creates a nice vortex though as seen in the next pic.

The last one shows the first test of how it all worked, if the bubble bag slide support could hold the weight and making sure it worked with ice.  Which was a misleading success….

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[Somatek]

The next four show the process of insulating it.  With the measurements of my pot I was able to cut all the pieces from a single 4x8ft sheet of insulation 1.5″ thick.  I started by cutting squares 2″ bigger then the diameter of the pot, that I traced the outside of the pot on and cut out (making a template with the first one to use on the rest to keep them all centered).  Once I trimmed it and made sure the stock pot fit in snuggly I glued them together.  Then cut 4 pieces to go around the sides encasing that were 3″ taller so I could make the top and bottom recessed to fit in snuggly form a seal.  It also gave me space to cut out spaces to fit ice packs below, as well as the one on top for added external cooling to reduce the amount of ice needed inside to keep the temps cold and increase the quality of the end product.  Once everything was glued together I sealed it all up with tape to limit air flowing through the gaps and reduce the thermal bridging.  In retrospect it probably would have been easier to make an external shell with a recessed bottom lid, centered the stock pot in it and used spray insulation then put the top on to make a more solid, water and air proof insulation layer.  Which was a friends suggestion after I had committed to using sheet insulation.

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[Nate]

How is the agitator attached to the stock pot? And is it elevated above the drain hole to keep it from plugging it?

[Somatek]

For testing I’ve tried it on both the top and bottom, it comes with suction cups to hold it in place.  The last post showing the entire set up talks about the agitator as I’ll be making the motor external with a drive shaft going through the lid holding the fins just above the bottom of the pot.

[Nate]

Ahh okay, that makes sense.

[Brad104]

That’s magnificent work bro, straight up good 👍 job man.I sure wish I was close by you.We would stay medicated up ha 😅🤣😂😂

[Somatek]

Cheers dude, it’s been fun to think about and design over the last couple years, even more exciting to see it work and figure out the kinks along the way.

Overall this has cost about $170 and took maybe 3-4 hours to build, so less then the cost of a bubble machine (usually around $200) with higher quality materials, insulated and purpose built design instead of figuring out how to use a compromised design to get the job done.

I might make one for a buddy as long as he covers the material, if I do I’ll take more pics of the steps to make a proper DiY tutorial as I had no clue if this would be a better design or if I was just pissing in the wind.

Lol, that’d be awesome if we were local and could get together for a sesh.  Hopefully more people post in the thread “calling all canucks” and it leads to some local meet ups.  I use to organize pot socials before the pandemic quashed that although I’m planning to start them up again.

[Somatek]

Finally I built a stand out of scrape from building my veg area to hold it all in place over the bathtub with the bubble bag shoot under the drain and a bucket sitting in the bottom of the tub.  I’ll add some cross bracing as it wobbles a bit while running since I ran out of scraps but it’s been good enough to run multiple tests with old material.  Overall it’s been a success, it’s easy to drain and pull the bucket out to dump back in and get it running.  Then I have time to pull the bags off, collect the trichs, clean the bag and put it all back together before it needs to be drained.  Which is a much nicer work flow instead of draining into a bucket, having to pull the bags and collect the trichs, pour the water back in and get it running, then clean the bags and set it all back up.  The insulation is the biggest success, on a hot day in the summer when the temps were in the 30’s it kept the water around 2C for over 12 hours, since then with temps in the mid 20’s or lower it can keep the water at a working temp for over a day with a half bag to bag of ice.  Compared to using multiple bags of ice with the typical machines that’s a huge improvement as it keeps the temps consistently cold instead of wavering.  The biggest issue has been the agitator as it’s programmed to do this pattern back and forth, then one direction, then the other, then ultrasonic vibrate and repeat.  Ideally it’d just spin one way for a couple mins, then the other, then ultrasonic vibrate for a bit at the end to help the trichs settle and dislodge from any ice cubes.

Luckily the cold water was too much for the water seals, it leaked and the interior rusted which utterly killed it.  When I took it apart I realised it was just the cheap wiring that rusted out, the motors are still good so the next step (possibly today) is taking the agitator fully apart, cleaning the motors and modifying the design to rebuild it as and exterior motor with a drive shaft going down to the agitator at the bottom, which can be pulled out before draining it.  This will keep the heat of the motor out of the cold chamber, extending the working time even longer and remove the agitator entirely for draining/cleaning while still keeping it at the bottom of the pot to create the best vortex.  For now I’ll just flip the connections on the step motor to control the direction it spins and for how long, eventually I want to add an arduino chip to control it so if anyone knows anything about programming them I’d love to chat/work together to create the necessary code and work out the kinks.

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[Nate]

I was going to say you could just use a three way switch to flip the polarity of the motor, but you had already figured that out for yourself. I think a driveshaft should work to run the agitator, and it would probably leave open the option to upgrade the paddles in the future if need be.

[Somatek]

You read my mind as making a stainless steel paddle is the next upgrade.

[Nate]

I wonder if you could find something in the food industry that would work as an agitator. Possibly some sort of Hobart attachment for mixing large batches of sauces or something? Although those may be too expensive or too heavy for the motor you currently have.

[Somatek]

I’ve looked at those but like you said weight and cost become the issue, although for someone willing to invest more who has more disposable income that’d be a simple way to get proper agitation as you can always buy a bigger step motor that’d be able to handle the load.  What works for me may not be the best for everyone and it’d be egotistical to presume others will build it the same as I have.  I’d be more interested in seeing peoples variations of my design, especially as different countries will have different building materials readily available.

Plus I’ve never heard of a hobart attachment, so now I have something to look up and see if the shape/design would be easy to replicate.  Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

[Nate]

Hobart is just a brand of commercial stand mixers/meat grinders etc. The one I was thinking of is a 5′ stand mixer that we had at the restaurant I worked at. Not sure the exact measurements, but the bowl was around 2′ across, and you can get attachments similar to a standard home sized stand mixer, just much bigger. I was just thinking that it might be an option since they’re food grade equipment, and definitely durable. But yeah, cost would probably the most limiting factor.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 1 month ago by Nate.
• This reply was modified 2 years, 1 month ago by Nate. Reason: I attached a PDF of the attachments you can get for a Hobart

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[Somatek]

For me and you maybe but not necessarily someone else, great post and thanks again for sharing.

[Loves2Trim]

Dude, I wish i Could R&D with you this is my favoriite stuff to play with man  good work!

[Somatek]

I’m always open to suggestions, that’s why I post stuff like this to hopefully get some good debate going about how to improve the design, build or other things I may not have considered.  I mean my personal goal is the same as always, undermine low quality products that exploit stoners so the consumer has a better experience while also disrupting the economy; just like a good little anarchist should.  What I’ve always loved about the grow forums going back 20 years since I first found them, is the collaborative effort to learn and open source tech long before it was a thing because of the effects of prohibition.  The best way to undermine immoral, abusive laws is to empower people to break them more efficiently and overwhelm the system which inherently relies on the masses being divided and controllable.

So, always happy for input or to have my ideas challenged as it helps everyone in the end.

[Cannabliss]

Great post. DIY’ers always remind me how I could be saving so much money.

*I wanted to “Lol” at the end of that, but it’s impossible.
I get tied up into so many things, that I just turn around & spend the money.

That’s a neat build there. Hopefully it can be used as a template for someone interested in building their very own.

[Somatek]

Reminds me of a common saying among tradesmen: you either have the time to renovate your own place but no money, or money to do it but no time and rarely both at once.

For a lot of people the convenience of insta purchases makes more sense, for a lot of patients though DiY becomes more essential with limited budgets and lots of time to kill.

[Atom]

Pretty awesome dude! I could definitely see this going somewhere. If you could make it keep the water cold and require less ice, or hold the material at a certain temp would be very helpful for hash makers. Even just a way to monitor temps of water would be helpful. There’s not very many options as far a washers. With federal legislation at a tipping point, it might be worth investing in this.

[Nate]

Easiest way to monitor temp would be a temperature probe. You could probably just use a meat thermometer, you’d just have to make sure that there isn’t a bottom limit of the readout. When I was working as a cook, we had an attachment for our digital thermometer that was a clip on probe that you could put in a fridge or freezer to get your reading. Not sure how expensive those would be though.

[Somatek]

So far to run it I’ve been leaving water in the fridge over night to fill it, then add about a bag of ice which gets the temps down to around 2-3C and keeps it there for anywhere from 12 hours when the ambient temps were in the 30’s to 24+ once they dropped to mid/high teens.  Since water separation works best just above the freezing point to maximise the separation by density; the temp control is pretty much on point with the current build.

I think Nate’s right though that it’d be pretty easy to add a temp probe to monitor the temps constantly.  Which would be useful to know how it’s running since otherwise it’s all sealed up and you can’t see what’s going on.  Even the sound is muffled compared to the typical ones due to the insulation, which is nice for apartment dwellers.

I should probably license the design under creative commons now that you mention it, I have no problem if someone wanted to manufacture and sell units for people who don’t have time to make their own but I guess they could also patent it if it isn’t licensed under creative commons.  Although as a high school drop out that’s all far beyond me lol, pot projects probably take up 60% of my ADHD thoughts so I just share them once developed enough to be worth sharing lol.  I’m a really piss poor capitalist…

[Atom]

Dude the bub magic one is sooo f’n loud. Definitely wasn’t expecting such an obnoxious noise lol

[Somatek]

Yep, a bucket of ice swirling around isn’t a quiet thing so it was a nice little bonus hearing a more reasonable noise level while running it.

[Atom]

I mean I’ve always done it by hand, and it’s basically plunging a toilet for 15 mins at a time so ill deal with the noise lol. Honestly I thought it would be more like a large washer, where it kinda “sloshed” around. I always thought you were supposed to beat it real easy.. this is a vortex

[Somatek]

Frenchy Cannoli advocated for a strong vortex with minimal ice for the best results.  The older wisdom when using buckets and hand stirring was more ice and gentler agitation with the difference being machines have quicker wash times with more agitation.  Since the ice is there to to keep the temps low, there’s a direct relationship between agigation times, ice needed and amount of agitation for optimal results.  Which is why it’s nice when people post as much details about their process and also why I insulated my DiY bubble machine so well.

[Keith]

This is a really freaking great post.  I haven’t read through it yet but I’ll be saving it.

[Somatek]

Glad you’ve found it useful and hope it inspire’s you’re own, hopefully improved version.

[Author]

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