Testing, Testing
Jan. 11th, 2024 02:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
peristaltorIt is finished! The heated hummer feeder! Right now, I've got it going for an hour simply to test high temperature of plain water after a continuous hour.
I know I promised pics, but… it seems we've lost the data cable for our camera (I know, we still use such things, being old). Instead of gripping graphics, I'll just summarize construction with words.
I started with the bog-standard Perky Pet Plastic Pinch Waist Hummingbird Feeder not just because I'm cheap, but because I envisioned something that needed a wide opening for the liquid reservoir. You can spend serious cash for feeders that have openings no larger than a beer bottle. The point would be…?
Next, I imagined I just needed to find the perfect screw-top bottle, one narrow enough to fit within the reservoir, but with enough interior width to accommodate a narrow light bulb (we settled on the candelabra-style bulb). I scoured shops that sold herbal remedies (they sell bottles for folks who want to store their concoctions), a curio shop (the perfect bottle held an unborn fox fetus, which I couldn't think of a use for outside the bottle… or in it), and every hardware store in quick driving distance.
I found no such bottle, except in plastic. I didn't want plastic. Plastic not only melts, but it melts. Did I mention plastic melts?
Next plan. Scrap the screw top, and just go for a narrow glass tube. Still no love, until… at the thrift store, I found a six-test tube pack hiding out in kitchen glassware!
A hole through base, and one of the tubes fit nice and snug. Clear silicon sealed the interior. For the exterior seal, I gave the tube another layer of horizontal support by cutting a hole in a used tea light holder (clear plastic, not aluminum). That got completely filled with silicon. The two horizontal elements meant the tube had to travel through and was aligned straight up and down (more or less). I figured this would help the seal maintenance, and would help keep the tube off the interior surface of the reservoir.
The kitchen timer just sounded. The water is a tad too hot for me, 110˚. Time to run to the hardware store and get a 5 watt bulb to swap out with the 15W.
Later!
I know I promised pics, but… it seems we've lost the data cable for our camera (I know, we still use such things, being old). Instead of gripping graphics, I'll just summarize construction with words.
I started with the bog-standard Perky Pet Plastic Pinch Waist Hummingbird Feeder not just because I'm cheap, but because I envisioned something that needed a wide opening for the liquid reservoir. You can spend serious cash for feeders that have openings no larger than a beer bottle. The point would be…?
Next, I imagined I just needed to find the perfect screw-top bottle, one narrow enough to fit within the reservoir, but with enough interior width to accommodate a narrow light bulb (we settled on the candelabra-style bulb). I scoured shops that sold herbal remedies (they sell bottles for folks who want to store their concoctions), a curio shop (the perfect bottle held an unborn fox fetus, which I couldn't think of a use for outside the bottle… or in it), and every hardware store in quick driving distance.
I found no such bottle, except in plastic. I didn't want plastic. Plastic not only melts, but it melts. Did I mention plastic melts?
Next plan. Scrap the screw top, and just go for a narrow glass tube. Still no love, until… at the thrift store, I found a six-test tube pack hiding out in kitchen glassware!
A hole through base, and one of the tubes fit nice and snug. Clear silicon sealed the interior. For the exterior seal, I gave the tube another layer of horizontal support by cutting a hole in a used tea light holder (clear plastic, not aluminum). That got completely filled with silicon. The two horizontal elements meant the tube had to travel through and was aligned straight up and down (more or less). I figured this would help the seal maintenance, and would help keep the tube off the interior surface of the reservoir.
The kitchen timer just sounded. The water is a tad too hot for me, 110˚. Time to run to the hardware store and get a 5 watt bulb to swap out with the 15W.
Later!
no subject
Date: 2024-01-12 08:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-01-12 08:42 pm (UTC)(But yeah, a vid of the little puffed-up guy squatting at the feeder right now in 19˚ would be kind of adorable.)