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Saturday 6 September 2014

Fixed the gun

While at daughter.1's gaff on Thursday, I was presented with a broken bubble gun; ladysolly claimed that I could fix it. I'm always up for a challenge, but after a quick look, I said that I'd have to take it home to work on it.

I do find that repairing things is very satisfying - a new gun would cost about £3, but where's the pleasure in that?

Today, I dismantled it. Six small screws split the case and revealed the workings, which are simple but ingenious. It's powered by three AAA batteries. Pulling the trigger switches on an electric motor, and powers up a blue led that gives a nice effect. The motor powers a blower which uses the Bernouilli effect to pull bubble mixture out of a reservoir and blows out out of the nozzle. So you get attacked by a blue-lit stream of small bubbles.

And some parents give their nine-year-old a submachine gun to play with!

Careful inspection revealed that a wire was no longer attached to the trigger. So I soldered in a bit more wire, reassembled the gun, reinstalled the batteries and pulled the trigger. I was immediately rewarded with a whirring noise, a blue led lit up, and I could feel the air blowing out of the nozzle. Sadly, I don't have the necessary bubble mixture for a live ammunition test, but I'm sure that grandson.1 will have some.

4 comments:

  1. Testing is mandatory! I'm sure you can quickly concoct the necessary test ingredient by experimenting with various washing up liquid concentrations.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I have done a considerable amount of testing, just not with live ammunition. That test will be done next time I visit grandson.1

    ReplyDelete
  3. My grandson's whirls and blows and the lights flash... but alas, no bubble production...he had shoved the solution tube back indo the body.. I took it apart and pulled the tube thru the little hole. In doing so, I rerouted the tube. I figured it worked on the Bernoulli Principle as well. My question is: does the tube have to run as high as possible in the body, above the solution output port, in order to create the necessary vacuum at the pick up end to suck up the solution in the bottle ? Sorta like a siphon...

    ReplyDelete
  4. My grandson's whirls and blows and the lights flash... but alas, no bubble production...he had shoved the solution tube back indo the body.. I took it apart and pulled the tube thru the little hole. In doing so, I rerouted the tube. I figured it worked on the Bernoulli Principle as well. My question is: does the tube have to run as high as possible in the body, above the solution output port, in order to create the necessary vacuum at the pick up end to suck up the solution in the bottle ? Sorta like a siphon...

    ReplyDelete