So… this turned into a bit of a rabbit hole… lots of mathy stuff.
Turns out that laminar flow is a bit of an art trying to balance enough pressure to make the fountain go far enough and not introducing turbulence with the amount of water flow. Most of the “experts” argue for a wider cylinder to slow down the flow.
I’m now on v3 which is based on 4" PVC instead of 2" above. When I went to Home Depot I discovered that the PVC endcaps are running $12 each so I ended up 3d printing them as my budget per fountain is $30-$50. Results are pretty good though I think I can get it a little cleaner once I get my hands on a lathe.
I’ve been teaching myself microPython so I threw together an ESP32 PWM controller for the bilge pump to control flow which works great.
Next on the list is building a stream cutter, I’ve got a design in mind but I need a cheap waterproof 12v push pull solenoid or other linear actuator that can give me fast linear motion of around 10mm. Budget is around $5-$10. I was thinking maybe a car lock actuator though they are a bit big.
Any ideas?