Suggestion for you: Get some magnetic child lock mechanisms. They'll stop your drawers and cupboards from opening, but still let you open them with a magnet! Great video as always!
Here are 2 examples that you can do. Get a tankless propane water heater. OR. Get a black bucket or jug. FIll with water. Print a valve of some type to release the water to hose. Make a valve vent. Control that valve vent for water pressure. Make the jug or bucket removable. Make video on start to finish. Black attracts heat. WHITE or Clear reflects heat.
Yeah the only issue with reusing thermoplastics is that the chemical properties break down after 4-5 remelts and it becomes unpredictable. Also water bottles are very little plastic as they are meant to be as cheap as possible.
in the netherlands and germany we pay like 15 cent extra and if you bring it back into the store (if they have the machine) you get those 15 cents back and dont have alot of plastic bottles left
Here could be some Updates on the design: Update Refill Ways 1. make some male ends for the top caps so you can just put 1 bottle in at a time (the pressure might be higher but idk) 2. makes it so you can put the empty bottles on the roof without water in them then just make a 2nd one of these but with a hose so you can hold it higher than the empty bottles then you could just 3d print a tap then screw your shower head on so no water fell out of the bottom How to make it Hotter: 1. add a tin foil wall type thing so it can get more sun rays to heat it 2. MORE BOTTLES, make you capacity bigger 3. Print it in black P.S. I really liked your video so i bought my first 3D printer Nice video 🙃🙃
I love how you end your videos. Especially having been watching a while. It’s a reminder how cool moms are. Like Kathy. Supporting her son’s dream for years and now it’s paying off! She believed in this awesome person before pretty much anyone else! ❤❤
The water bottle is not waterproof on the threads, but acts more like a cork. Tightness is ensured by the contact of the bottle rim with the bottom of the cap and the internal rim at the bottom of the cap.
there is often a feature on the cap that forms a taper seal against the inner edge of the bottle mouth, you may see this as a ring (with a triangular cross section) on the inside of the cap.
@@cameronwebster6866 Some yes, this is rather extreme on some of the bottles. For example a bottle of Pocari Sweat is sealed water tight like a half turn from fully seated. Others have almost exactly what he showed here, a gasket which is pressed into contact against the top of the rim of the bottle. But it is usually a flat sheet which covers the entire underside of the cap.
I have a road shower I use for surfing, and it is one of the best things I've bought. It keeps a lot of pressure because it's metal and has a schraeder valve on it to pump in more pressure. Best feeling ever when you get out of the cold surf and take a hot outdoor shower.
@MorleyKert I think the point of taking on these projects is it builds experiences for making that truly useful idea. In this video, you had to approach many problems concerning water tightness, threading, and learned valuable lessons in alignment, splitting prints, and more. This project may not have been practical, but the next project will benefit from your insights and experience gained, and you will come up with better ideas because you failed beforehand. Failure is just iteration. Can't wait to see what you make next. Keep it up.
I'm wondering, as it's sort of the topic of this video what you do with all the plastic waste that you get from failed prints, prototypes, stand offs, supports, etc. I know space to overly worry about such things is going to be tight living in a van so basically I'm wondering what you do with it all and if you bother keeping it all and recycling it etc. Is there a, way to recycle it yourself whilst on the move or what are your other options? Thanks enjoyed the video and found learning a bit more about solar showers and seeing your solution to the problem whilst on the move and waste water bottles, or at least these few bottles (every bit helps) quite interesting and informative, despite the fail.
I think it would have saved a lot of filament if you designed the tubes to be a square profile and rotated so that it can print with just a minimal amount of support. Also, welding gaps with a soldering iron is a great way to get rid of seams in a design like this. Anyways, understand that this was a design exercise and maybe others have already pointed this out. Also, FYI PETG isn't made from recycled PET bottles. I don't think I've actually seen PETG advertised as made from recycled PET bottle, maybe it exists but they would definitely advertise it heavily as such. The one you linked is just normal PETG.
I felt the same way - but even then it is over-engineered when a simple square or radial array of screw-in bottles fed directly into a funnel collector - AND even that is over-engineered when a 5 gallon bucket with a shut off valve accomplishes the same thing
There is a video regarding white filament which uses titanium dioxide so not only is that not a compound you want to print indoors with it also will wear out your nozzles quicker than any of the dark colors that don't use titanium dioxide
If you're looking at saving water and energy, a recirculating shower is ideal, as you're just filtering and re-using the same warm water rather than having to heat cold fresh water. it's a bit of an engineering and plumbing challenge involving pumps, multiple filters, tanks, valves and heat exchangers, but also a great project to get your teeth into!
@morleykert if you flip it over you have a great way to refill the bottles with purified water to use for drinking again. As you said enough for all four of you.
through your trials and errors i found out about the pipe tool in f360 and how i could use it to be implemented in a pyramid dice tower that i had tried to make before, unaware of the ability of the pipe i was trying loft instead but that did not work the way i needed it to and just helped me try my project again. So Thanks :D
Maybe a black ABS tube (or 4) of water as a pre-heater for the electric water heater. Fun to watch you take on problems. The brain of a maker is an interessting place to peek into! Thanks.
This is true for most things, usually your time has to be worthless for it to make sense to build just about anything these days provided it exists as a product, but then you’d miss out on all the experience instead. Even though a particular design even turns out to be completely useless you do gain a lot of experience going through the design phases that will be beneficial down the line next time, and knowing what didn’t work is also useful experience. The reason seasoned designers are so good at what they do is that they’ve already solved most issues and done most of design before, so they’re just integrating previous solutions instead of coming up with everything from scratch. Electronics is a good example, I have a lot of circuit “design blocks” in my notes that solve a particular problem, so half of a project is just copy pasting previous modules together which makes things so much easier.
Solar shower (black bag with hose) can be had for $10. Water can be bought in gallon bottles, or just fill up a 50+ liter tank. Also: the motor of the van makes a lot of heat while driving. Installing a heat exchanger at the cooling fluid for water is easy, that way you always have warm water after a drive
To expand on Morley's math at the end of the video, on earth an ABS pipe solar shower would be the eqivilent of adding about 3m² of solar panels to the van. Math: The Solar irradiance(how bright the sun is) is 1kW on the surface. A 3m long, 6" dia solar shower has a surface area of ~ 1.47m². Even under ideal conditions only 50% of that will be in direct sun, so 0.74m². ABS pipe absorbs ~95% fo the light that hits it(aproxamated using the value for "Black plastic" in an IR emisivity table), this means that the ABS pipe solar shower can absorb 700W. Solar panals are
Ok my 2cents here: 1.Tightening the print: use bondo, maybe with a bit of fiber-reinforcing 2. Refilling: buy 16 more bottles, cut off the threadhead and hot glue them onto the old bottle bottoms, then melt holes into said bottoms with a soldering iron. After refilling, do not screw the caps on airtight so that the water flow doesn't create a vacuum.
Thanks. I need a computer desk and I am about to cut the dinning room table down to size to meet my needs. I have that, "it's a great idea, even though there are a million other better ideas." :) Makers gotta make.
The thing with bottle caps is that they aren't an exact fit on purpose. Like many other mechanical water seals, they only fully close once the threads are engaged and under some pressure. You could have most likely solved this by making the cap less tall so that it bottoms out sooner, clamping the rim of the bottle to the bottom of the cap. Either way, I can't imagine this is cheaper than the solar shower bags you can buy at any camping goods store, and the waste you created by printing this probably outweighs the production emissions for a single one of those (as they're mass produced), but a use for water bottles is always good. It's insane that almost all recycling is still just trashed in the end because no manufacturer wants to pay for the process of recycling plastic when buying new, clean material is cheaper and more efficient.
But the swoopy octopuss is beautiful. maybe if you are wanting a solar heater shower go with the tried and true black pvc but use 3d printed parts to expand the usability or the beauty of it.
Print something to place in between the bottles to keep them sturdy so you can load them right side up then flip it. Also you could have a reflective surface pointed towards the bottles to heat them faster
Morley, any invention goes through several tries and re-engineering .... just because something already exists doesn't mean you can't improve upon the design. I, for one, commend you for your thinking "out of the bottle". If I may.... I would make a cube structure for the tubes (infinitely less spider like, and infinitely less cool looking I know!)... this should give you more meat, less leaking and easy placement on top of the van. Design a "vertical swivel structure" to attach to your cube.... allows you to turn over and screw-in bottles once filled up, turn back to have bottles drip......and I would install it on top of the van so that the sun can heat the water.... good luck and don't get discouraged! This was a very cool attempt!
I think the draw of these projects is that you’re 50% maker but also 50% artist. Making someone else’s design is great for knowing something will be functional and have all the kinks worked out already but it doesn’t scratch that creative itch that artist’s brains need. I have the same problem when it comes to doing crafts that need patterns (knitting, crossstitch, latchhook, etc). I like the end product but it takes me far longer to complete them than a painting or sculpting something because I need that creative itch to boost my motivation and focus 😂 Edit to add: I absolutely love Eden keeping things real about why laundry was necessary! As a pet owner, I felt that in my soul 😂❤
fun fact, the bottles are not watertight at the threads, but the threads help push a ring slightly smaller than the opening of the bottle into the bottle, so it works more like a cork
I would try a pool solar heater. Maybe it's not hot enough for the smaller roof on a van, but in Arizona it works great. It's like a pond pump that pumps water to the roof with black hoses in a spiral.... Then, it flows back to the pool and its piping hot. It's like a black hose and it's spiraled in a frame and it usually brings a pool up a few degrees warmer.
you need a bottle inside a bottle, the outer bottle clear, the inner bottle dark, that traps the heat and makes it reflect constantly into itself, that's how most plastic-bottle based handcrafted shower heaters are usually made. and you just tape 2-3 bottles together and and up with like 4-6 water holes, aligned to be connected to a single pipe sideways, you could 3dprint a lot of that, but you need to put actual face thickness and not skip on the infill, as its going to need some strength.
Cut the bottoms off the bottles and just leave them screwed in place and fill with a bucket?? Solves the vacuum and the spillage when flipping issues. If you left enough of a lip on the cut off you could use the bottle bottoms like lids to minimise heat loss. Also I have seen videos of people stripping down plastic drinking bottles and melting it into filament that they use in their 3D printer - is that an option for all the bottles you want to recycle?
cutting off the bottoms of the bottles would solve the suction created when its running. it would also solve the issue of flipping full bottles over trying to screw them in. You can fill them all while they're already attached. You could also set it up during a rainstorm to fill them. It definitely feels like time/space/resources better spent on a different project though. the space this uses up would be better used for an additional battery for example. It's out of the way when in use, but it needs a storage space when not sitting on the roof.
Neat exercise in problem solving and design. Especially showing folks how to model threads and the problems they'll face doing it. Also, Bambu Labs should give you money or a second printer! That drive out from your campsite and the print was still fixed to the bed! OMG, I'm sold! If I bump the filing cabinet my Ender 3 V2 sits on, it can delaminate PETG from the buildplate! My next printer will defs be a P1S, probably with the spool changer. That is the _BEST_ upsell I've seen for a printer! Works even while driving on a broken gravel road! That said, maybe design this shower for use with a single, large, 5 litre (gallon and a bit) HDPE bottle that you leave screwed into s suitable manifold and stand. Then, drill a bean tin sized hole in the bottom of that bottle and fill it through that, once upside-down on the roof, with a reused, drink-sized water bottle or even a hand pump. Using a single, large (probably cuboid) bottle will allow fitting one or two, thin, black plastic panels on the sun-facing sides of the bottle to increase heat absorption, too, as the larger volume will have a relatively smaller surface area per litre. The PET bottles look like they're getting pretty bashed up with each fill, so it's probably better to just use aluminium drink bottles filled from your potable water tank and the HDPE bottle, as this is all long life stuff that obviates the need to recycle PET bottles. From an engineering standpoint, that's actually more closed-loop than recycling endless supplies of PET water bottles.
Hey, you had fun trying something and you were trying to figure out a way to recycle the bottles. It was worth giving it a try and you enjoyed yourself.
I think this is probably why a lot of (tent) campers use the big, black floppy bag - good capacity, warms up well, drains well without the need for fancy valves etc as they deflate in normal air pressure. You could simply throw one up there a couple of hours before you need a shower. Cover with some plexi-glass and you will dramatically increase your efficiency.
Im watching this late, first thoughts were... print it black. Add a long tube taller than the bottles and use that as your fill tube leaving the bottles in place. It will also allow air in for better flow when showering.
The sealing mechanism on many plastic drink bottles, such as the bottles in the video is a small conical section on the top of the cap, where the angled part of the cone section seals against the inside of the mouth. (imagine the cap has a complete cone with a base dia.>the mouth id stuck to the inside, the threads of the cap will pull the cone into the mouth of the bottle pressing the sides of the cone into the mouth of the bottle, creating a seal. Now remove most of the cone, so that there is just enough of the cone left that it will still make a seal .) This requires A) the lid to be made of a somwhat flexible plastic, often HDPE and B), the angle of the cone relative to the interior wall of the mouth be fairly shallow(30-50⁸ ish).
For strength and rigidity I would have just printed a thin box with threaded holes on the top to screw the bottles into. You could also design pyramids shapes between bottles to increase surface area for sunlight to heat.
Before watching this, I was just hitting my head against a project that wasn't going the way I wanted it to despite me enjoying the general design and iterating process. I agree with you in terms of wanting to finish and try out something even when you're not sure of the outcome on the off chance you might just be striking something that will enrich you, even if just mentally or spiritually. Of course, we need to be careful not to spend too much of that time only on play, but it's important to let yourself be open to these experiences and the opportunity to not succeed in the way you wanted to but learning through that all the same.
Absolutely. Finding that balance between learning through play and being productive is tricky. It's an easier decision when you're making a RU-vid video out of it!
if you got some nice (not 3d printed , or at least non toxic filement) pipes and a good rain water filter, you could still reuse the bottles to catch rainwater over the day or night when your parked. i do believe you need to boil it still but you could probably get an electric boiler to run off a battery bank and use your solar panal to charge and run it.
Love the reflection of the project at the end of the video. It *is* nice when the idea works but if it doesn’t then the lessons learned will have to do. 😊
I got confused cause at first I thought you were going to make a water filter and use the bottles as a collection mechanism to collect any rain water. Or use the bottles as a material for the 3d printer to use. Glad you had fun though!
A good solution for filling would be to print a "baseplate" rhst supports the water bottles at the bottom and attach it to the base with removable struts so you can fill while upside down then flip it b
I can't help but think about cutting the bottles open from the bottom (top of shower) and making some kind of 16 spout single opening funnel for refilling them with rain water/filling stations
I am surprised you don't have a way to turn your bottles into plastic thread to then turn into filament! Reduce, REUSE!!!! Recycle, in that order! You got this! I think it would be a sweet project for you too.
basically the way they do it for water heating in houses. panels with black vacuum insulated tubes filled with water... (solar vacuum tubes for water heating reach 200 C on a sunny summer day I think)
another good method would be using a heat exchanger from a car transmission to heat the water up from the engine heat while driving, ofcourse if your stopped for a few days that wouldn't work as well.
Honestly I would have printed this to make use of the existing cap that comes with each bottle, since that already has the right threads. Also if you need watertight seals to bond all 4 sections together, I would use plumbers putty, silicone is not a waterproofing substance (it can't handle constant water contact).
Do a part 2 paint the bottles black .... And yes a black water bag already work .... The beauty of DIY projects.... Will always be a worthless idea on others mind but not in yours .... You got my thumbs up 😎
I think you could do away with the TPU seal if you look a bit more at the mating surface that hits the mouth of the bottle. The threads don't create the seal, they just pull the cap onto the bottle. You need a surface on the top inside of the cap that seals against the mouth of the bottle.
If you take the bottoms off the bottle and put up with no bottoms on it then add water to them once the entire piece including bottomless water bottle then add water from a bucket or what ever. You don’t need to replace water bottles anymore.
I have been watching your videos for the past week and am absolutely loving them. They have encouraged me so much and gotten me back into 3d printing and modeling. I also think I may try to revive my RU-vid channel! If you have any tips about doing RU-vid, especially when it comes to a maker I would really appreciate it!!
Maybe do some intensive testing with water. The prints are not watertight. Why I know, testing with different Gardena Connectors. First the seems to hold water, but after 1 day you see drops. Thats the issue, yes there are methods form printing watertight. My solution is to dunk the print in a chemical to fill the gaps.
id have used 2 liter bottles and covered them in black black electrical tape, or flex seal. this would also let you increase the max pressure the bottles can hold. spraypaint would crack and flake off.
18:00 "What are you doing?" is what I as asked when I saw this monstrosity in the thumbnail. The way you designed the pipes to all converge at the center, dividing it in 4 pieces that are going to have angled seems that you super glue and caulk to try to seal, and only 0.05 inch wall thickness... If you were to ever try this again then I would suggest making it more modular by having 4x of a piece that connects 4 bottles together and 1x of a piece that connects those 4 pieces together, all designed with 45 degrees as the max overhang so that it shouldn't need supports, and at least 2-3mm SOLID walls is recommended for PETG prints to hold water.
Did you ever try ca glue filler? It's very small plastic balls that melt and bond together when it contacts with ca glue. I made some parts waterproof with that stuff. Try it out, it's not expensive :)
actually, you did solve an interesting problem in how to make a 3d printed bottle of water cap. For that alone, the video was worth every second of what you consider a failure. Your commentary on the design love problem and the work-through to simplicity. Efficient simplicity is typically the result of the epiphanies of design iteration. As Elon Musk requoted "The Best Part is No Part". My interpretation of that is "The Best Design is the simplest that covers the real requirements." The issue sometimes is iterating the use case solutions until you understand what the real requirements actually are. In this case, using what you've learned, another solution that reduces battery load is to have a van-live passive solar heater as a repository for hotter water that can fill and add its prewarmed water load into the heater tank which will reduce the heater load on the battery without sacrificing the quality of the hot shower experience. Hot water is typically used for cleaning in the van thus it is 'gray' water after being used. The solar water heater's water becomes a secondary water source for the van without compromising or consuming as much of your pure water supply though you still need to the cold pure water infeeds and hot water outfeeds separate. Great video though!!!!🤪
Why reinvent the wheel, or the bottlecap in this case? You could have used the caps the bottles came with, drilled holes in them and made something to help seal the attachment.
Yeah I definitely would have made the center part one piece and then had each water bottle holder and tube a separate part that screws or fits into the base piece. Then, each water bottle holder would have mounting points to connect them all together with braces. This way, you could easily iterate the design and beef it up without having to reprint the entire thing. You could beef up the braces by just reprinting the braces. This is the instance where modularity is key.
Maybe at fill tap to the side where you could fill the bottle once all connect but may need a pump to pressure fill. Good work all the same i never seen the fail coming it always trial and error
I really admire your knowledge, skill, and perserverance. Even if it wasn't as successful as you had hoped, just think the next great idea might be more successful than you imagined. It was also a great brain exercise. On another note, I am worried about you traveling in Mexico. I hope you and Eden stay safe,
I thought the project was more about figuring out what to do with all those extra bottles rather than figuring out how to get a hot shower, so I don't think it matters at all that a better design for the latter already exists. As for it failing, I don't think you've ever made a plastic water bottle shower in your life, so I can't imagine why you'd expect to succeed on your first try. Failure and iteration is just always going to be part of the creative process when doing something new. On a different note, I know your audience was built on your wood working stuff, but I hope the lower view count doesn't ever discourage you from making new videos while you're in this transitional period. This is just an opportunity to gain new followers :).
its nice to see the efforts on this video, but you know what maybe it will inspire others to make similar things from alum or steel. anyway thanks for the great vids man.
In regards to designing the cap. Could you have used the original bottle caps and just drilled a hole in them and then glued them onto the rest of the system you made? Also Attach the bottles right side up, then turn them over.
I agree. That was my first thought: you already have at your disposal a perfectly fitted threaded watertight system, so why on earth would you not use that in the design ? Ok, that might seem funnier to try and try again redoing it with a 3D printer, but that’s a total loss of time, energy and material. Which wouldn’t bother me at all if the idea and the promise at first was to recycle and be more ecological…
I havent watch it in full, but i wanted to tell what i think how its going to fail. Basically you have to let the pressure out while emptying the bottle. If not, the water will simply not going anywhere.
