Lumia and Torture Tubes

[Jem]

Hi All

Following on from another lumia thread I figured i'd have a go at making some 'torture tubes'.

I had a long think about this and decided to try some thin glass bottles that were readily available on Ebay.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...m=160642130274

The reason I chose these glass bottles was...

1. They are fairly thin walled, therefore easy to heat up and shape.

2. They were reasonably cheap

3. They come with a screw cap that gives a convenient way of holding them onto the motor. This means they can easily be changed for different effects.

So armed with my trusty Propane blowtorch I set about heating the tubes and prodding them with various implements in order to distort them. Here is the result...





You can see from the above photo's that I have simply drilled the cap and screwed it onto the shaft adaptor with an M4 hexscrew.

Here is some hastily put together video of the result using just a green laser. I also had a bit of patterned glass inbetween the tube and the laser to spread the light a little as I found it works better. I also found that it's better not to hit the tube square on with the laser, but rather to angle it so the beam passes through completely different areas of the tube. Also if you're using a polarised laser you can hit the tube at ~ Brewster's angle to minimise reflections.





Be patient they take a few moments to load . Oh, and I speeded up the motor considerably so you could see a whole range of the effects much quicker

I also found another advantage of using glass bottles... You can put a few drops of various viscous liquids inside the bottles and as the tube turns these flow down the side of the glass giving even more cool effects - WARNING - Don't do this with a high power laser ! . Also, if you move the tube just a fraction you get a whole new set of effects.

Thanks must go to DSLI_Jon for the inspiration

Cheers

Jem

[White-Light]

Nice Jem.

Like I said elsewhere, you never cease to amaze me. You seem to be good at everything laser related. Maybe time to come back out of retirement and do some more shows.

[Jem]

Haha... International man of mystery, that's me

[swamidog]

very nice! i had the same sort of luck with my attempt:

[Jem]

Nice

These tubes seem to give a much nicer effect than just patterned glass on it's own. I'm really inspired now to get the RGB lasers mounted onto a baseplate. I have four nice slow mains motors and a couple of spare dichro's so hopefully I should soon be in business.

[Anthony]

Wow thats a nice "trippey" effect!!!!
What kind of motors do you guys use?

[Jem]

Anything that rotates slowly and smoothly. Usually anything in-between ½ RPM and 2 rpm tends to be best.

These lumia effects are beautiful when using RGB lasers. There are many others on this forum that are into Lumia effects, some are just getting really into it and some are old-school guys that have been doing it for years, they are the 'True' master's. Take a look at DSLI_Jon's Laserium webpage if you want to see some truly inspiring stuff.

Cheers

Jem

[absolom7691]

Would polycarbonate lexan tubes work? I don't have enough experience with glass to pull something like this off. I do have access to lexan tubes of various diameters though and I can work comfortably with that. Pattern glass and fluorescent diffusers are not working for me, it refracts the light way too much and scatters it everywhere. Jem, I am loving your lumia effects. That is some great stuff. Same with you, Swami. I am from the old school Laserium days, I absolutely love lumia as well as complex abstracts.

[Jem]

I don't see why polycarbonate, lexan or any other acrylic tube wouldn't work provided you can soften it and distort it. If you have a Propane blowtorch you ought to try these glass bottles. There really is nothing to it, just heat 'em up until they soften (flame starts to give off a yellowish sodium glow at this point) and then simply prod them with various implements. Do be a little careful though as there is a fine line between being just soft enough and melting the glass completely

I'm going to try solid clear acrylic tube next as the thin walled glass can produce internal reflections which are perceived as lines in the lumia. Using solid tube should alleviate this. Only problem is with solid acrylic is that you need something much hotter than Propane to soften it. I believe Oxy-Acetelane is the norm for working with this stuff.

Cheers

Jem

[White-Light]

Only problem is with solid acrylic is that you need something much hotter than Propane to soften it. I believe Oxy-Acetelane is the norm for working with this stuff.

Cheers

Jem

Jem have you tried MAPP, assuming your torch will take it. Its twice as hot as Propane.

If not remind me if I come round again to bring my MAPP torch and we'll have a play.