Custom Desktop Waterfall

This is a guide to create a desktop sized waterfall that can be scaled up and still have all the necessary considerations taken in. This guide will take you step by step in creating a structure, adding in a water pump, creating a water sanitization system, and adding controllable LED lighting.

Tools Needed:

• Hot wire Foam Cutter (Can be done with exacto knife but will take longer)
• Razor Blade / Exacto knife
• Marker
• Roofing Square
• Soldering Iron and equipment

Materials Needed:

• Water Pump
• Tupper ware container
• Insulation foam, or another material of your choosing such as clay, rocks, or 3d print
• Fish tank motor
• RGB and UV LED's
• Wire, any wire will work but there is an amazon link incase
• Arduino Uno or Arduino Mega
• Mode Podge
• Water Puddy

First a rough design will need to be drawn up of how the final product will look, this will act as a guide to follow but also help in choosing the material that will be used in construction. The final product does not need to follow this exactly as it will only be a guide to follow.

The Tupperware container will be used to both hold the water pump and is a reservoir for water to be collected and pumped back to the top of the fountain.

Choose the size of the Tupperware based on the size of the fountain, as the volume of our water fountain is 1'x1'x1' then we chose a about a 4"x 6" sized container.

Then mark out and cut out where the container will sit within the fountain.

This part is where the creativity comes in as there is no correct way to make it!

For our structure we cut out layers that mimicked the shape of rock and got decreasingly smaller and then cut out holes for pockets of water to pool up.

Mark where you will add in any water features and be sure to plan paths for the tube for water to be pumped to top and any places where wires will have to be routed through the structure.

Cut out the routes that the tubing will follow and create routes for the water to flow through the waterfall.

This is a simple code that will cycle through different colors.

To change it to different colors type the line RGB_color(blue value, red value, green value);

Each value ranges from 0 to 255 and can control the different brightness and color the LED produces.

int red_light_pin= 11;
int green_light_pin = 10;
int blue_light_pin = 9;


int count = 0;
int inc = 0;


void setup() {
  pinMode(red_light_pin, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(green_light_pin, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(blue_light_pin, OUTPUT);
  Serial.begin(9600);
}
void loop() {


RGB_color(255,0,0);


count = 0;
inc = 0;


//increase red
while(count<255)
{
  count++;
  inc++;
  RGB_color(255,inc,0);
  delay(20);
  Serial.println(inc);
}




count=255;
inc = 255;


//decrease blue
while(count>0)
{
  count--;
  inc--;
  RGB_color(inc,255,0);
  delay(20);
  Serial.println(inc);
}


count = 0;
inc = 0;


//increase green
while(count<255)
{
  count++;
  inc++;
  RGB_color(0,255,inc);
  delay(20);
  Serial.println(inc);
}


count = 255;
inc = 255;


//decrease red
while(count>0)
{
  count--;
  inc--;
  RGB_color(0,inc,255);
  delay(20);
  Serial.println(inc);
}


count = 0;
inc = 0;


//increase blue
while(count<255)
{
  count++;
  inc++;
  RGB_color(inc,0,255);
  delay(20);
  Serial.println(inc);
}


count = 255;
inc = 255;


//decrease green
while(count>0)
{
  count--;
  inc--;
  RGB_color(255,0,inc);
  delay(20);
  Serial.println(inc);
}


}


void RGB_color(int red_light_value, int green_light_value, int blue_light_value)
 {
  analogWrite(red_light_pin, red_light_value);
  analogWrite(green_light_pin, green_light_value);
  analogWrite(blue_light_pin, blue_light_value);
}

Tools and Supplies for wiring

• Hot Glue Gun
• Hot Glue
• Solder
• Wire cutters
• Electrical Tape
• Soldering flus (Not needed but recommended)
• Soldering Iron
• RGB and UV Led's
• Resistors

Wire the UV led's in parallel so that all of the posotive leads are connected together and that all the negative leads are connected together.

The positive lead of the LED is the longer leg and the negative lead is the shorter leg.

The length of the wire is not too important as they are just used to sanitize the water, they just need to be able to reach a spot so that the UV light can reach the water.

The soldered LED's can be seen in the third photo and will be finished in the next step.

Add wires to the very end of one of the LED's and add a bit of solder to each tip to make it easy to connect to the Arduino.

To waterproof the connection and add strength cover the open leads and wires full in hot glue and let dry.

While not necessary wrapping the length of the cord in electrical tape helps keep it tidy and add strength.

Measure out the length of wire needed for each RGB to reach the Arduino, keep in mind that they will be on the same cord.

The RGB LED's are also wired in parallel so be sure to connect each wire to the same leads on both LED's.

At the end of the ground wire solder in a 470 ohm resistor that came with the LED's to step down the voltage from 5 to 3.3 volts coming from the Arduino as they will burn out if not.

These will also need to be waterproofed in the same fashion as before by covering the LED leads and wires in hot glue, this also adds much need strength to the connections.

First mark out where the LED's are going to be placed and then using a knife or old soldering iron create a pocket for the LED to sit in so that it is flush when it is all put together.

Construct the whole waterfall without any water to make sure that all of the components fit together properly before it is permanently glued together and made watertight.

Cut random jagged edges into the foam to help create the appearance of rock once it is fully completed.

After this step will be waterproofing and gluing so it is important to make all changes now.

Cover the entire structure in mode podge and water puddy to fully seal in the foam and prevent water from damaging it.

Be sure to glue each layer together and completely fill any holes where LED's and wires run through the structure to prevent water from leaking out any of the sides.

Now that the main structure is complete it is up to you to decide how the final product will look! You can get creative and add decor to match the theme you are going for.

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