Courageous wrote:


I would like to build (or attempt to build) a water fountain that
squirts jets of water (continuously or in pulses) similar to the
"dancing fountains" at the EPCOT center in Disney World or as shown in
the pictures at www.waltzingwaters.com, but on a MUCH smaller scale.
I'd like to try just to do one very small (18-20 inches) fountain like
this in my back yard.

Hrm. I don't know what the EPCOT fountains do, however I do know a
bit about pumps and timing electronics.

Tell me what you want to achieve.

I should warn you that all fountains of type I am imagining that
you are planning are driven by dedicated computers. This is a non
trivial project. A friend of mine has the most elaborate water
fountain in private hands west of the mississipi. As impressive
as that sounds, the fountain really isn't that big, and it costs
more than you care to know.

C//

I can think of a few ways to do that but the easiest and best would be
to have maybe 3 or 4 solenoid valves (asco is one brand) that have
coils that fire with low voltage, maybe 9v. I would plumb each to
whatever jets I want to shoot. Then I would figure how to time them
-- what I might try is to get a dj light show thing that makes lights
go off and on with music. Then I would hook up the solenoids to the
different frequencies, hook them up to a pump, and voila, (oh, put a
strobe light in there somewhere, and it's game on. Kim