How to Make a Foam Machine?

It’s a foam party. I think you should have one.
If you’ve ever blown bubbles, you’re familiar with the basic principles. You can create bubbles by forming a soap film over an opening, and then blowing air through it.
Foam is also made of tiny bubbles, millions and billions of them stacked up together. We must blow a lot of tiny bubbles simultaneously in order to create foam. We need to make something much smaller, thousands of times in parallel, instead of an entire bubble wand created from a loop of wire dipped in soap. It’s the FPGA for bubble blowing.
As a starting point, we will use a fabric membrane that will act as the surface on which the bubbles are generated. Soapy water is then poured over the membrane. By this time, the fabric has become a matrix of tiny holes covered in the soapy film. Then, the air is blown through the fabric, creating thousands of bubbles at once, which coalesce into a foam. You’ve got a foam machine if you keep the air flowing and the fabric wet!

Foam machines can be cheap or really expensive based on the materials and hardware you have on hand. There are four main components that will be needed: a foam cone, a pump, a tank, and an air supply.
The following guide is only one way to create a foam machine, with the intention of using cheap and readily available components in order to achieve the desired result. Obviously, if you have the money to throw at the build, or if you have lots of great gear lying around, there are other paths you can take, but this should get you started.
This is the basic layout of a remote-air foam machine. In contrast, a direct foam machine attaches the membrane and sprinkler head directly to the air outlet.
The tank is a simple consideration – it holds your soapy water mixture. 250 liters should be sufficient for a party of 30 guests and a 4x4m dance floor. From barrels to garbage bins, basically, any vessel can be used. Nevertheless, given that people will be dancing in your foam, cleanliness is paramount. It is best to use a new, clean tank – using an old 44-gallon oil drum will cause contact dermatitis to all your friends.
Our wine barrels were previously used to store food-grade ethanol for wine production, and we washed them several times before use. Lightweight, cheap, and the top was easy to cut off so we could drop the pump in.
A 2% mixture of soapy water is recommended for foam fluid in DIY builds. Mixing 5 liters of dishwashing liquid with 250 liters of water proved successful for this author.
The key is to hit a minimum concentration here; we lost a lot of time wondering why the machine didn’t generate foam until we realized our mix was a factor of 10 to dilute.
Pumping soapy water from the tank to the foam cone with enough pressure to properly atomize it through the spray nozzles is the job of the water pump.
The pump should be able to deliver 10 liters per minute with a few meters of the head, but finding a pump that meets these requirements can be challenging.
After a failed experiment with a drain pump from a washing machine, we decided to spend $70 on the cheapest high-flow submersible pump.
Its maximum flow rate was overkill for the application with 233 liters per minute. As a general rule, oversizing is better than undersizing when working within time and budget limitations.
Additionally, since it was a submersible pump, it simplified the plumbing. Rather than having to worry about priming the pump and attaching fittings and hoses to the tank, we just had to put the pump in and turn it on.
Since cheap, high-flow submersible pumps are readily available at most big hardware chains, they’re a safe bet and will do the trick.

When using a foam machine, safety is of paramount importance. When water and electricity are combined in a drilling rig, precautions must be taken to avoid electrocution risk; ignoring this can have tragic consequences.
The leaf blowers were placed inside a cabinet to reduce noise, but they also increased operating temperatures. They were closely monitored to prevent fires.
It is essential that the foam machine is built in such a way that the electrical components and cables don’t come into contact with water or foam.
It should be true both during normal operation, as well as in the event of a leak or failure. We know from Murphy’s Law that whatever goes wrong will go wrong, so it makes sense to design the machine to be as safe as possible even in the case of a failure.
In our design, by using a submersible pump that is rated appropriately, the water delivery system can be considered electrically safe. It is also possible to connect pipes from the leaf blowers to the foam cone in order to keep them away from the water and foam.
Moreover, the leaf blowers were also elevated well above the floor, a position that would ensure they would remain dry even as the foam level increased.
The room chosen for the foam party was a kitchen, which had no floor-level electrical outlets that might inadvertently be turned on. The foam was kept well below the level of the outlets in the room to prevent electrical contact with the fluid.
Operating procedures are also part of safety. It was only allowed to operate the foam machine under strict supervision, during our party.
This meant that if there was a leak or a fire, someone was always on hand to shut it down. A number of individuals received training on what to do if there is a fire or other malfunction.
In case it became unsafe to approach the machine to shut it down, the group was also provided with the location of fire extinguishers and the electrical switchboard.
To do dangerous things safely, one must take the proper precautions.

If you’re working on a project that involves water, chances are you’ll encounter leaks. We encountered slipping hoses, holes in our water lines, and even the tank siphoning out because the pump lacked a stop valve. We were able to improve the design over time by fitting taps at several points in our lines so that we could shut things off quickly in the event of a leak.
Our hoses broke at the halfway point of the party, which meant we spilled only 50 liters of fluid during a rambunctious party. Furthermore, the flow rate to the foam cones can be adjusted to help maximise foam production and avoid overflow.
If you have any tips on producing the best foams, please share them with this writer. She would love to spend a year researching the fluid mechanics and engineering factors involved.
In other words, good clean fun.
Don’t underestimate the value of enlisting others’ help on a project like this. Troubleshooting can be sped up by having people around to fetch tools and offer different perspectives. In addition, different skills can be brought to the table. Due to the help of an experienced farmhand, I was able to better fit our pipes to the barbed fittings by using a kettle. And foam is always more fun with friends!
It’s relatively easy for an experienced hacker to put together a foam machine and throw a party, and we have experimentally verified that adding suds makes any dancefloor 200% more popular. You know who to call when you pull off that sweet, foamy build. Have fun!

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