30 ms·

Here's a cheaper and faster hack: soft tube + weighted end. The weighted end will tend to go towards where the liquids are. Imagine a bottle being held lengthw

by chewxy 8y ago

Here's a cheaper and faster hack: soft tube + weighted end. The weighted end will tend to go towards where the liquids are. Imagine a bottle being held lengthwise. The weighted end will be in the same location as where the liquid is. Turn the bottle upside down... the weighted end drops to where the top of the bottle is, along with where the water is. Standard pressure thingies still work - you still get a spray. No need for custom membranse.

PhasmaFelis 8y ago
I saw an instructional thing about that. They did it with a bit of silicone tubing the same diameter as the original, and a steel nut with matching inside diameter. Swap out the tube and screw the nut over the end. I'm not sure you could actually make it work upside-down without crimping, but at any normal usage angle it works great.
fencepost 8y ago
What it really comes down to is the question of the actual goal and the costs of reaching that goal. For a huge percentage of things "good enough" is in fact good enough. It's also important to not confuse the goal and proposed solutions for reaching that goal. For the example above, is the goal to be able to spray upside down? To ensure that the sprayer is able to spray a higher percentage of what's in the bottle? How large is that percentage improvement (90% up to 95%?), what's the incremental cost of increasing that percentage, and what is the actual worth of 5% of the contents of the bottle? A draw tube that is flexible enough to fold in half, strong enough to not kink, sturdy enough to not collapse when bursts of suction are applied, weighted enough to stay in liquid, strong enough to assemble quickly and easily, etc. is probably also expensive enough to just not be an economical solution. By the way, if you don't purchase cleaning supplies regularly you may have missed that a lot of those tubes have gone away - they're now molded as part of the bottle so just tipping the bottle will put all remaining liquid at the intake point.
exikyut 8y ago
What cheap alternatives to small bits of metal could be used for the weight? Metal could interact with and damage a lot of different things.
- mygo 8y ago
  the metal doesn’t need to be exposed to the contents in order to serve its purpose. It just needs to be on location.. could it not be enclosed by the same material of the straw?
mcguire 8y ago
Downside: it's harder (read more expensive) to prevent a soft tube from collapsing under the vacuum.

by chewxy 8y ago

PhasmaFelis 8y ago

I saw an instructional thing about that. They did it with a bit of silicone tubing the same diameter as the original, and a steel nut with matching inside diameter. Swap out the tube and screw the nut over the end. I'm not sure you could actually make it work upside-down without crimping, but at any normal usage angle it works great.

fencepost 8y ago

What it really comes down to is the question of the actual goal and the costs of reaching that goal. For a huge percentage of things "good enough" is in fact good enough. It's also important to not confuse the goal and proposed solutions for reaching that goal. For the example above, is the goal to be able to spray upside down? To ensure that the sprayer is able to spray a higher percentage of what's in the bottle? How large is that percentage improvement (90% up to 95%?), what's the incremental cost of increasing that percentage, and what is the actual worth of 5% of the contents of the bottle? A draw tube that is flexible enough to fold in half, strong enough to not kink, sturdy enough to not collapse when bursts of suction are applied, weighted enough to stay in liquid, strong enough to assemble quickly and easily, etc. is probably also expensive enough to just not be an economical solution. By the way, if you don't purchase cleaning supplies regularly you may have missed that a lot of those tubes have gone away - they're now molded as part of the bottle so just tipping the bottle will put all remaining liquid at the intake point.

exikyut 8y ago

What cheap alternatives to small bits of metal could be used for the weight? Metal could interact with and damage a lot of different things.

mygo 8y ago
the metal doesn’t need to be exposed to the contents in order to serve its purpose. It just needs to be on location.. could it not be enclosed by the same material of the straw?

mcguire 8y ago

Downside: it's harder (read more expensive) to prevent a soft tube from collapsing under the vacuum.