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Water drops into a bowl of water

Ever noticed how a water droplet into water creates nice splashes?
This time we explore this in more details using the high speed camera and some electronics:

The electronics

The electronics part will get an own article in the grumpydevelep profile.
But the gist is a valve with a small water reservoir that is controlled by ESP8266 micro controller, with a web based UI and a few cheap components that can control this valve (and more). The code and electronics is already available as open source at https://git.contentnation.net/grumpydevelop/CameraTrigger

The settings

First, you need some control (like the electronics above) to create the best result, but a leaky faucet could work as well.
Here, the droplet size is controlled by opening my valve for 40ms. In the reservoir above the valve is normal tap water.
In the bowl is tap water mixed with a small amount of thickening agent, I used guar flour. I probably used a bit too much, in the video there are still tiny particles that seem to be unsolved into the water. But that gives a bit of texture so I kept it that way.

For the so called drop on drop effect on the second part you absolutely need some control electronics, a leaky faucet won't work.
After a few trials I came up with the receipt of Time 0, open valve for 40ms, at 138ms open again for another 40ms. +-1ms makes a difference.
But this is affected by the water thickness, so take this as a rough time.

But I don't have an expensive High-Speed-Camera!

Alternatively you can use a flash to freeze the motion and create single photos, like the one used in the profile picture.
You need to connect a flash to the control electronics and add an extra time to fire the flash, and probably another one to control the camera.
This will be explained in more details in the above mentioned article.

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