eddieq wrote:"... I was thinking that either I would attach another long board to the back that the launcher would stand on... "
Sounds like a good plan. Post the video, if you get a chance.
Speaking of building prototypes I've wound up making 5 different containers for a catalyst in a reaction, and still counting. I thought this was going to be dead easy too!
1.
Fluoropolymer bag heat-sealed with 75 micron openings.
Worked, sort of. But the catalyst clumped together and the product structure was changed.
2.
Switched back to smaller bead-size for the catalyst.
3.
PEEK bag* heat-sealed into container with multiple small 'pockets' and 35 micron mesh openings to overcome clumping.
Bag turned 90 degrees sideways and made several smaller 'clumps'.
4.
Realized that I needed something to hold the container into an open volume so that the catalyst would float freely in the solution. Made an FEP framework by cutting out most of the sides of a 60ml FEP (its basically like teflon) bottle and then heat-sealing the 35 micron mesh around it. Worked pretty well but the EtOH evolved by the reaction made the bag 'float' so that less of the free volume was filled with liquid than optimal.
5.
When 4 was done again on a 2x lager scale I added 12g of glass rasig rings to weigh them down (used two to accommodate the larger scale). Worked! The bags sank anyway but the stir-bar now hit them so often that the bags broke open negating the whole thing.
Shit! And we're already scaling up this reaction to a 5L jacketed reactor with an even more vigorous and damaging stirrer so this has to be fixed!
Ok so for the next round I'm making a framework to go INTO the mesh bag and hold it open and a framework to go OUTside the bag to protect it from harm from the stirrer. Now I'm a research chemist and REALLY impatient so I usually just look around the lab for something I can cut up and make into what I want and this is getting more challenging. AND what I really need to be doing is developing the material properties of this stuff which means changing the chemistry not making some damn container that in the RW I'm just going to pay someone to fabricate for me.
Yrs,
rubato
* the vendor stopped making the fluoropolymer bag in favor of PEEK which is similar in most properties but does not heat-seal as well.
Does that count?
