A water fountain equipped with LED Lighting controlled by Bluetooth.

Katara is light water and frequency integration project,when the light hits the water just right, it creates beautiful visual effects that will leave you in an AWE.

This project is done by fablab Irbid`s Deputy Manager , Nadine Tuhaimer .
For more information visit her website : Nadine Tuhaimer

Step 1: Materials and Tools.

In case you want to make your own Katara, you'll need the following:

1. Bluetooth Module

2. LED Strip

3. 12V Car Universal Windshield Windscreen Washer Pump

4. Acrylic (black 6mm, Clear 3mm).

5. Wood 18mm (1x1 m) - I used MDF due to availability

6. 3D Printing Filament (PLA) - 970 grams

7. Clear Resin - 215ml

Step 2: Design and Manufacturing

3D Design Using Fusion360

We used Fusion 360 to do all the design related task. We wanted to design something that would look close to a water drop as Katra project includes water integration. Parts of the design are going to be CNC'd, others will be 3D Printed and Lasercut.

You can find the source file in the attachments.

3D printing:

A- FDM Printed Parts

We decided to print the back part of the box that carries the water tank and electronics.

After I saved the file as STL, I opened it with Cura. We used the following settings:

Layer Height: 0.1mm
Wall Thickness: 0.8mm Top/Bottom
Thickness: 0.8mm
Infill: 50%, infill dictates how rigid your print is
Print Speed: 60mm/s
Material Used: PLA Printing
Temprature: 215
Nozzle: 0.4mm
Print Bed Temprature: 60
Support was enables and set to everywhere becuase I have tracks for the acrylic.
Support Pattern: Zig Zag.
Support Density: 5%.

2. The next part we printed was the left and right joints. we also used Cura asn set the same settings.

3.funnel :

The funnel was self supported and didn't need any support. I used the same settings as before since I used the same material and the results were great.

B- SLA Printed Tank

We print the water tank using SLA since we want it to be water proof.

The printer available in the lab is the Form2 and we used clear resin to print the tank so we can see the water level.

CNC " Computer Controlled Machining"

We converted the 3D parts into 2D to cut them using the Shopbot CNC machine using the following settings:

The tool we used is the 1/4" endmill.
Spindle speed : 1400 r.p.m
Feed rate: 3.00 inch/sec
Plung rate: 0.5 inch/sec

Once all the parts were done, I had to do some sanding to get a perfect finish, then I painted it all in black, even the 3D Printed parts. The only thing I left in white is the funnel

Laser cut:

We designed really simple pieces, like the acrylic separation that would fit into the bottom box and separate between the water tank and electronics. used a 6mm black acrylic and the settings for cutting is:

Power 100 %
Speed 0.35.
Frequency 5000.

We also cut the outer frame using laser to give my project a shiny feel, using 3mm black acrylic and the settings for cutting is:

Power 100 %
Speed 0.8.
Frequency 1000.

Step 3: Electronics

The components of Katra board are :

Atmega328P X 1
Crystal 16MHz.
Pin headers.
voltage regulators X2. One will regulate the voltage from 12V to 5V , the other will regulates the voltage from 5V to 3.3V.
MOSFET x1
potentiometer 10 K X1

The schematic and the design of the board shown in the above pictures.

Input & Output Devices

Micro Servo motor"
The tiny little servo can rotate approximately 90 degrees (45 in each direction)"
LED strip : In the code we use FASTLED Library.
Washer pump : it uns on 5V-12V. We only need 5V for Katra project.

We need the pump to keep operating all the time with certain pulses. And the same goes for the LED Strip and the Servo Motor. We use timer library. The Katra code is attached.

Step 4: Networking & Communications

We used HC-05 Bluetooth module, Then we wrote the code for the Bluetooth , it just checks if any data is received and compares it using a switch case code.

The above video shows the communication with the project through an Android Application called Bluetooth Terminal HC-05.