My Fourth Pop Pop (Putt Putt) Boat needs more heat
I ordered some copper tube off eBay and it arrived yesterday so I wanted to make a boiler for a Pop Pop boat. I used a couple of jam jar lids for the actual boiler and used the shortest lengths of copper I could to make the exhaust pipes. I extended them outside the boat using ordinary drinking straws. I used a fruit juice carton (tetrapak) for the boat hull and only cut a fairly small access hatch out hoping that would minimise the impact of the wind in my outdoor boating lake (little pond I made to test these boats). As it happened when I wanted to test it in the 'lake' it was getting too windy and also started raining so I ended up testing it in my bath anyway.
The boat didn't perform very well with a single tea-light burner. It did slightly better with 2 tea-lights but I think it really needs a proper burner burning meths or something similar as it really was not getting hot enough to run effectively. I guess that will be the next stage for the next pop pop boat project.
Or I make the boiler smaller by using just one jam jar lid and some flat plate from a tin, that would halve the internal volume so it should need less heat.
Main Components
-
Fruit Juice carton (tetrapak)
2 small jam jar lids
length of copper pipe
2 drinking straws
Two Part Epoxy Glue
Main Tools
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Heavy duty soldering iron
Craft knife
In response to some of the comments received since I uploaded this video I suggest that if you want some history on Pop Pop boats you look at this Wikipedia link on the subject http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pop_pop_... they have been around since at least 1891 when a patent was filed by a Frenchman named Thomas Piot.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
Water in the boiler is turned to steam. The steam has a greater volume than the water so it pushes out of the boiler and down the tube. In the tube it cools, condenses and contracts so it is drawn back into the boiler and the process repeats. The action of the steam pushing into the tube pushes the existing water in the tube out the back and that drives the boat forwards. The steam condensing and contracting draws water back into the tube ready for the next push.
If your next question is "why doesn't the boat oscillate backwards and forwards due to this push-pull effect?" try blowing a candle out and then try sucking a candle out and you will see the blow is fairly directional but the suck is not.
If you watch the video closely you can see the water moving in the straw.
Here is the link to DaveHax tutorial which I found excellent
• How to Make a Simple Pop Pop Boat
sciencetoymaker has a full step by step tutorial series on putt putt (pop pop) boats starting in January 2009 with episode 1 here • Part 1 Build a Putt Putt/Pop Pop Steam Boa...
Here is a good video on tweeking the speed of these boats
• Part 25 Build a Putt Putt/Pop Pop Steam Bo...
Daryl Foster devotes his channel to Putt Putt boats and here is the first one on his channel also back in 2009 • Part 1 Canadian Putt Putt Boats Water Bug YT
Pop Pop boats • Pop Pop boats
RC Pop Pop boats • RC Pop Pop boats
Toy Boats playlist • Model boats
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