Blow 14,000 Bubbles Per Minute with This 3D Printed ‘Bubble Bucket’

Personally, I love browsing through the various projects each morning that people upload to websites such as Thingiverse, YouMagine.com, and the handful of other 3D printing repositories on the internet. It never fails that I find something that I can add to my ever-growing list of projects that I one day wish to create.

One such creation that I recently discovered was for a device called the Bubble Bucket. Designed by a man who goes by the name “Scratchhax,” it is capable of creating a plethora of bubbles which can engulf an entire yard. Certainly you’ve seen bubble machines before, but more than likely you haven’t seen one quite as impressive as this one.

“The idea [for the Bubble Bucket] had two origins; the first one being that my kids and I just really enjoy having a bubble machine to play with when the weather is nice,” Scratchhax tells 3DPrint.com. “The second reason was from my Wife [who is] working with special needs children and wanting to use the idea of a bubble machine, hooked to a switch that they could control regardless of physical ability as a re-enforcer.”

The entire assembly for the Bubble Bucket was designed by Scratchhax using Autodesk 123d Design. It essentially is a modified chain drive for a motorcycle, except, rather than helping the wheels of a bike turn, it is mounted vertically into a bucket with its bottom half submerged into bubble solution. When the chain rotates, it brings the 3D printed wands up and out of the solution, where a fan or other method of air hits the wands, causing the bubbles to form.

“The wands, chain, sprockets, hinge pins and motor housing are all 3D printed,” Scratchhax tells us. “I’m using a 4mm shaft coupler to join the motor to the drive sprocket, a 60RPM gear head motor to drive everything and aluminum extrusion to hold everything in the bucket.”

Depending on just how windy of a day it is, or how much air is directed toward the wands, we are told the machine has the ability to blow between 2,000 and 14,000 bubbles per minute. It includes 40 bubble wands, each including 6 “bubblers.” A full chain rotation is completed every 10 seconds, and typically between 1 and 10 bubbles are successfully formed per bubbler each time.

Scratchhax has made the 3D printable files, as well as the instructions for assembly, available for free on Thingiverse. While the device works quite nicely as is, he is still looking into finding a better working motor coupling. What do you think about this cool 3D printable device? Have you made your own yet? Discuss in the Bubble Bucket forum thread on 3DPB.com.  Check out the video below.