Life Straw

For support, refilling, personal, strategic, and misc. equipment used during a water fight.
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marauder
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Life Straw

Post by marauder » Tue Jan 10, 2017 2:07 pm

This is pretty cool, and I might get it for hiking, camping, and kayaking - https://www.amazon.com/LifeStraw-LSPHF0 ... B006QF3TW4

I was thinking, we could probably use these for refilling from streams, rivers, ponds, and other natural sources.
https://hydrowar.wordpress.com/
SEAL wrote:If you ain't bloody and muddy by the end of the day, you went to a Nerf war.

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Tim
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Re: Life Straw

Post by Tim » Tue Jan 10, 2017 9:59 pm

Hi marauder,

That does look pretty cool. How would you use it to fill a water blaster? Would you have to suck the water into your mouth and spit it into the reservoir? Some similar products on Amazon have a little pump instead of using your mouth suction.

Has refilling from natural water sources caused issues with your blasters in the past? If you do need to filter these natural sources, how fine does the filtration really need to be? Products like the Life Straw employ nanofiltration, ultrafiltration, or fine microfiltration. However, wouldn't fine particulate filtration be adequate? I only ask because (given the same filtration area) a particulate filter would pass a greater flow rate and would not clog as fast as other separation technologies.

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SSCBen
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Re: Life Straw

Post by SSCBen » Tue Jan 10, 2017 10:30 pm

This is an interesting find, marauder, thanks for pointing it out. I probably will grab one of these for my survival kit.

Tim makes an excellent point. I think we could make a filter that's more relevant for water guns. The water does not need to be potable, but it should be free of visible debris. I can also think of one smaller thing which should be removed.

Dissolved gas bubbles in water can cause breakup by themselves or through encouraging cavitation. I don't think the latter is too important for water guns, but I could be wrong. The former has been discussed in a few published papers, for example, this one. I'll post some ideas that I have outlined in a note.

Wikipedia has a page on degasification of liquids. Multiple approaches are mentioned. One is boiling, which is not practical for us. Higher temperatures could be more practical, but I don't think we want to fire hot water at each other. One possibly practical one is reducing the solubility of air in water by pulling a vacuum on the water. I don't know how quickly the air would separate, however.

The final possibility mentioned is some sort of gas-liquid separation membrane, which I assume is a fancy filter. I did a quick Google search, but I don't really know what I'm doing here, so I couldn't determine how expensive these are or how large the pressure drop across them would be.

Another approach is letting the water sit for a long time. How long is enough is unclear to me. This study uses this approach. (Note: I do not support the conclusion those researchers came to. Their data seems okay, but the nozzle lengths they used give the wrong impression. The relationship between nozzle length and breakup is much more complicated than they indicate.)

Now, maybe all this effort to remove small air bubbles is not worthwhile. I suspect that would be fairly easy to verify with some simple tests comparing degassed water and regular water.

marauder
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Re: Life Straw

Post by marauder » Wed Jan 11, 2017 10:58 am

Tim wrote:Has refilling from natural water sources caused issues with your blasters in the past? If you do need to filter these natural sources, how fine does the filtration really need to be? Products like the Life Straw employ nanofiltration, ultrafiltration, or fine microfiltration. However, wouldn't fine particulate filtration be adequate? I only ask because (given the same filtration area) a particulate filter would pass a greater flow rate and would not clog as fast as other separation technologies.
Fine particulate filtration would work just fine. I was only thinking that it would be useful for purchase since it would have dual uses. E.g. you could drink during the fight, or while camping or whatever, and also use it for refilling. Natural sources haven't been that much of an issue, but I do tend to get leaves, and all other stuff in my tank from time to time, or at least I have to fight that while refilling. I figured this might be safer, especially for older blasters.

Perhaps we should make some moderate sized dual way pump with a filter on it. Shouldn't be too difficult. I know some people carry around canteens or water bottles.

At MOAB I ditched the dual canteens I used to carry in favor of a knife, a cell phone, and extra socks. I didn't use the extra socks, even though my feet were wet, but I used them to keep my phone dry, and we actually used our phones a bit. The knife came in handy. The canteen pouch was useful for putting my action camera in (along with the phone, etc.) when I didn't want to record/have it on my head. I also carried waterballoons in my shoulder pocket, which came in handy to extend my range and force people back from time to time. I have been modding my light blasters to have a waterballoon filler over the nozzle. I carried an XP 70 with a larger PC and waterbaloon filler as a sidearm and my modded 600 was also able to fill balloons. That worked out actually better than carrying around canteens. Rather clunky if you ask me. I've also looked into collapsable waterbottles.

The more water I have the more I will shoot my blaster. Even if I'm not as likely to make hits, it at least keeps the enemy moving. I like to be aggressive, but you have to play according to the blasters that you carry. It was interesting using the modded 600 + waterballoons + XP 70. The combo was not nearly as bulky as you'd imagine, and I actually fared quite well.

Tangent -

I really am interested in water purification and clarity. This includes stormwater systems as well as natural water sources. My cousin Drew, which some of you met at Hydropoc, is looking at going to UNC for a Masters in Environmental Engineering for this kind of work. One day I would love to purchase the land surrounding Little Creek, by the dam where we played. I want to clean up the water and revamp the ecosystem there. It is beautiful and has lots of potential.

If you didn't come to the war you should look forward to Chief's video that he is making on it. We have some really good footage. You will also see the kind of water sources we were using where a life straw or an even more functional pump would come in handy. We had one really long round that lasted from 11:30 to 3, and then another from 3:30 to 4:15. We ate and drank on the fly. I'm not saying that drinking from the stream with a life straw would be my first choice. But if you really wanted to be hardcore about it, or ran out of the potable water you packed, or if you didn't want to bring any potable water in it could definitely be useful for that as well.
https://hydrowar.wordpress.com/
SEAL wrote:If you ain't bloody and muddy by the end of the day, you went to a Nerf war.

scottthewaterwarrior
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Re: Life Straw

Post by scottthewaterwarrior » Wed Feb 01, 2017 11:36 am

I tend to go through a lot of drinking water during wars, this would be very useful. I agree though, something with a pump would be more useful, then I could refill my water bottle with it. As for filling blasters, I used to be very picky with that, I was only willing to fill from fresh sources. These days, I fill clear bottles from streams/puddles, and so long as there isn't a bunch of things floating in it, it goes in the gun. The one exception to that is light blasters with less then 1x output, those I still only fill from fresh sources.
"If you are wet at the end of a water war, you are doing it wrong"
Van: "What happened?" SEAL: "Scott Happened"
Alex: "But the stream is cold." Me: "It's fine, my feet really hurt, now they're numb!"

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