[MOC] The Mists of Avalegon

[MajorAlvega]

Hi!

This is a small island made for the Medieval table of our LUG exhibition, Oeiras BRInCKa 2016, last week.

The Mists of Avalegon by Jorge Pereira, on Flickr

This was the second time we had real water in our table and since one of us brought a smoking vulcano (real smoke from a RC "portable" fog machine intended for parties) I've been researching ways of doing a fog / mist effect at small scale. Have been working with model train smoke generators and also custom made smoke generators but for this particular MOC I decided to use 3 USB bottle cap air humidifiers.

Each unit has a wick that brings water from the bottle to a small metal part at the top that vibrates fast enough to disperse the water in small droplets that float in the air - one can see two of those metal parts at the left size of the island, near the cauldron and the dolmen, the third one is hidden near the pine tree. Each wick was cut to the height of the unit and I also opened a small hole near the bottom so water could reach the wick. Luckily the USB plug is near the top of the cap so no need to protect it from water.

At the beginning of the exhibition I used just 1 USB power adapter and 1 USB hub to power all units but later opted to use 3 power adapters to give enough power to each one (I suspect each can draw near 700 mA).

It worked very well all 4 days, except that after 8 to 10 hours I also found that I had to remove and reconnect power, not sure if there's some kind of timer or temperature protection in the units.

Merlin by Jorge Pereira, on Flickr

The Merlin minifig is using a custom made cloak, printed with an inkjet printer on canvas ("Reeves acrylic pad", A5-size paper for painting, 190 grams per square meter) and a Brick Warriors lyre. I forgot to put the elf minifig original cloak but after some hours of exhibition I decided it was best to leave that way, there was already to much water over the MOC and it would probably ruin it.

Edited February 18, 2016 by MajorAlvega

[dzidek1983]

One tip for the future. Add a kids bath dye into the water so its dark blue, you hide all the cables and other not so preety stuff under the water.

If its not possible then hide at least the cables, the final look is the most important - it's a shame if it's not perfect after so much hard work you guys put into this.

I really like the idea with the fog.

[MajorAlvega]

Thanks, that's a good tip we've never thought of.

Indeed, the cables were not supposed to be seen... but lack of time and preparation made me forget about that (we had several other things at the table, our first collaborative castle the most important).

We've been discussing several water aspects - we want waves (a decent Technic wave generator is on the way for the third exhibition) and better shores (BURPs or something better) and we are considering the bottom of the ocean to be covered with LEGO.

So a dye might also work, we'll considerer it.

Funny you said "kids bath die"... some of us almost brought soap powder to try some bubbles at the end of the event.

[bricklover]

Awesome build! Cool figs!

[dzidek1983]

Waves are easy, you only need a water pump from an aquarium. I suppose it's much cheaper then Lego parts.

[MajorAlvega]

Waves are easy, you only need a water pump from an aquarium. I suppose it's much cheaper then Lego parts.

Yes, one of our LUG mates has an aquarium pump and I might try it. But I'm more Technic/Mindstorms than Castle so I'm considering something more complex like this:

[dzidek1983]

You would sink that island with such waves :D

[MajorAlvega]

No problem, I'll just change the name to "The Mists of Atlantis" and add some mermaids and tritons :D