Ben, for your own good, don't read this.

b_dick

Has anyone here ever seen (or heard) a flame amplifier? I first heard about the concept about a million years ago, but I've never seen one or met anyone who has seen one.

The basic idea is that an audio signal is applied to a valve, which modulates the flow of a fuel to a flame. The size of the flame varies with the fuel flow, thus amplifying the signal and converting it to sound in one step.

Is this real, or legend?

If it is real, it's not for your average basement rec room. Definitely a patio speaker design concept...or for the beach, with welding cylinders for power! (Ben, you really shouldn't have looked.)

disneyjoe7

I can tell you it's true I've see it. All you really need is to place a fuel on one end LPG (I would google this really good first before a spark was added) but the fuel is on one end of a tube, a membrane was on the other. The tube was like 2' or so but this doesn't matter so much with small holes for the flame the other end of tube had a membrane or rubber end so sound would modulate the flame. I looked like a Stereo fireplace, like a Oscilloscope looked really good with sin wave but not sure on how it would look like with music. Now with a Sub LFE signal

disneyjoe7

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/VEiEBEadZFI&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/VEiEBEadZFI&hl=en&fs=1&quot; type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>



NO BEN NO

disneyjoe7

Found this also with music to it (not English but half way into see it )

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/6EhyRRJ29LE&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/6EhyRRJ29LE&hl=en&fs=1&quot; type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

george daniel

Ben,, if you're reading this,, can you have one ready by super bowl Sunday? At someone else's house of course

ND13

Looks like a spectrum analyzer more than an amp. Definitely couldn't keep the kitties with that thing in da house.

treitz3

That's phat.

agfrost

It's called a Ruben's tube. One of my students begged me to build one last year, so I did; it's a six-footer made from 6" conduit, fed by two natural gas inlets.

With a frequency generator, you can create standing waves of flame--the higher the sound frequency, the shorter the wavelength. Pumping music through it causes a rather amusing effect, as shown on the several YouTube vids. I bought a single Monitor 4.6 speaker so that I could run it into the room to supplement the speaker on the end of the tube; I wasn't satisfied with the sound quality of the 5.25" speaker firing down the length of the conduit. You think you've heard muddy sound before!

As far as audio accessories go, I don't think even the most powerful class-A tube amp kicks out as much heat as one of these things do!

Every time I show this as a demonstration in class, at least one student leaves, saying "that is the coolest thing ever." One of these years I'll bring in a bag of marshmallows and we'll see how many we can toast at the same time.

Jay

nadams

I believe the original poster was describing a device that creates sound with flame, not one where the flame just reacts to the sound. But he could be thinking of the examples above...

agfrost

nadams wrote: »

I believe the original poster was describing a device that creates sound with flame, not one where the flame just reacts to the sound. But he could be thinking of the examples above...

I had the same feeling, but jumped on the train of Ruben's tube stories...

So, who's going to find the true flame amp, then?

Jstas

nadams wrote: »

I believe the original poster was describing a device that creates sound with flame, not one where the flame just reacts to the sound. But he could be thinking of the examples above...

Phew! I thought that I turned in to some kind of idiot and totally missed what the original posted was asking about! Glad I wasn't the only one that thought that!

obieone

^+1. It sounds like there is SOMETHING (like the OP was mentioning) out there, but IF it does exist, I'll say it's someplace like the Bellagio, or Disneyworld?

zingo

I have also done this when I was in college. It was great fun and a really sweet visual.

PS. If you do it right and use a low enough level of gas, you can do it inside as demonstrated by my prof at the time. :eek:

disneyjoe7

nadams wrote: »

I believe the original poster was describing a device that creates sound with flame, not one where the flame just reacts to the sound. But he could be thinking of the examples above...

Ok for that request found this also. I can see things both ways so sorry if I didn't answer the first question correctly.


http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/PopularElectronics/May1968/Flame_Amplification.htm

mhardy6647

how about a plasma tweeter, which is not a flame amplifier but it is a flame (well, plasma) transducer capable of astonishing transient response.

http://www.plasmatweeter.de/eng_plasma.htm
http://web.mit.edu/cjoye/www/elec/

Plus the ozone makes for a nice room air freshener :-)




Actually, one of the commercial plasma systems, the Hill Plasmatronic, used helium to make the plasma -- rather than air -- to minimize/eliminate the ozone problem.



The DuKane/EV Ionovac plasma tweeter:
http://archives.telex.com/archives/EV/Drivers/EDS/T-3500%20Ionovac%20EDS.pdf