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[Minority]

I've been thinking about trying to make a fountain, but I don't have much experience with water pressure so I wanted to run the idea past you guys before I drown everyone.
The idea is to use a large tank to keep the water level above the level of the fountain so it will constantly be squirted upwards. Thanks to my awesome paint skills, I have a diagram to explain.

The water in the tank will squirt up the top of the fountain, and down the sides into the 'bowl' of the fountain around the base. This will be fed back into the tank using a pump as a one way valve (not shown in diagram).
Will this work it am I missing something?
Thanks.

[miauw62]

Well, i think it should technically work, but water may evaporate eventually.

[SRD]

Where the water 'feeds' back into the tank, will end up as another fountain and flood your fortress.

[Minority]

I was planning to use a pump to make a one way section in the feed back part to prevent this but forgot to draw it in.

[Snaake]

I think you could get this to work, the thing would be balancing the flows - basically, make sure that you empty the fountain bowl at least as fast as water comes into the fountain. Depending on the amount of water pressure, this could be tricky. Or is there just "pressurized" and "not pressurized" water, with eg. the height difference of the u-bend making no difference on the end result.

Elementary considerations include remotely powering the pumps. At least the emptying one. Also including shutoff levers for both the input (floodgates?) and the output pump, so you can empty the bowl if necessary. Most importantly, to avoid flooding the fortress, initially build the dining room/meeting area/hallway/whatever where you'll have the fountain so that there's only 1 exit, with a raising bridge that forms a wall to make it an isolated cube.

I suppose you could just wall it in for the test run once you think it's finished, but a bridge is quicker to reuse if you end up having to make several modifications, can come in handy later to seal dwarves or enemies in, can be used as an emergency shutoff to prevent the entire fort flooding if something, eg. the power to the emptying pump, breaks, and admiring bridges gives happy thoughts (make it out of gold!). If you later add more exits from the room, you may want to consider having raising bridges there as well, for the emergency shutoff/saferoom uses.


An easier way to do this would just to take the water from an aquifer or maybe a river/natural lake/ocean, drop it a few z-levels, route it to the fountain, then drain the output from the fountain off the map or into another aquifer layer. No pumps necessary. I probably would've done something this with my cistern in my latest map, if it wasn't for the fact that the aquifer is salty water = had to have a pump to desalinate.

[ivanthe8th]

Actually you could achieve the same effect with much less stress with the following design:

Code: [Select]


                             ____
_________           ________| %% |   <-- Pump pumping from left to right
         |   | |    ___________| |
         |   | |   |           | |
         |___| |___|___________| |
             |___________________|


The one pump raises water above the level of the pool, but the act of drawing the water lowers the pool overall so it doesn't overflow. Then you have a closed system without the need for a large water tower and the risk of flooding your fortress.

[Snaake]

Actually you could achieve the same effect with much less stress with the following design:

Code: [Select]


                             ____
_________           ________| %% |   <-- Pump pumping from left to right
         |   | |    ___________| |
         |   | |   |           | |
         |___| |___|___________| |
             |___________________|


The one pump raises water above the level of the pool, but the act of drawing the water lowers the pool overall so it doesn't overflow. Then you have a closed system without the need for a large water tower and the risk of flooding your fortress.

If a larger height difference does cause more pressure and faster flow, he might want that though, to get consistent mist on all sides of the fountain. Plus with no larger reservoir, there's the concern of evaporation halting the fountain eventually (well that's there with a larger highest-z-level reservoir too, just takes a lot longer).

[ivanthe8th]

-snip-

If a larger height difference does cause more pressure and faster flow, he might want that though, to get consistent mist on all sides of the fountain. Plus with no larger reservoir, there's the concern of evaporation halting the fountain eventually (well that's there with a larger highest-z-level reservoir too, just takes a lot longer).

Agreed, my suggestion wouldn't exactly give you a geyser. It really depends on what the OP is looking for from this fountain.

An elevated reservoir would produce a powerful jet of water, but would require a large catch-pond and many pumps to prevent flooding. Plus you lose the benefit of mist because if you let the dwarfs get too close to the stream you risk dangerous terrain job cancellations.

One or two pumps such as I suggested would produce more of a gurgle. Less impressive but certainly safer. I think that if OP wants mist he should just go with a more traditional mist machine rather than a fountain.

[miauw62]

I recommend making your reservoir only one tile higher then your fountain.
Also, if you are using a screwpump between the reservoir and the fountain, the water pressure resets to the height the screw pump is on.

[Sizik]

The Eternal Halls has a fountain that works pretty much in the same way as those described in this thread.

[DTF]

Wouldn't the water just spread out sideways when it leaves the top of the fountain instead of - you know, like a fountain - upwards?

[jackbod]

Minority has become a dabbling paint user 

[Minority]

Well I can confirm that this works. No one drowned yet

[WJLIII3]

Wouldn't the water just spread out sideways when it leaves the top of the fountain instead of - you know, like a fountain - upwards?

So how are you imagining it leaves the top, if not by going upwards?

[DTF]

Wouldn't the water just spread out sideways when it leaves the top of the fountain instead of - you know, like a fountain - upwards?

So how are you imagining it leaves the top, if not by going upwards?

I was talking about the z-level where the water can spread freely for the first time: when it has left the top of the fountain (i.e. his construction). Water doesnt spread upwards if it can go horizontally. Unless I am totally mistaken here, you cannot use pressure to force the water to work otherwise.
In my imagination it will look for more like an overflowing sink than a real fountain.