/diy/ - Do It Yourself

Anyway, small revelation but it's a huge labor saver. It will spare you the headaches I suffered having to build shoddy custom weighted platforms for each habitat. And this can be used for any project that requires an air filled enclosure to rest on the bottom of a body of water, including lake bottom webcams, scuba caches, experiments in growing plants underwater or simply having a container that can keep a particular item dry and safe in an environment where few would think to look for it or be able to easily reach it. Hope this helps.

>Next time you build underwater hamster cities, this will save you some time

>>136359

Second post contains examples of other projects where this would be useful

>>136358
>experiments in growing plants underwater

...I'm listening.

can OP please post pics of the part where the hamsters will live?
> genuinely interested!

you should put the hamsters in a fish tank

>>136363

You could just watch videos of past habitat deployments. I've made several.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7JujUQkLfQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEsV-nU29Qw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dNkYXgiH3w

>>136377

I have, I'm preparing to set up a livestream of the hamsters living fulltime underwater inside a large fishtank when the Mk. IV is complete.

Here are some pics of the Mk.4 habitat parts as they will look when put together. Nothing's bolted to anything else yet or glued in place as I am still finalizing the interior layout.

The yellow thing is a litter dish. Apparently, hamsters have the instincts necessary to do their business preferentially in a litter tray if it's available, and if you use some other material for the floor lining. This will make periodically cleaning their habitat much simpler. The white thing is one of two resistive heating pads. They will be soaked in bittering fluid to prevent chewing. The green thing is a running saucer, like a wheel but it takes up less vertical room. The blue bar at the top is a row of ten LED lights.

This isn't the largest habitat. That was the Mark 3, which was an enclosure exactly like this one but connected to three other slightly smaller ones by transparent plastic tunnels. I used it once then abandoned it because the sheer amount of weight needed to keep it submerged made it impractical to transport and deploy, plus the hamsters rarely ever visited the other rooms. They simply didn't need or care about the extra space.

This is basically everything good about the Mk.3 in a more compact, lighter package with all of the technological developments I've added to various other models, but all in a single habitat. Heated floor pads, led lighting, silica dessicant, a running wheel, a litter tray, a water bottle (not shown) and the most compact and nicest looking ballasted platform by far. This is pretty much the finalized, ideal design for an underwater hamster living space, if for whatever strange reason that happens to be something one wants to build.

pic unrelated

>>136396

It is related, I drew that. It's when I started this project because I was curious about how it could be done irl.

Btw, a demo of the LED lights. Note that it has battery backup, just like the air pump. The lights will only last 5 hours in the event of a power failure, the air pump will last 14. Both backups recharge to full once mains power is restored.

hey dude i remember you from /sci/ what happend? you stopped posting

>>136403

I still post there, just not as often so you likely miss most of my more recent threads.

>>136388
That habitat is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too small for any hamster, dwarf or regular. You have no way to replenish the air supply. The hamsters will chew on your lights.
The size thing mostly.
On top of that, hamsters are incredibly fragile pets despite their cheap price at petsmart, it will be unlikely that the adjust well to the added pressure of being underwater.
Please don't murder small rodents because you can.

>>136409

>That habitat is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too small for any hamster, dwarf or regular.

No, it isn't. You can't see a hamster in the shot for size comparison.

>You have no way to replenish the air supply.

Yes I do, I already explained here >>136399 that I have a battery backup air pump. I will ignore for the sake of politeness the implication that I am stone cold retarded and don't know that hamsters need to breathe. (In fact i did the math necessary to determine that the pump would replace the atmosphere quickly enough that CO2 would not build up, based on figures for the lung volume and resting/active breathing rates of roborovski hamsters. It is sufficient for fifteen of them.)

>The hamsters will chew on your lights.

They cannot reach them, they are supplied with applewoood chews to satisfy that need, and everything sensitive has been coated in a fast hardening glue and then coated again with bittering agent.

Please, understand I have been at this since 2010. It's a goofy hobby but it's proven entertaining enough to stick at it that long and I have learned intimately the principles of ambient pressure habitats in that time. Keep in mind I have also built and used my own pressurized, surface supplied diving helmet since then. I know what I am doing. I am insulted by the implication that I do not but I can understand how someone with no prior knowledge of this ongoing project might wander in and assume at first glance that this is actually my first attempt and that I haven't already thought of the things you mentioned. Rest assured that I have.

If you would like to review the history of the project to confirm for yourself that I have a complete understanding of what is necessary to build a comfortable underwater living space please read the project blog here:

http://hampture.blogspot.com/

You might enjoy tangential posts about the history of this country's "man in the sea" program and detailed explanations of what distinguishes ambient pressure habitats from 1atm habitats, the safe limits for depth as it pertains to nitrogen saturation and various options for CO2 absorption/purging, humidity control and other aspects of microclimate management.

I hope you enjoy it and that you come away from it agreeing at least that I am not someone who would construct something like this and fail to account for an air supply.

>>136421
You now need to establish an algae farm to provide free oxygen to the hampsters, tidal power production of some kind to make the commune more self sufficient.

>>136414
>>136421
No, Really, It's WAY TOO SMALL.
I'm not saying it's going to die, but a 100lb dog won't die of being stuffed in a kennel made for a 30lb dog either.
Also, your hamsters will chew the cords, regardless of your pitiful attempts to make them unpalatable.
You're also an idiot for placing two hamsters together when they're solitary creatures, rarely, in an environment where there's 'enough' space (WHICH YOU ARE NO PROVIDING) dwarf/robo hamsters will coexist peacefully. Expect your hamsters to tear each other apart after being shoved down there for four fucking weeks?
Something is wrong with you and yes, I mad.
You're toying with the lives of living things because you can. You're a cunt and I hope you die a watery death.

>>136422

Read the blog. There is a post about that already.

>>136424

It's the same size as an entry level habitrail cage. Hamsters are crepuscular burrowing animals. In nature they live in subterranean burrows.

>Also, your hamsters will chew the cords, regardless of your pitiful attempts to make them unpalatable.

They cannot. Reach. Them. The ones on the floor are not merely unpalatable but will be coated in a crystallizing insta-harden glue that they are physically incapable of chewing through.

>You're also an idiot for placing two hamsters together when they're solitary creatures, rarely, in an environment where there's 'enough' space (WHICH YOU ARE NO PROVIDING) dwarf/robo hamsters will coexist peacefully. Expect your hamsters to tear each other apart after being shoved down there for four fucking weeks?

This is why I specifically selected siblings. It is only unrelated hamsters that behave in the way you describe.

>You're toying with the lives of living things because you can. You're a cunt and I hope you die a watery death.

You popped your head into a thread that you did not bother to read and suggested that someone who has spent two years perfecting the design of functional model underwater habitats and who is in fact a crew member of a project founded by an ex NASA bioengineer to establish a permanent human seafloor colony did not know that hamsters living underwater require an air supply. Skipping over, in the process, multiple videos of prior habitat designs in use without issue.

And yet, my jimmies remain unrustled. I have had to deal with worse than you.

>>136428
Dude why don't you get a custom tank made? You could have it made entirely from glass, as big or as small as you wanted and a lot better quality too.

>>136430

Dryboxes are designed specifically to be very reliably airtight but also to be opened and closed. I need access to the interior to clean it and replenish food. A custom enclosure designed to that spec would be beyond my financial means. I selected the largest transparent drybox available. If I get comments on the blog agreeing it is too small I will add a second story to it.

>>136396
So do you still draw this comic or what?

Also where's the link to them

>>136447

No, I stopped updating it a while ago. I am increasingly too busy with real world concerns to continue with it although it pains me, as I did enjoy drawing them while I was active.

www.plasticbrickautomaton.com

>>136428
No, it's not just unrelated hamsters you fucking moron.
ALL HAMSTERS.

This is an amazing concept and from your blog I see you have planned and thought it out well...

But it pains me to think that something will go wrong and the hamsters will suffer.

>>136351
Just use PVC pipe filled up with BBs, it's easy to adjust and water tight.

>>136457

You're simply wrong. The literature confirms the ability of siblings to peacefully cohabitate, every web resource agrees, and the staff of the pet store from which I purchased them reaffirmed it when asked. Wherever you got your information, it is incorrect. More likely you're simply trying to get a rise out of me, in which case you're wasting your time.

>>136463

I have those same concerns, it's why the habitats have all been so ludicrously overengineered. Even nonessential systems like the lighting have battery backup and the design is self-purging; If somehow water did get in the constant airflow would simply force it out of the exhaust on the bottom or lowest edge of the enclosure. This is how diving bells work, it's how ambient pressure habitats including the Aquarius work and it's why there have been no deaths due to a habitat flooding in the history of our manned undersea program. The risk with 1atm habitats is considerably greater as they lack the inherent self correcting nature of ambient habs and consequently there's been only one (although many have been hybrids, but they only depressurized to 1atm so that aquanauts could decompress while onboard.)

Sufficed to say they're as safe as on land and that's part of the point of the project. To illustrate the simplicity and safety of underwater habitats by building them from off the shelf components and demonstrating their use. If a hobbyist can construct a fully functional scaled down undersea living space for small mammals we are surely at the point where it's possible to expand our presence into the sea, as the same feat is reasily reproducible on a larger scale provided the funding.

>>136465
The man from the pet store was lying. They do that. "Oh, sure, a hamster just needs fruit and sunflower seeds to live off of" "Sure you can use pine bedding" "You can have as many hamsters as you want from the same brood in less than a carrying case!"
Most people working at a petstore know absolute shit about the animals and products they sell.
Also you're talking out of your fucking ass if you read anywhere that siblings do not fight. That little 'reassuring dominance" shit that you posted on your blog? You're lucky they haven't killed each other yet.
I'm not trying to get a rise out of you, I'm trying to make sure that you don't murder innocent animals simply for the sake of you wanting to do something that seems 'cool'.
It's not okay. GDIAF.

>>136351

Those are lead diver's weights made for use in the ocean.

>> Lead is noncorrosive

Case looks nice for dressing them up but will now have lead dust/smear in it.

After a certain point you may want to switch to concrete moorings. Simpler, cheaper.

whatthefuckamireading.jpg

I appreciate your sacrifice, OP. I hope you have a glorious time looking after your underwater hamsters.

Dearest OP.
I have spent the day reading every single post on your Hampture blog.
You are a beautiful person.
I hope to see many more independent rodent colonies where they may live free from the man in Washinnom, the man in the Ratican, and the man in Hampscow.

Into what is the tank being submerged? It'd be interesting if you could get them to coexist with fish...

Op, this project brings me sheer joy. I love the idea of having a fish tank in your house, and whenever people look in it they see underwater hamsters. I commend your efforts to taking hamsters where until now they have only dreamed of being.
With time, I know you will find a way for them to live in an environment that also simulates space.

Oh shit, we're talking to LegoRobot?

Dude, draw more comics!

You might be able to design a seal able food shoot to increase the possible longevity of their stay. making it airtight to prevent pressure loss would be the fun part.

Op you are a cool guy.

>>136980
Or just have a bit of plastic tubing and put the hard hamster food down it.

>>136990

This is an excellent idea that has been suggested many times, but it has an unfortunate flaw; A tube connecting the habitat directly to the surface would equalize the pressure between the two. That's bad. It's the higher interior air pressure of the habitat (supplied by the pump) that keeps it especially watertight, as bubbles can escape but water cannot get in. Equalizing the pressure would literally suck water in through the seal unless I used a scuba grade drybox, and they are about half the size needed for reasonable comfort.

The very first habitat was a scuba grade drybox, and true 1atm. It did not vent bubbles into the water but instead had an air return tube. Consequently there were no bubbles from it (which is psychologically harrowing as bubbles are the clearest sign that air is getting to the hab and it makes you run back every five seconds to check that air is still coming out of the exhaust tube) and the interior was at 1atm at all times.

A 1atm habitat like the Mk.2 could've had a food delivery tube, no problem. I just don't trust 1atm habitats. If they develop cracks or something over time, for 1atm that's a big deal, for ambient pressure it's not. Ambient is safe as fuck and very fault tolerant, 1atm not so much

See why can't people do more shit like this instead of stupid like like role playing game and dwarf fortress?

>>137060
>implying hamstergate atlantis is any less neckbeard worthy than playing rpgs