We question that few of us ever thought that snow globes include real snow, however now that we’ve seen a snow globe that makes its own snow, we have to admit the water-filled holiday decorating mainstay looks a little disappointing.
Like a lot of the Christmas decorations [Sean Hodgins] has come up with over the years, this self-frosting snowman is both creative in style as well as cute in execution. The working end is a piece of aluminum turned down into the traditional snowman configuration; the lathe-less might probably do the same thing by sticking some sphere bearings together with CA glue. adorned with 3D-printed accessories, the sculpture sits on a pedestal of Peltier coolers, stacked on top of a huge CPU cooler. Flanking the as-yet underdressed snowman is a pair of huge power resistors, which serve as heating elements to fill the globe with vapor. [Sean]’s liquid of option is isopropyl alcohol, as well as it seems to work very well as the figurine is swiftly enrobed with frost.
But wait, there’s a lot more — as [Sean] points out, the apparatus is 90% of the way to being a cloud chamber. maybe we’ll see a less festive version after the holidays. until then, delight in his ornament that prints other ornaments, his blinkenlight PCB tree-hangers, or his tiny TV that plays holiday commercials.
