I have a long flexible 1 plastic tube that is attached to itself forming a closed circuit and I'd like to add an electric blower to it to flow air continuously that will make a small ball go around continuously. I'd like to splice the blower into the 1 plastic tube but need to know where or how to exhaust the air to keep the air circuit moving continuously in one direction.
there may be an easier way... use a y connection to join the tube.. the blower is one part of the y it forces the air into the tube at an angle.. the ball will then move past the spot where the pump is blowing pump y .................y ......................y h h h y.....y........y.h.h.h.h the h's are then connected end to end and the ball willl move clockwise .. remember that you are forcing air into a closed system so you will have to put some vent holes in the hose to allow some air to escape or put a pressure release valve to let the pressure drop when its too high..
The problem is not how to connect the blower, the problem is how to get the small ball to go through the blower (which you can't). What you have to do is to deflect part of the air in the tube to the blower input without allowing the ball to go that path. And then the blower pressurizes the air and injects it downstream of the pick off port. A high pressure low volume blower or pump might be best. That means a small pick off port and a small injection port.
You can't place the blower in-line, as that will block the ball unless you have a specially built blower so that it can allow the ball to pass through the blower You need an arrangement that is something like a jet pump used for pumping water. The blower needs to be big enough (needs to move sufficient air volume) such that the amount of air in the tube is a relatively small fraction of the total air being moved by the blower. The blower needs to be connected to the main loop via a wye. A second wye, oriented in the opposite direction allows air to exhaust from the loop. A trap (parallel bars in the wye) is necessary to keep the ball from exiting the wye. The cross-sectional area of the loop between the wyes needs to be large enough so that you don't produce back pressure on the loop due to the blower's pressure. It is going to take some fussing around with the diameter of the loop between the two wyes and with the outlet diameter of the exhaust to get it right. Think of a loop with a line tangent to the loop and connected to the loop. Your blower is at one end of the line and the exhaust is at the other end. All you are doing is blowing air past the air that resides in the line, dragging those air molecules along with the velocity of the air being injected by the blower. A small fraction of the air will circulate around the loop and will carry the ball with it.
