I've had some issues pop up at home requring some quick thinking. What if you have a quick need to collect fluids, whether it be for weather experiments, becoming more green, reducing home water usage, or the emergency need to pee? There are commercial solutions for all of these, but they are costly and require a large amount of time to get ordered and shipped in. For instance, your supermarket doesn't have many items for collecting fluid in specific ways. Your electronics store may have an item or two for handling or measuring fluids, but not in a passive way or just not at all. Your local chemist/pharmacy probably doesn't have any form of catheter whatsoever. And don't even get me started on the "green tax" where corporations jump on the buzzwords of "green" and "sustainable" to sell more overpriced, throw-away crap that is anything but "sustainable". It's all just cheap, junky solutions made to fail and get them a quick buck on your expense. Enter the mind of the creatives. Always the answer is that "If you want something done right, you just have to do it yourself!"

An elder I knew was in need of an external catheter. None of the local stores had it. CVS, Wallgreens, Walmart... even the local mom-n-pop medicine shops didn't have any and would have to order. This person couldn't control themselves and were too weak for standing up to manage their own clothing and diapers. They had to wait a bit for their doctor's appointment (and were lucky to get one when they did). It would be a few days before the caths arrived. What to do in the meantime? Well, a catheter is a glorified tube that goes into a bag. I'm not gonna try inserting any tubing into anything, thus external is the way to go. So, the next best thing? Get a funnel.

Basically, the DIY version requires a few things:

• A funnel that can properly collect and drain fluid quickly without overflowing
• Tubing that can fit over the bottom of the funnel (if not, you will have leaking)
• Some durable, strong, flexible, water-tight adhesive (epoxy, water-rated and hardened silicon, superglue, flex seal)
• A resevoir to collect to like a water bottle/jug/urinal/bag (for measuring fluids or containing them as in the catheter case)
• Scissors, optionally a needle, watertight tape

Where to get Stuff

In this case, your common general and hardware stores should have this stuff. You can do Walmart, the automotive shop, Farm & Home, Lowe's, and Home Depot. I'm not a fan of Lowe's anymore as they have those automatic cameras that record you every other aisle. I'm not a fan of all this digital surveillance and the potential of my image being unknowingly given to a facial recognition system. Facebook was caught and punished for doing this without anyone's knowledge (The Guardian, Feb 2021). I wouldn't be surprised if some of these stores are doing it as well (Observer, Jun 2019; The Daily Mail, Sep 2019). If you are concerned, get a friend to shop for you or order online. If doing so this way, ensure that the outer diameter of the funnel's nozzle is slightly smaller than the inner diameter of the tubing. You want a snug fit berfore sealing it up and binding it. The last thing you need is fluid leaking all over your valuable electronics! And, despite my popular opinion with myself in the video, you may use bottles from water substitute (also probably known as the devil's juice, 100% Al/Vol) for the resevoirs!

Prepping the Funnel

I was able to make it with a funnel, some silicon, superglue, masking tape, small refirgerator tubing, and your standard water bottles. In the video, you'll see I have tubing where the internal diameter is too small to fit around the funnel externally. The outer diameter of the tube was just right to fit inside the funnel without being too snug (though that would have been nice). Due to this issue, I recommended silicon. I would still recommend that, though in hindsight even that was prone to leekage after about 5 days. Instead, I would do a basic bind with silicon, then pour some hardening epoxy into the funnel over the silicon. Leave just enough of the tube above the silicon and no problem there, just fill about up to the edge of the tube!

If you had the time and resources, unlike me, you should get tubing that fits around the outside of the funnel. That way, the fluids are not finding any cracks or flaws with your sealant to get through. They just naturally fall and flow without the potential of leakage. However, I still recommend using silicon, superglue, or epoxy to do so. Since this video, I have acquired more proper means by having a tube that fits snugly around the outside of the funnel. Silicon was way to slippery to hold without help (and mentioning vice-grips on the plastic in the video was a joke, no matter how bad it was). Please don't do vice grips on your plastics! Thank you for your understanding! I used my strong and flexible loctite super glue and carefully took the tubing over a lighter/flame to have it shrink around the funnel and bind good. No problems yet!

Creating a Resevoir

I'm always looking for ways to reuse things. I still have plastic forks, knives, and sporks from over the years of eating at Arby's and Taco Bell. I have some from 2018 even! For a good, lightweight build, Arby's, hands down. Just meticulously clean the nooks and crannies in the backside of the fork and you'll be great! The easiest solution for a resevoir, though? Water bottles. They're everywhere. Big, small, flimsy, durable, there's no end! And here is where things really count. If you get a durable water bottle then you will need, not want, NEED larger tubing. This is because unless you have some way to vent the pressure building up in the bottle, it will gurgle back up after you get so full and push more air into it with the fluid. Larger tubing ensures that the air can escape around the liquid as it goes down and you have less chances of regurigated water. Especially if the water is say... urine.

On the other hand, the flimsier bottles have a great way to escape this issue: their flimsiness! With these you can just squeeze the bottle before connecting and create a low-pressure inside that ends up drawing and sucking in fluids like there's no tomorrow! However, the same issues of gurgling will happen, just not as quickly. In fact, looking at catheters, you can see that they are ensentially vaccums that collect the urine much better! Just imitate only if you can't afford to innovate. I mention bottles because I don't want a constant and sinking cost like yet another stupid subscription service. With the bottles, you can screw on lids to (guess what) seal in liquids! If you are collecting filthier liquids like greywater, urine, or grease, the watter bottle idea is great because you just unscrew the secured lid from the mouth of the bottle! Then you attach a new bottle while using the lid on the old bottle and you can safely store or transport the fluids around. If you have more durable bottles/jugs, you can reuse them instead of burning them into the atmosphere, dumping them in the ground, or massacring coutless sea turtles by dumping them into the ocean (I'm looking at you, Manhattan).

Once you have a good resevoir in place, look at securing the lid of it to your tubing! Use a needle or the finer tip of the scissors' blades and poke a hole in the top of the lid. Find things like pens, sharpies, drills, or (in my case) bottle openers to create a psuedo-funnel in the lid that goes down to the inside. Then seal with superglue on the upper part and epoxy on the bottom. Why? Because the silicon is kinda gummy and will collect residue. Not sexy, especially with grey/yellow water. I have made the mistake of silicon and super glue. TWICE. Good, solid, hard epoxy will ensure a longer lifespan and more reusability of that lid and its seal in the long run. If done right, it's airtight!

The Efficacy of All This...

Important takeaways:

• Tubing goes over the outside of the funnel
• Tubing should be sealed and push through top of lid
• Using silicon and superglue provide quick fixes, proper epoxy is the best bet for longer-term use
• Using bottles ensures reuse and modularity compared to all-in-one solutions (thanks UNIX philosophy!)

I don't recommend silicon, this video was made in theory and putting it in practice revealed the flaws. My new theoretical takeaway is that quality epoxy will do it much better and that silicon and superglue are the tools to help contain the epoxy as it hardens. You want to make sure that you invest into quality materials (else think of the sea turtles you'll be murdering). Sometimes the simple things are the best, in this case it was. Some trial and error, but it provides a decent solution if planned and done right (measuse twice, cut three times? Or was it once...?).

For measuring, ensure that everything is compatible with your hardware. Follow good plumbing practice. Have some extras like nozzles, water/plumber's tape, and quality materials made for plumbing-oriented solutions. Waterproof all of your electronics so accidental leakages and spills don't cost you a headache on top of the arm and the leg. Always back up your software you code and use for this via fossil/git/mercurial/sftp/subversion. No excuses. Ensure that the device sends data directly to a server on top of any local savings in case your waterproofing fails.

Don't feed dogs soda. I'm not a trained vet. NONE OF THIS IS MEDICAL ADVICE! This is how I hacked together a quick and dirty fluid collector with everyday or common, readily available materials. I've learned from some mistakes on the way and have found what works for me. But like Linux, what works for me will never work for you. Keep scrolling through stack overflow until you find the true answer. If not, brush up on your plumbing (in this case).

If you do go out collecting fluids, please do so with consent. I'm not liable for you taking this newfangled knowledge and going to town with it. You are. You'll be the weirdo going to jail if you just start randomly collecting fluids. Always be sure to drink, drive, and DIY responsibly! Thanks for reading, and HattyHacking;!