180 gallon build: Modular control system, 3D printed equipment, open-source

saf1 said:
Regarding the skimmer, have you tried other methods? Since you can pretty much make anything ( :) ) it would be interesting to buy a venturi from Life Reef and use that. Then just a matter of deciding on the neck height, width, to fix and customize.

While personally never using a bubble type plate skimmer and being partial to venturi's was just wondering the choice. I like the overall idea and some of the possibilities.
Click to expand...

This is new territory for me. My previous skimmer came from my previous system, which was much smaller (about 50 gallons total). And being prepared for the laughter, I will admit that it was an AquaC Urchin.

This design is an amalgamation of several bits and bobs I have found googling around on the net. I would not consider it optimized, but I think there is some potential. Or at least hooks to let it be changed as needed.

As to venturi or not, I assume you are referring to something on the out line from the pump. I did look at this. But it seems that air injection on the inlet is the preference these days. Coupled with a needle wheel that seems to provide the smallest diameter bubble at the highest density. I could be wrong here as good scientific data is lacking on the net regarding this. But that was the impression the hobbyist literature left me with.

The design is flexible though, so swapping to something on the outlet wouldn't be too difficult if testing points me in this direction.

I am quite happy with the current setup for the venturi though (intake side). I am getting what I think is a good bubble density and the size is nice and small.

I tried the new plate today. I don't think it is where I want to be yet either. It cut the large random turbulent events I had been seeing, but has not significantly reduced the swirl. I suspect I will do another iteration in the next few weeks or so (next week is the geosciences meeting, so I suspect I will be too exhausted to make much progress; we shall see though). If I can manage it in the next day or so, I will post the version two plate and a short video of its performance.
 
I think that is the right approach. I know I said it earlier in the thread somewhere but this is one of the few practical reasons to buy a 3D printer and/or CNC machine. Maybe others are making stuff but this here is really a design and build or prototype with real world use.

Skimmers in general have a lot of different opinions and like you said little data to back it up. Take Lifereef for example, he has not changed his design in over 20 years. No reason to - his skimmers just work. Others try new and unique designs. At the end of the day I look at it has an ocean and what the waves do compared to when I see the foam on the surface. I don't see that at depth (active scuba diver) but I do see the foam / skim action with waves and other patterns.

Cool stuff - looking forward to your next integration and with sea/salt water :)
 
Got around to documenting the second version of the bubble plate. This one is based on a longer flow path, in hopes that that would cut the swirl. As I mentioned before it helped some, but mostly with some large turbulent events that were occurring. But it is far from where I want it to be. Version three is being drafted currently.

Here is the plate:
IMG_2581.JPG


Here is how it performed:
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5QvIyuH_GOY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

And here is the skimmer installed in the sump:
IMG_2584.JPG
 
I got a third version of the bubble plate drawn up, printed and tested. Per the earlier suggestion by Gorgok, it is indeed a stator based design. I had been avoiding this due to the challenges in drafting such a part in SketchUp, but in the end I caved and am supper happy with the results. It was the right way to go. Here is the plate:

IMG_2591.JPG


I also swapped out the 0.25" OD air line feeding into the needle wheel for a 0.25" ID version. The bubble size went up slightly, but bubble density also appears to have increased greatly. Here is a video of the new bubble plate and new air feed in action. I'm pretty happy with the results at this point and am calling it good for the moment. I'll post up the SketchUp model once I do a little clean up and bring it to the correct scale.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WClTHA7IKaw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I'm on vacation at this point and have a back log of projects to get finished up. So hopefully I will have some more interesting stuff to post over the next week or two.
 
That does look a lot better. Let us know how it works out.

I ordered my printer a week or so ago. Just found out it's backordered until the 28th...
 
Neat little thing. Hard to see how much it changes the direction, but it does seem much better. Is that mounted on top of the chamber as shown?
 
Gorgok said:
Neat little thing. Hard to see how much it changes the direction, but it does seem much better. Is that mounted on top of the chamber as shown?
Click to expand...

It screws into the top of the chamber where flow from the pump enters the base of the skimmer, in place of the bubble plate shown in the earlier disassembly video.

The videos don't do a great job of showing the flow. But with the two earlier plates there was a strong vortex up the middle of the skimmer. With the third there is a slight swirl at the base in the opposite direction that it was before at the bottom, but the bulk of the flow (and the bubbles) go straight up.

With the previous plates the skimmer was not particularly effective, and after a long break in period it wasn't producing much in the way of skimmate. With the third plate, below is what it has produced. I don't think I have it tuned yet, but all and all I'm pretty happy with it so far.
IMG_2597.JPG
 
Will this design be put on Thingiverse? I'm really liking the way it looks and think it would work great in my sump.

How important is it to do the acetone treatment with regards to the structural integrity?
 
BigDave said:
Will this design be put on Thingiverse? I'm really liking the way it looks and think it would work great in my sump.

How important is it to do the acetone treatment with regards to the structural integrity?
Click to expand...

I don't do the thingiverse thing. So far, I'm hosting everything in DropBox and providing links here. I will move to GitHub at some point.

As for the acetone treatment, it does improve structural integrity and it fuses the surface layers. Here though, I didn't do it for structure. I did it to get a sealed surface. Prints are porous and I didn't want skimate leaching into the inside of the printed parts where I couldn't clean it out.
 
jrhupp said:
Here is the SketchUp model of the parts for the skimmer. This includes the needle-wheel for the DCT-4000.

3D printed skimmer parts
Click to expand...

Very cool, that skimmer. Have you worked with any other cad/drawing apps besides Sketchup?

I've been playing with Fusion 360 (its free for hobbyists). Seems much more powerful than the versions of sketchup I played with 3 or 4 years ago.
 
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