Hi Fernando,
Thanks. I had considered Github early on but was pretty unfamiliar with its workings and as a result opted not to use it. I will look into it again though.
180 gallon build: Modular control system, 3D printed equipment, open-source
- Thread starter jrhupp
- Start date
Hi Fernando,
Thanks. I had considered Github early on but was pretty unfamiliar with its workings and as a result opted not to use it. I will look into it again though.
I started to set this up a while ago, but I don't think I posted it once it was working. But I have the kalk reservoir from my old system installed and running on my temporary ATO (right now just a float switch and solenoid, but a more sophisticated system is in the works).
There is nothing 3d printed on it; in fact it was built well before the hobby printer was available. But it too is a bit of DIY work. Top off water enters through the bottom, percolates through a layer of kalk (stirring it) and clear kalk laden water overflows through a riser in the center and then on to the tank. In the pic it doesn't look that clear as it is still settling out from being loaded with kalk.
The top off is direct plumbed to the RO system (black solenoid in the pic). I know there are mixed feelings about this and am well aware of the risks. For me this is my preferred method of handling top off. I am not a fan of pumps and large RO reservoirs.
I "machined" a mounting plate for the kalk reservoir out of some 1/4" scarp aluminum plate that let me attach it to the same Uni-strut I ran to support the return lines and surge tank overflow. The solenoid assembly just went on with a strut clamp.
Here is the pick:
Biology wise things are going slow in the tank (as it should be). Tons of pods and the red spotted horseshoe worms that came in on some of the rock rubble have started to spawn. I have started to establish the algae bed that will dominate the open sand area. Just Caulerpa prolifera for the moment; more will come though. There has been a neon green polyped toadstool in the tank for a few weeks and it is doing amazing (the polyp color has become supper intense). And at the end of a business trip last night I picked up a nice frag of a red Goniopora. It is in and quite happy. It was the first coral I have flown with (checked luggage). It spent about 19 hours in the bag from the fish store to the tank, and looks no worse for wear. We will see how it holds up long term.
There is nothing 3d printed on it; in fact it was built well before the hobby printer was available. But it too is a bit of DIY work. Top off water enters through the bottom, percolates through a layer of kalk (stirring it) and clear kalk laden water overflows through a riser in the center and then on to the tank. In the pic it doesn't look that clear as it is still settling out from being loaded with kalk.
The top off is direct plumbed to the RO system (black solenoid in the pic). I know there are mixed feelings about this and am well aware of the risks. For me this is my preferred method of handling top off. I am not a fan of pumps and large RO reservoirs.
I "machined" a mounting plate for the kalk reservoir out of some 1/4" scarp aluminum plate that let me attach it to the same Uni-strut I ran to support the return lines and surge tank overflow. The solenoid assembly just went on with a strut clamp.
Here is the pick:
Biology wise things are going slow in the tank (as it should be). Tons of pods and the red spotted horseshoe worms that came in on some of the rock rubble have started to spawn. I have started to establish the algae bed that will dominate the open sand area. Just Caulerpa prolifera for the moment; more will come though. There has been a neon green polyped toadstool in the tank for a few weeks and it is doing amazing (the polyp color has become supper intense). And at the end of a business trip last night I picked up a nice frag of a red Goniopora. It is in and quite happy. It was the first coral I have flown with (checked luggage). It spent about 19 hours in the bag from the fish store to the tank, and looks no worse for wear. We will see how it holds up long term.
I just got a 3D printer and love the DIY. Tagging along for updates
Very cool. Which one did you get?
I have the dosing module working and installed (mostly anyway). As soon as I do some clean up in the Sketch I will post it. Hardware wise I still need to add the battery for the RTC and pick up another NEMA-17 motor for the other pump.
The Sketch supports dosing three times a day; timing is independent between pumps and volume is independent per dose event. The way it is written it would not be terribly difficult to increase the number of possible events. For me though I think three is good enough for the time being.
After running it a bit I realized I didn't do a good job with laying out the ground plane where the stepper drives and linear regulator are. Both use their ground pins to dissipate heat and I only gave them a tiny thin strip to dump heat into. So they were running warm. Bit of an over site and I should have known better. The fix was pretty simple though. I took some sheet copper and made a small heatsink and ran it down the bit of ground plane between the components. Seems to be working pretty well. You can see it on the board in the pic below.
Here is the dosing module installed in the cabinet below the tank and loaded up with prepared phytoplankton.
The two buttons for each pump are run (left) and reset (right). Run just runs the pump when pushed. Reset resets a volume counter that I included to keep track of how much has been pumped through. The idea being that I can poll for the volume dosed from the controller and know when the bottle is used up.
Right now the bottle is just setting on the bottom of the cabinet. I would like to model up some bottle holders that also mount on the Uni-strut. But I haven't gotten that far yet.
The other big weekend project was to modify the overflows and get them pushing water through a little quicker with less rise during the surge. Here are the stock inserts after a little Dremel work and brush with acetone to smooth out the Dremel/sanding marks.
The Sketch supports dosing three times a day; timing is independent between pumps and volume is independent per dose event. The way it is written it would not be terribly difficult to increase the number of possible events. For me though I think three is good enough for the time being.
After running it a bit I realized I didn't do a good job with laying out the ground plane where the stepper drives and linear regulator are. Both use their ground pins to dissipate heat and I only gave them a tiny thin strip to dump heat into. So they were running warm. Bit of an over site and I should have known better. The fix was pretty simple though. I took some sheet copper and made a small heatsink and ran it down the bit of ground plane between the components. Seems to be working pretty well. You can see it on the board in the pic below.
Here is the dosing module installed in the cabinet below the tank and loaded up with prepared phytoplankton.
The two buttons for each pump are run (left) and reset (right). Run just runs the pump when pushed. Reset resets a volume counter that I included to keep track of how much has been pumped through. The idea being that I can poll for the volume dosed from the controller and know when the bottle is used up.
Right now the bottle is just setting on the bottom of the cabinet. I would like to model up some bottle holders that also mount on the Uni-strut. But I haven't gotten that far yet.
The other big weekend project was to modify the overflows and get them pushing water through a little quicker with less rise during the surge. Here are the stock inserts after a little Dremel work and brush with acetone to smooth out the Dremel/sanding marks.
shiftline
New member
A Tevo tarantula! So far so good. I got PLA down.. Now working figuring out ABS for a few in tank creations
Not a printer I had seen before. Looks quite nice. Will you be posting up some of its prints soon?
I have seen a number of folks with, or buying printers. But haven't seen many folks post what they are printing for their tanks.
After further testing it looks like the voltage regulator runs much to hot on the dosing module for my taste. I'm not sure what the issue is; I've used this same circuit a number of other places with out heat issues and it looks to only be pulling about 11 mA through the regulator. So I'm not sure what the issue is. I'm sure it is something obvious that I am missing. In lieu of figuring it out, I swapped it out for a small DC-DC I had on hand. Its over kill for the application, but runs nice and cool.
I cleaned up the sketch if anybody is interested: dose module sketch
I also wrapped up the sketch to control the ball valves: surge control
I cleaned up the sketch if anybody is interested: dose module sketch
I also wrapped up the sketch to control the ball valves: surge control
This is a really cool thread even though I don't understand half of the mumbo jumbo! You may want to consider spraying the kindorf and hangers though so they don't rust. I am from NY. Here in NY when ever hangers or kindorf are used for plumbing, code requires they be green kindorf so they don't rust, and that for fresh water.
shiftline
New member
180 gallon build: Modular control system, 3D printed equipment, open-source
Well my first Aquarim project is my anti sand dune plate for the vortech
Do you brush acetone on with a paint brush or give it the vapour bath?
Well my first Aquarim project is my anti sand dune plate for the vortech
Do you brush acetone on with a paint brush or give it the vapour bath?
Looks good! Thanks for posting it.
Both, it depends on the part and what I need from it. If the part is sanded I will brush it with acetone before vapor polishing. Otherwise the vapor won't condense well on it and the polish won't work. If it will be polished with out sanding first, then I often skip brushing it with acetone.
Some parts are fine with just a brushing of acetone (for me these are often smaller parts, its hard to get a good finish on a large part with out brush strokes showing). I do find though, that if I just brush it on I sometimes get a white milky crazing on the surface as the acetone evaporates. This is something I don't see when polishing in hot vapor. If I were to guess it has to do with a drop in surface temperature as the acetone evaporates and resulting condensation of water from the atmosphere.
Thanks for the kind words.
Thanks. I had considered painting or powder coating, but didn't pull the trigger on it. Mostly because the materials all appear to be zinc plated which has pretty good corrosion resistance on its own. Not sure how the cut ends will do in the long run though. Or how well it will do in the presence of salt spray. We shall see.
Originally I had hoped to find the aluminum version locally but that didn't happen.
Do you think the use of coated strut and hangers has to do with corrosion resistance in the presence of water or to provide insulation between potentially dissimilar metals (minimizing galvanic corrosion)? Or maybe if it is always green, is it a color coding system so inspection and servicing easier? I believe this is why the insulation color varies with wire gauge in residential electrical systems.
I am pretty sure the hangers are painted to provide insulation between potentially dissimilar metals like you mentioned. IN NYC all domestic water has to be done with copper pipe opposed to pex and those pipes must only be strapped with plastic hangers and brackets. I guess the copper reacts quicker then other metals. I know that on the black pipe used for gas or on no hub used for sewer ( They don't allow pvc above 4 stories) hey allow metal hangers.
fefegarcia1
Member
Hi!
Jrhupp, what's the maximum flow for this dosing pump?
Reefers4U, there sketchup files, look for previous pages.
Best regards.
Fernando Garcia
Jrhupp, what's the maximum flow for this dosing pump?
Reefers4U, there sketchup files, look for previous pages.
Best regards.
Fernando Garcia
As Fernando said, most are SketchUp files. Some of the simple mechanical things I may have posted as stl files already.
If you want something you can feed into your slicer, open the file in SketchUp and then export the desired group as an stl. If stl is not already an export option in your SketchUp install you can add an extension to do it from the warehouse.
I have not tested maximum flow rate. I did some testing of volume per step and it looks like around 19 ul/step (I'm using 19.2 ul/step as the multiplier in the sketch). The stepper I'm using is pretty light weight and I am driving it at its rated voltage (12 VDC), so I'm running it quite slow to get good torque out of it; 12 ms/step. That works out to 1.6 ml/s. With a beefier stepper or higher drive voltage there is certainly potential to get a higher flow rate out of it (maybe there is potential as it is, I didn't spend much time on optimizing speed).
Reefers4U
Active member
nice. this is what I needed. Never used SketchUp B4. Will take a look. I'll try to get to a print an post with problems.
