Controller and battery help/suggestions

[SDguy]

Hello,

I just purchased a 6255 for my 240g 8' long FOWLR. I also purchased the 7096 controller and the 6105.500 battery connector.

I have a few questions before I start this bad boy up

1. What program would you suggest I start with on the controller. I'd prefer to start slow... I don't want my butterflies sucked onto this beast.

2. I have a vortech battery from my reef. But can you recommend a better, longer lasting one for this pump? Also, does this pump go into "minimal" mode when the battery kicks in?

Thanks for your help!

 

[SDguy]

Oh, one other thing... is the pump supposed to have a smell to it? I'll obviously wash it before putting it into my tank.... I'm just a little freaked that it smells just like burnt electronics

 

[rvitko]

It will have a plastic smell, but should not have a burned electronics smell. They are generally sold within a month of being made so they do typically have the smell of freshly molded plastic.

I would just set your controller speeds at a low maximum pulse, say 30-50% and work it up over time.

Their isn't a minimal mode but the speed is a function of the voltage and since most batteries are 12V, the speed will be roughly half of what it would be at 24V. It is entirely possible to run it at 18 or 24V with the right battery or batteries wired in series. This does however make finding a suitable charger more difficult. We offer our safety connector and you can connect any suitable battery with charger, for safety I would stick with SLA batteries. You could also just use a computer type UPS, however this is less efficient as you are converting DC to AC and back to DC again with the power supply. We should have a blog post up soon on the safety connector (by tomorrow) tunzeusa.com.

 

[SDguy]

Thank you for the information. I'll look for the blog post.

 

[SDguy]

Finally had time to hook this thing up today, and all I can say is WOW!!! It's surprisingly small for the flow capacity, UTTERLY silent, and just provides amazing flow! I previously soaked it in mild detergent, and all smell was gone, BTW

A couple questions... it wasn't quite clear to me what the settings for pulse flow and ramp mean exactly. Is that how many seconds the pulse lasts for? Is that how many seconds it takes to ramp up to whatever full speed I set? Does the pulse amount of seconds start after the ramping is done, or when it starts?

Also, is there a particular orientation I should have the holder with respect to the pump itself. It seems the force of the pump will "straighten" the direction of the pump from where I set it.

Thanks again for the help.

 

[Craig Borowski]

Hi Peter,

Glad to hear you like it! It really is a great pump, easily our highest performing pump to date with regards to size and flow.

The Pulse Flow time changes how quickly the pumps change back and forth between the Power 1 and Power 2 settings. Of course every tank has different requirements, but for the most part it's good to have that timed long enough so that the pulse of water from the higher speed setting is on long enough for it to reach the other end of the tank. In other words, if that time is too short, then the blast of water from the pulse won't reach the length of the tank and you might not be taking full advantage of the pump.

The Ramp Flow setting is used to minimize startup noise when the pump starts from 0%. It's basically a minor jolt of power to get the propeller turning before following up with the full power as set in the Power settings. I think that the Ramp time and Pulse time start concurrently, but am not totally sure about that. I haven't had a chance to experiment with it much, but maybe Roger will chime in later to shed some more light on it.

You may need to play around with the orientation of the pump in the clamp to find what works best for you. You are correct that in some orientations the pump might straighten itself out, but if you play around with it by turning the C-clamp, you should be able to find the right orientation for whichever angle you have the pump at.

 

[SDguy]

The Pulse Flow time changes how quickly the pumps change back and forth between the Power 1 and Power 2 settings. Of course every tank has different requirements, but for the most part it's good to have that timed long enough so that the pulse of water from the higher speed setting is on long enough for it to reach the other end of the tank. In other words, if that time is too short, then the blast of water from the pulse won't reach the length of the tank and you might not be taking full advantage of the pump.

Thanks for the reply. Just so I'm 100% clear, let's say I have
power 1=30%
power 2=60%
Pulse Flow = 8
Ramp Flow = 3

This means that the pump will remain at 30% for 8 seconds, ramp up to 60% in 3 seconds, and then remain at 60% for 8 seconds. Then ramp down to 30% over 3 seconds, and repeat?

 

[Craig Borowski]

As far as I know, the Ramp function only needs to be used when one of the power levels is set to 0%. Since its only purpose is to minimize the chance of noise when starting from a complete stop, it will offer no advantage unless the chosen programming includes complete stopping of one or more of the pumps. (For example when a pump is going back and forth between 30% and 60% it won't ever stop entirely and so won't take advantage of the purpose of the Ramp function.) I've only ever used the Ramp function in Wavecontroller mode so am not entirely clear what it would do in other modes. I'll play around with it this weekend to see if I can learn more.

But anyway I think the scenario you describe is correct, with one exception. The Ramp timing should start simultaneously with the pulse timing. The pulse timing starts when the ramp starts. So the ramp time is not added on to the pulse time, but rather happens concurrently. This, too, I will try to confirm this weekend.