finally beginning my 480g 5'x5'x30" SPS Reef Tank

garage door opener will be way to big IMO. then of course its not precise, on the other hand linear actuator are very accurate.
 
jonathan, luckily I had a lot of flexibility because there are no load bearing walls in that part of my house. I'm looking forward to having that much room to work with when I need it.

bart, thank's for weighing in with your knowledge. Linear actuator's it is. Other then stroke, weight, and speed, is there anything else I should be looking for in an actuator?
 
Wow, your pretty talented on that! takes me forever to draw the pipes and youve done Y's and T's even ball valves! your incredible at that!
 
yeah :lol: , if only i was a graphic designer. Tom you could always stop by and help me with google sketchup :D .

here one of the company we used for all custom enclosures. its kind of expensive, but for what we do is needed. fully controllable to make them stop or retract all the way with the simply touch of button. then you can hide the switch underneath the counter similar to silent alarm trigger :cool: .

http://74.175.101.66/dealer/items.asp?CartId={8C9E52EVEREST78-0A71-4F27-8741-CFDB11D9A559}&Cc=ACT&Tp=

:cool:
 
Thank you kamico.


No problem Bart, next time I'm in your neck of the woods I'll help you out. :D Unfortunately I am never in your neck of the woods though.

Thanks for the link, I'll check it out for options. There is one other good website that I have looked at so far so options are always nice.


Now how's this for a dream tank. 1200g reef that is 11'x5'x3'. Benny Z just posted some pictures of this great tank on my reef fish thread. Sick!!

tankonfloor.jpg


newdiningside.jpg


I think he said it has a 800g sump.
 
That tank is cool but 36" deep is tough to maintain. Too deep to reach the bottom easily, too shallow to skin dive in. Pillars are neat.
 
What is planned above the hood, will it slide into an open area, or up into an attic like space? I followed a thread on RC several years ago that used a chain/gear system to raise a hood, basically used 4 threaded rods (1/corner) and a motor that would raise the hood. It was slick but definitely DIY.

I personally use a linear actuator to lift the front of my hood (hinged) which is rated for 1500 pounds. I would definitely recommend over designing the actuator b/c there won't be much difference in sizes of the devices between low lift weight vs. higher.

You might also check at a store called aquatic critter in Nashville, TN that has a powered lift hood on a pretty large fresh water tank. I never looked at how it worked but it was very clean looking.

Matt
 
jonathan - I agree, but I'm pretty sure that who ever owns that tank doesn't clean it themselves anyways. They just get to enjoy the depth.


matt - It will slide into a second encloser that is partial in the attic and partially in the display room ceiling, I think I am going to shoot for 4" below.

Do you have any pictures of your setup that I chould check out. I would like to see how other people have rigged their systems.

I will definetely look into the heavy weight actuators and see what I find.

And I'll try to track down that store in Nashville to, maybe I can get some good advice out of them. Thanks!


tanya - what are the stats on your actuator? Might take you up on that.
 
Tom, check out my gallery for pics with the linear actuator mounted. You can see from the other pics how the top is hinged, I have the base mounted on a handmade steel contraption (an L shape welded to flat stock) and the other end is basically a U channel of steel bar stock mounted onto the hinged top. If you want more pics let me know.


Matt
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10559547#post10559547 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by JJ21
WHY CAN'T I BE RICH TO DO THESE THINGS!?!?!?! :D
Click to expand...

you don't have to be rich. you need to have priorities :lol2:
 
I think Tom said it back in this thread. There are alot of expensive hobbies out there. You can easily spend cash on golf, skiing travel. It comes down to what you want to spend it on.
 
jj21 - as mentioned by others already, its really a matter of priorities. Some people like cars, travel, diving. Every serious hobby has its serious expensives attached to it. At least that's how I justify it :D .

matt - probably should have checked your gallery first. Thanks for the pics, I think I get the idea. Where did you get your actuator from?

Beer is how I used to spend all my money, now I need it to keep my fish hydrated.
 
After kind of giving up on the diagrams, i decided to go back to the drawings. I was looking at your diagrams (thirschmann) once again and noticed your pipes were hallow. I was like WOW How the heck did you did thattttt loll. ALso do you remember how long it took you to do the whole diagram (everything). Also does your computer lagg when working on them ??? Thanks
 
There is a tool that looks like 2 1/4 curves next to one another, you can use that to draw the radius of the pipe inwards, then you just delete the inside of the cylinder.

Now time involved. Honestly no idea, as an artist I sometimes get lost in my work as I just get excited about how it develops, I'm sure its the same for people in other past times they are passionate about. So sometimes I work on it for 10 minutes cleaning up earlier work and then sometimes I find myself I look up and I have been working on it for a few hours without knowing it. Sorry, best answer I can give you, I do know that I have become much much faster in a short period of time.

I bought a brand new 15" macbook pro with 3gb of ram with the proceeds from selling off my last series of aquarium photos :D . So I'm pretty lucky to have a powerful laptop that can handle the requirements of sketchup. Not a bad return for 12 digital photos and a little framing.
 
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