Join me for a strange one...

[kcress]

Greetings.
A quick update.

The Algae Scrubber has really taken off finally. Eat your heart out DWMZ! :lmao:


Here you can see an island has formed as the algae has grown above the water flow. Definitely time to scrape.

Here's a sunny shot of it.

Time to Take-Out-the-Trash...

I can't speak highly enough about using velcro hooks for the screen.. Wow. You couldn't scape off the base growth if your life depended on it! It hangs up the algae for-keeps.

 

[Wildman]

I noticed the growth patten first thing. My first thought was nutrient concentration. My second thought was air. Supposedly the pro to vertical ATS. Looks like it will work though. I believe I will try the horizontal first. I will have a steeper drop so we will see if it makes a difference.

 

[kcress]

Steeper is definitely less finicky.

 

[tahiriqbal]

Nice home grown Keith

Tahir

 

[kcress]

I've decided to proceed with the surge!

As you may recall I will be using a motor controlled six inch butterfly valve to drop a deluge of water from about 2 feet above the tank.


The "tank" is a piece of 8" pipe that's about 5 feet tall. This will be filled with water from the sump. When the appropriate level is reached the butterfly at the bottom of the column will be snapped open.

After an appropriate time the valve will be shut and the cycle will repeat.

I'll be using a PLC to run the logic. I'll also be trying to randomize the drops so there isn't a steady stream of identical ones. Some will come closer together with smaller volumes of water, others farther apart with more water.

I'll be using two microswitches to signal the PLC about the butterfly positions.

I've decided to use a windshield wiper motor because... I have a case of new ones. The ones I have have two speeds. Slow and slower. I'll probably start with 'slower' cuz we are only talking about 90 degrees of rotation.

Back a bunch of posts you will see the flanges I routed to match up the butterfly to eight inch pipe. You can see them in the today's picture temporarily bolted to the valve.

Today I designed the plate that is needed to tie all this together. Here it is.


I'll be routing it out of aluminum. Thicker aluminum then I've ever tried before. I'm a little nervous about it because I have to route dry. That means for me that I wax the plate surface to lubricate the tool. However a second pass means the wax has been used already. It's not hard to run the multiple passes with pauses between them so I could "re-treat" the surface but it will be hard to get the wax down in the trenches satisfactorily.

Here's the plate:

Here's the other main items going into this. Keep in mind this will take a couple of weeks to work thru.

 

[tomservo]

I'm sure someone has asked already, but is there a reason why you went with a dumping algae scrubber rather than a waterfall type?

 

[kcress]

Dumping? You should look again.

It's not a dumping system. It's a horizontal system. I don't have the needed height to support a vertical. For that size tank I need X amount of screen area. Because I have limited height that would dictate a really long screen. Flow is a function of screen length. I would need an unreasonable amount of flow to supply such a vertically short screen.

Hence - the horizontal screen.

 

[tomservo]

OIC - it just somehow looked like the acrylic trays did some sort of tilty dumpy thing. I just built a 12x9 (maybe more like 12x11) for a friend, with 24 red + 4 RB LEDs to go on his 250. But like you said, you have to have the headspace, and his just barely fit over the sump.

 

[srusso]

How about an update!

 

[kcress]

Hi srusso!

Ask and yea shall receive.

I finally dove in on the 5" butterfly valve. Spent a couple of days fabricating.

I decided to go with direct drive on the valve's shaft as noted above. I went ahead and fabbed that plate. Then I had to make some mondo standoffs. I machined them starting with drilling them.

Then I tapped them from both ends. I did the same exact thing with another piece of that hex-rod to be my drive shaft. I had to drill and tap it 8mm to match the output shaft threads of the wiper motor. The other side is 3/4" HEX which is what the valve's shaft is. This gives me two hex rods facing each other so I can couple them together.

Here are the standoffs installed so you can see where this is going. Note the same 3/4" valve shaft that I need to couple to.

Now since the wiper motor's output shaft is threaded 8mm that would cause that side of the driveshaft to unscrew in one direction. To prevent this I cross drilled clear thru the hex and the wiper motor shaft. Then I drove in a roll pin to prevent unscrewing. On to assembly!

Here it is assembled from the back.
Installed from the side.

Added some shaft position switches. They're all adjustable in all aspects.

And now for the results... drum roll......

It was totally silent, moves fast, and totally a failure... The gear motor doesn't supply enough torque to shut the valve completely. And to add further insult it sheared the roll pin and unscrewed the drive shaft.

Back to the drawing board. I started dithering about my choices. Do I use arms and links, ball-joints, and turnbuckles which I already purchased or do I use chain and sprockets. Do I go back to actually considering pneumatic and all the major hassles and noise it will likely provide? Or do I use a bunch of nice 1" acrylic I have laying around and just fabricate my own valve that's rational for 2psi service instead of 150psi service..

After some discussion I am going to modify the butterfly in the valve. I will be removing it once I figure out how.. And reducing its diameter so as to GREATLY reduce the seating forces needed. It won't even matter if it leaks a wee bit. Hopefully it won't but if it does it's not a problem. Then I should be able to reapply everything I've done so far and have it work this time.

One the up side! I now have a nice camera that takes high def movies. I can even use it underwater.

 

[srusso]

Your access/abilities to fabricate are just astounding. As always, we learn more from our failures then from our successes. Keep pushing forward and keep us updated.

How's the custom made rock working out? How's it look now? I bit it looks great now with coralline and other life grown on it!! Can you post of pics of the tank?

Thank you

 

[SoLiD]

Thanks for the update as I've been following this thread for quiet some time now. So much DIY awesomeness in this thread. Thanks again kcress.

 

[Chaka]

+1 on the FTS

 

[coketech]

Such an awesome build. Ive been following his thread on and off since it started.

Keep up the good work!

 

[cbzoo]

Confused / Amazed...

Confused / Amazed...

First of all this is one awesome build!! Read the whole thing yesterday..I do not curently have a saltwater tank. I do have many freshwater tanks an I am in the planning stages of one so I have been lurking on varoious sites for over a year now and until this build did want to post anything. I am also in the planning stages of setting up a WC Discus tank with LED's So I have been lurking here on the DIY pages soaking up the info on LED's However as a veteran of many large building construction projects on the Mechancial side of things I have two questions for you..
1. Why dont you use a regular valve actuator like one from Blelimo?
http://energycontrol.com/belimo-valve-actuators.aspx
2. Also why dont you just go down to the local plumbing supply house and purchase 2 PVC flanges to bolt the valve onto the PCV pipes?
I have to admire your mad skills with a CNC router but I would think a Schedule 40/80 PVC flange would be a better fit
http://http://www.pvcfittingsdirect.com/_e/gdept/14/Schedule_80_Flanges.htm:beer::beer::beer:

 

[kcress]

Your access/abilities to fabricate are just astounding. As always, we learn more from our failures then from our successes. Keep pushing forward and keep us updated.

How's the custom made rock working out? How's it look now? I bit it looks great now with coralline and other life grown on it!! Can you post of pics of the tank?

Thank you

Indeed. I will keep on keeping on. :artist:

Thanks for the update as I've been following this thread for quiet some time now. So much DIY awesomeness in this thread. Thanks again kcress.

You are most welcome. Glad you're enjoying this escapade.

+1 on the FTS

:thumbsup:

Such an awesome build. Ive been following his thread on and off since it started.

Keep up the good work!

Thanks for the encouragement.

First of all this is one awesome build!! Read the whole thing yesterday..I do not curently have a saltwater tank. I do have many freshwater tanks an I am in the planning stages of one so I have been lurking on varoious sites for over a year now and until this build did want to post anything.

Thank you! A am honored to have moved your hand into registering so you could contribute.

I am also in the planning stages of setting up a WC Discus tank with LED's So I have been lurking here on the DIY pages soaking up the info on LED's

Hope you can someday post a LED lit Discus tank. I haven't seen one yet.

However as a veteran of many large building construction projects on the Mechancial side of things I have two questions for you..
1. Why dont you use a regular valve actuator like one from Blelimo?
http://energycontrol.com/belimo-valve-actuators.aspx

I can answer this: For several reasons. One is the cost. These babies are expensive, ussually hundreds of dollars though an epay deal could appear.

The other even more important reason is that the makers of the actuators make them all move very s l o w l y. That's so the massive inertia of a pipe flow system doesn't 'hammer' and break something. And, because slower means much lower forces are needed and hence a smaller cheaper motor can be used - which is good for profits.

2. Also why dont you just go down to the local plumbing supply house and purchase 2 PVC flanges to bolt the valve onto the PCV pipes?
I have to admire your mad skills with a CNC router but I would think a Schedule 40/80 PVC flange would be a better fit
http://http://www.pvcfittingsdirect.com/_e/gdept/14/Schedule_80_Flanges.htm

One reason is the cost. 6" flanges are about $80 a piece! I need two and my acrylic was free Another reason is that I'm using well casing for the pipe. It's very light and thin and will be considerably easier to get up into my chimney stack. I wanted this thin stuff supported inside and out, not just outside like the commercial flanges. This, since I haven't figured out how to mount all this stuff. I might hang it all from the pipe.


Thanks for putting your brain to my efforts!

In further news. I spent a few hours yesterday wrestling with my valve. It was like arm-wrestling for a straight hour. Picture changing a tire with your bare hands. :hmm4: You have to pull the shaft out after removing a clip-ring. To access the clip-ring you have to make a tool to unscrew the stop. Once the shaft is out you have to pry the whole rubber seat out with the butteryfly still pinned in the middle. The seat is glued in two places! Once I got it out I removed the butteryfly and it's ceramic bearings. I marked an edge along the BF lip on both sides.

Then I took the BF to a vertical belt sander. It cut off like Styrofoam!!! So fast I was shocked. Luckily I didn't push too hard on the initial touch to the belt. Once sanded I turned the BF over and saw everything I'd sanded off had just transferred into a big lip on the back. Luckily it easily snapped off cleanly.
I removed about 3/32" of an inch all the way around.

Once re-assembled I put a torque wrench to the drive shaft and found the torque has been reduced to about 1/3 of what it was. More surprising, the valve now passes through the center. This means I can turn the drive motor in one direction and it will just keep going. This will negate the issue of the threaded drive shaft on the motor. I will always turn the motor in the direction that tightens things.

Now to reassemble the drive motor onto the plate and the plate back to the valve. Later today I shall see if it works as expected (hoped). Stay tuned.

 

[cbzoo]

Cost.

Cost.

:spin2: I forget that I work for a contractor and both of those Items are not that expensive to me... however I get the contractor rate... :wavehand::wavehand:
I am trying to get an led setup to simulate a lowlight environment with a sunrise sunset programming along with an automatic water change system and an ATS built into the sump... You SW guys have alot of REALLY good ideas that I can apply in some manner to my WC discus tank....I hope you all dont mind If I borrow liberally from your DIY section for my Discus tank...I am in the planning stages of that tank and a 40 Gallon Breeder Reef tank also.. I hope the knowledeg from DIY LED setup for the discus tank will translate right over to SW Reef tank with some tweaks for color and brightness...

 

[H20ENG]

Once re-assembled I put a torque wrench to the drive shaft and found the torque has been reduced to about 1/3 of what it was.

YES!!!! Sorry it was such a hassle for you, but I think is worth it for the end result. Awesome work Keith!:dance:

 

[cbonito]

Very impressive use of ceramic aquascaping.
Interesting system this is turning out to be.

 

[srusso]

kcress... you said something about full tank shots... ???