Mountains of sawdust (360g plywood, LED, Arduino build)

Progress is slow but steady. I marked out the heatsinks and aluminum for the LED fixture but I lent my drill press to someone and keep forgetting to stop and get it...
 
Just read the full thread. Quite the read. Very informative.
Loved the progress and loved seeing you bounce back after the brace issue came up.

Best of luck with the rest of the rebuild. I'll be following along!
 
Dud you gotta post something already! :lol:

Hey congrats on the Typhon man! I'm happy you got that moving with a company
 
An update, finally. Though. In broken sentences and no pics, because I am posting from my phone. :D so maybe this counts as a teaser instead of a real update.

This past weekend was a biggie. The LED heatsinks are assembled. LEDs are glued down. About a third of them are wired together but no off-heatsink wiring is done yet. Components for the cat4101 drivers are ordered but only the blues will run from them. Still not totally sure on a driver for the XM-L whites. At least initially, control for the LEDs will be via Typhon. I have started playing with moounting the Typhon and I think it will look good.

Also, the plumbing is back together and leak tested. As part of that effort I installed the closed loop pump and VFD and tested them wet. Prior to this, I had only played with the vfd and motor dry without the pump connected as a proof of concept. So this was the first time I had water in the vfd pump. This was very exciting. I just sat there ramping it up and down and toying with settings while I watched the flow in the tank. I am of course excited about the LEDs but IMHO this is just as cool. There are definitely a few bugs to work out but being able to push a button and change the flow in the tank is just plain awesome.

That is it for now. Work on the LEDs willl proceed in the coming days and maybe I can get some photos.

Oh and the repair held just fine with the tank full of water. Its a total non-issue at this point IMHO.
 
Someone on here did it, maybe S2Minute. I actually think there were a few.

I contacted OnSemi about having one with a very high RSense (around 100k Pot was my guess) for a moon light, and a second one (10K Pot) for normal driving. They would then have separate PWMs. They did not seem to think this would be a problem, I just have not gotten there yet.
 
Huh, as in not understanding my description or something else. I sort of figured you would have to balance the current between the needed driver, but it appears not.

There technical support system seems pretty good. It just takes about a day to get a response.
 
After some tinkering and conversations with our own kcress, I have some lessons learned regarding the vfd closed loop:

1) Match the motor to the pump. Obvious, but make sure you understand the motor's power and rpm specs and how they relate to what the pump needs. Mine don't match. It still works but it is not ideal.

2) Be prepared to adjust the carrier frequency on the drive. Mine was very loud with the default setting- there was a loud, chirpy whine from the motor. After playing with the carrier frequency, it is gone. Now, there is just a *barely* audible low hum that disappears when you are more that a few feet from the tank. The fan in the vfd drive unit is louder than the pump. As noted several pages back, I had some noise issues with the return pump, and partially solved them by putting rubber couplings on the plumbing. I did that here, too. It has probably contributed to the quiet operation.

3) Get a high quality TEFC motor, as this is likely a big part of the reason why I got it so quiet, while others have not been able to elininate the vfd whine.

Really, even at this initial experimental level, I am very excited about having this functionality on this tank. I would suggest that anyone else DIY-minded who is putting a big closed loop on a big tank should do this. Or at least experiment with it.
 
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