my diy needle wheel dart pump

[jnarowe]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7147049#post7147049 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by spazz
ya he went with the small 6" riser tube. :lol: you never know he might need to go to 7" or 8" with 2 dart needle wheels and 2 air pumps on there. that 6" might only be good for the one dart pump. we will just ahve to see how it oges at start up.

That's a good point Scott...You know my riser tube is 6" x 24" and all I have is the one Alita air pump with stones. The top half of my tube is completely filled with foam 24/7 so you may be right that Bill will need a larger diameter riser. I know it's a bit late but I never thought about it before.

 

[jnarowe]

Bill,

What jig to cut the o-ring? Where do you get it? And where do you get the material? Maybe Master-Carr? It would really improve my collection cup and flanges if I could use o-rings instead of rubber sheet!

 

[spazz]

well he will have to suffer with the 6" riser for a couple of weeks. i dont have time to make the drawings for an 8" twist lock right now. but if he needs it i will get him one in the near future.

 

[Bill Wann]

Scott , Teh girlfriend is beating me over th ehead to get out of this house and build an othet one , we found 5 acres in wis for sale and I could then build a real big tank with a house around it .
Your welcom to my tank free of charge and the 600 gallon tank in back if you like , Ill find away to load it on your semi .
Then you have abig tank to make a skimmer for .

 

[Bill Wann]

That jig only works to cut a groove on th eoutside of a circle , Not like a typical oring groove , I use my cnc for that .
You could use a router table and use a pin in th emiddele to spin it on while thebit cuts into the material

 

[spazz]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7147224#post7147224 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Bill Wann
Scott , Teh girlfriend is beating me over th ehead to get out of this house and build an othet one , we found 5 acres in wis for sale and I could then build a real big tank with a house around it .
Your welcom to my tank free of charge and the 600 gallon tank in back if you like , Ill find away to load it on your semi .
Then you have abig tank to make a skimmer for .

if that happens then i will just rent the equiptment to remove them from the house so we are not breaking our backs trying to load that monster on the truck. then i will need a new house too. ha ha ha or a huge addition to the current house. ha ha ha ha

 

[spazz]

bill did you by chance get one of these for the tank????

 

[Bill Wann]

Iam working on it , A little hard to find so far , Any ideas

 

[melev]

Bill, you do such nice work. That skimmer is simply going to be amazing once it is running. It's already a work of art and it isn't even done. That jig on the table saw was really smart, I never would have thought of that.

 

[jnarowe]

Bill,

Are you looking specifically for a blue spotted ray, or any ray?

The jig I was asking about was for cutting the o-ring itself. It seemed like you wrote that there was a special jig for that to get a straight cut so the rubber joint would be perfect.

 

[trodder]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7147325#post7147325 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Bill Wann
Iam working on it , A little hard to find so far , Any ideas

yeah... a little trip to Minneapolis would get you one.... well most likely. One of our LFS' seems to get them in quite a bit. The problem is they are being kept in 20 gallon tanks for very long periods of time We Scott and I could always scout one out for here and get it shipped to you

 

[exmt]

Now how much do you think the total cost of this skimmer was?

Perhaps a couple thousand dollars?....

 

[exmt]

Now how much do you think the total cost of this skimmer was?

Perhaps a couple thousand dollars?....

 

[Bill Wann]

I have about 800 ino it so far , The most expensive peice is the main tube and It didnt really cost me anything .

 

[spazz]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7150081#post7150081 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by exmt
Now how much do you think the total cost of this skimmer was?

Perhaps a couple thousand dollars?....

that all depends on how you look at it. if you look as shear cost of materials and not time. then a couple thousand. if you consider the time and energy involved in building that skimmer then it would be more like $6000 to $8000. I know if you were to buy that tube new that he is using for the main chamber, you would have to get a loan from the bank to buy it. it would be the price of a new mid size car. but he was able to find that tube used so he saved a huge chunk of money there. but the real reason bill took on this project is because he couldn't find the skimmer he wanted in the price range he wanted. so he is building this one. I feel his skimmer will out perform any skimmer on the market that has that volume of water in the skimmer body. the efficiently of his design is the key to its success. this skimmer should pay for itself in a matter of a year in energy savings alone. his current skimmer is 2450 watts. this skimmer should come in around 500-600 watts. and put out about 300-350 schf of super fine air bubbles.

 

[Sparkss]

Spazz, Not to mention the cost of the equiptment used to build the various components....

 

[Siklid]

R&D is always expensive ... there taking on the costs so we can all learn from them and save tons on R&D for our own projects


thanks guys for investing your time and energy and showing us how it CAN be done

 

[Bill Wann]

I was going to by a deltec at frist , Then I got the quote and about shat myself , then thet wanted 600 more for shipping and on top of that I might have to get another one for the water volume I have . I thought to myself you have to be kidding me , It would havve cost me close to 18 k for these . Then came the moment of aww , When I saw Spazzs Thread on the needle wheel dart . I thought I can make that . So I did . And it worked and worked real well . I shat myself again when I saw it operate the frist time . So now I have a pump , Now I needed a skimmer to mount it to , I had this peice of 25.5 od acrylic tube thats 48 inch high sitting in my closet for a year . I got it form a friend of mine in the lab buisness for next to nothing . I didnt know what to do with it at the time but knew I needed it . So it all came toghter , Mostly late at night looking over RC for diffremt ideas , I liked teh BKs for how they introduced the tank water . Good Idea so I used a difuser plate .

 

[trmiv]

I just can't wait to see this thing fired up. The pics you had earlier of th bubbles this pump is churning out was awesome. It made my Deltec jealous.

 

[jnarowe]

Yeah Bill, I dropped a load when I researched skimmers for my system too. It griped me a bit because all I saw was plastic! :lol: I know better now but I built mine for way less than buying one and it uses about 1/10 the power. now I want to refine it with better seals and a NW recirc.