Tiny Might skimmer rockin'
- Thread starter smjtkj
- Start date
ChemE
New member
True, it is fairly big to be sticking off the side of a skimmer but most will have that stashed under the stand anyway. As to the power supply, you need 0.18A @ 12V so theoretically you're looking at 2.16 watts. My Hack Shack (radio shack) wall wart spinning 2 PC fans clocks in at 5 watts on my Kill A Watt, so the wall wart wastes about a watt in voltage conversion. So you're probably looking at 3-4 watts total which doesn't even bother me and I'm crazy about power.
BeanAnimal
Premium Member
Heres the deal....
I did extensive research on the linear air pumps a few months back. I called manufacturers, tracked down suppliers, looked at holding companies and patents, etc.
It appears that the first modern linear "hobby pumps" were the HI-BLOWS out of japan. The ALITA pumps came next and are the cream of the crop. They are sold under a different name (my notes escape me now) to the koi pond folks. There are 2 other manufacturers that have copied the pumps from ALITA. The Sweatwater and Whitewater pumps are COPIES and have some reliability issues from what I gather. The smaller units don't suffer as bad. However if you are looking at the larger models, the ALITA is the only kid on the block.
AES is just a big supplier and has buys from one of the "knock off" vendors. They have their label pasted on them (thats why you can't buy "sweatwater" any place else... but they are identical to some of the pumps on ebay and other koi sales sites.
BTW, by all reports the ALITAS are also quieter (I guess their mechanical compents are made with better QA and tolerances.)
Bean
BeanAnimal
Premium Member
They do look exactly the same though don't they!
Spazz, you may want to give the ALITA guys a call. I had a LONG conversation with one of the head engineers a few months back. Pretty honest guy (even by telling me if I was looking at the bottom of the line model, the 20 liter I think... to buy the competition, as it was about the same but a lot cheaper).
Bean
Spazz, you may want to give the ALITA guys a call. I had a LONG conversation with one of the head engineers a few months back. Pretty honest guy (even by telling me if I was looking at the bottom of the line model, the 20 liter I think... to buy the competition, as it was about the same but a lot cheaper).
Bean
spazz
New member
by the way where are the pics of the skimmer after you installed the new wheel in it? is there a noticable difference in the amount of bubbles inside the skimmer body? have yo done the measurments to see what the air to water ratios are? dwell time? any noticable difference in the way the skimmer performs on your system? skimmate production?
hahnmeister
In Memoriam
Im telling you... I can get the mold done for next to nothing. Someone in my family owns an injection molding company, and he has already offered, as he is interested in what parts he might make for reef aquariums... anything from rubber to plastics... he can make a mold for and it costs nothing for us... All I need is a sample to make the mold from.
spazz
New member
to me it sounds like you want us to supply him with the design and then he takes it and makes a ton of money selling it. if any one should make the money off this idea its smjtkj. its his idea to use this pump and he did all the leg work to get the information about this pump. all i did was cut the wheel for it. and now we are getting off the original subject and going comerical with this .so lets get back to the diy part of the program. ha ha ha ha
hahnmeister
In Memoriam
Oh, and BTW, those Tuniq Tower 120s are great for cpu cooling, but they work so well because they are intended to transfer alot of heat (90-120watts worth) from a small area. I dont know if they would be so great for other applications though.
Heat pipe based coolers require a certain minimum temperature for the phase exchange process to take place which makes the heat pipes work. Go under this minimum, and you are going to see worse performance than a regular heatsink with just alot of copper and fins. Heatpipe CPU coolers are great on CPUs, but even at that, you can tell that they have certain minimums to work because their performance when a CPU is at 'idle' (less heat) is often worse than non-heatpipe coolers. Their real benefit isnt seen until you test the CPU under 'load' (more heat) and then the heatpipes contents starts to move that heat away very fast.
So for cooling other things, like pumps, its in your best interest to make sure you have enough heat for a heatpipe cooler to work... or its just an expensive waste.
I would suggest looking at some of the older cpu coolers that arent heatpipe based. They are much cheaper, and with most pumps, you dont need heat removal from such a small area...the reason for all the expense.
If you do go the heatpipe route, I would not suggest the Tuniq 120. Too much copper near saltwater... it wil corrode pretty fast in humidity (if its a concern). The CNPS-9500 AM2 cooler by Zalman is an all copper cooler that has been covered in nickel for corrosion resistance, and is in the same performance category as the always hard-to-find Tuniq. Also, the Thermalright Ultra-120 is another one that is copper with a coating, so you dont have to worry as much about corrosion with all that exposed copper.
Otherwise, simply using older 'flower' style heatsinks would work fine. Since you have more space to work with, you could easily pick up multiple $10 heatsinks for older socketA/370 processors that can all be attached and have a net cooling effect many times that of a single heatpipe cooler.
Also, I would not use Arctic Silver 5 in corrosive conditions. Stick with their ceramiq... almost as good, but less to worry about.
Or, I think it would be much easier to set up some sort of thermo-electric cooling (TEC) in this case...
Heat pipe based coolers require a certain minimum temperature for the phase exchange process to take place which makes the heat pipes work. Go under this minimum, and you are going to see worse performance than a regular heatsink with just alot of copper and fins. Heatpipe CPU coolers are great on CPUs, but even at that, you can tell that they have certain minimums to work because their performance when a CPU is at 'idle' (less heat) is often worse than non-heatpipe coolers. Their real benefit isnt seen until you test the CPU under 'load' (more heat) and then the heatpipes contents starts to move that heat away very fast.
So for cooling other things, like pumps, its in your best interest to make sure you have enough heat for a heatpipe cooler to work... or its just an expensive waste.
I would suggest looking at some of the older cpu coolers that arent heatpipe based. They are much cheaper, and with most pumps, you dont need heat removal from such a small area...the reason for all the expense.
If you do go the heatpipe route, I would not suggest the Tuniq 120. Too much copper near saltwater... it wil corrode pretty fast in humidity (if its a concern). The CNPS-9500 AM2 cooler by Zalman is an all copper cooler that has been covered in nickel for corrosion resistance, and is in the same performance category as the always hard-to-find Tuniq. Also, the Thermalright Ultra-120 is another one that is copper with a coating, so you dont have to worry as much about corrosion with all that exposed copper.
Otherwise, simply using older 'flower' style heatsinks would work fine. Since you have more space to work with, you could easily pick up multiple $10 heatsinks for older socketA/370 processors that can all be attached and have a net cooling effect many times that of a single heatpipe cooler.
Also, I would not use Arctic Silver 5 in corrosive conditions. Stick with their ceramiq... almost as good, but less to worry about.
Or, I think it would be much easier to set up some sort of thermo-electric cooling (TEC) in this case...
BeanAnimal
Premium Member
smjtkj....
I am in the process of having some heatsinks for my T4 pumps made out of cast aluminum (know a guy that casts stuff, but he is pretty busy). I plan on doing my own metal casting, but alas it's another project I don't have time for.
SPAZZ, you could machine the heatsinks fairly easily out of solid aluminum block or thermaly conductive plastic.
My original plan was to use injection modable heatsink plastic to make simple clip on heatsinks (identicle in function to those used on tiny RC motors).
The only think that stopped my was the setup fees and the fact that I wouldn know what to do with 1000 Titanium T4 heatsinks... sound familiar?
I am in the process of having some heatsinks for my T4 pumps made out of cast aluminum (know a guy that casts stuff, but he is pretty busy). I plan on doing my own metal casting, but alas it's another project I don't have time for.
SPAZZ, you could machine the heatsinks fairly easily out of solid aluminum block or thermaly conductive plastic.
My original plan was to use injection modable heatsink plastic to make simple clip on heatsinks (identicle in function to those used on tiny RC motors).
The only think that stopped my was the setup fees and the fact that I wouldn know what to do with 1000 Titanium T4 heatsinks... sound familiar?
Spazz, here are some 24 hour pics! The bubble density is defenitely better with the new wheel. And the wattage is at 71-72 now with no problems! The skimmate production has started to increase preety noticably. Especially for my system which I thought was stripped before. Here are some pics
of the bubble density before and after the latest wheel! And of
course the 24 hous of poo! Oh, I want to do the measurments but Dale mentioned I need to run the skimmer closed loop style for the test if I run a durso style output. I am feeding from the overflow. Do I still need to do it closed loop style to test?
First wheel bubble density shots:
New wheel density:
BeanAnimal
Premium Member
Yup. I am trying to arrange the foam postives for him to cast (lost foam casting). So each casting would need a postive.
Long story short, drawback of having to make a new postive for each casting is overshadowed by the fact that the mold does not have to be packed as tight, and does not have to be two halves.
I can't afford to have anything machined and certainly don't have the tooling to do it. I once considered milling aluminum on my router table, but honestly don't have full body armor to protect myself from such a stupid trick.
Bean
Long story short, drawback of having to make a new postive for each casting is overshadowed by the fact that the mold does not have to be packed as tight, and does not have to be two halves.
I can't afford to have anything machined and certainly don't have the tooling to do it. I once considered milling aluminum on my router table, but honestly don't have full body armor to protect myself from such a stupid trick.
Bean
BeanAnimal
Premium Member
Speaking of getting stuff done.... how could I twist your ear to get one of those dome shaped necks? I certainly don't want to trial and error my way through that mess 
