Tiny Might skimmer rockin'

Guys I don't have a problem with the discussions, it is the fact that he pulled my name into another argument. I never said a word about reasoning or detail. That was someone else. In fact I apologized for taking him the wrong way before when he mistakingly used my name and that is fine. I just prefer to not be involved in the he said she said. My comment about Calfo was out of line.
 
Well let's get the thread back on track. The Tiny Might continues to work flawlessly. I checked on the skimmer before leaving this morning for work and the skimmate production continues to improve. I think with the final needlewheel with the smaller needles, we will have a winner! I will post a skimmer cup pic when I get home to show the progress. I am really anxious to get a heatsink on this little motor. It is slightly hotter than we need, so I think the sink will do the trick. I am also thinking that we will have a great skimmer pump in terms of wattage consumption. This pump in easily taking the place of 4 OR 3700
and is using around 70-72 watts! The air pump I am running is
using 25-28 watts depending on how much back pressure I put on it. The beauty is that on a shorter skimmer the tiny might with an adjustable venturi produces tons of bubbles on its own. It fills the chamber of my skimmer pretty impressively without supercharging and it is fighting 42 in of head pressure. I think 30 inches or less you could run it without supercharging it and have a pump that can replace 4 OR 3700 for 70-75 watts! And if you want a larger skimmer you can supercharge it.
 
This skimmer continues to impress; great work.

The next time you have the pump apart would you please post pictures of the inside of the wet end and the back of the needlewheel? I know it is important to get the seal right or the pump will leak but I don't think I've actually seen this seal in your thread or spazz's. I'm curious as to what is involved in DIY'ing a needlewheel for it.
 
Bean, berating what I am talking about by comparing it to the musings of 'Cliff Claven' is like me saying that your lack of interest makes you the 'Tommy Chong' of skimmer science... "wow man, thats too complicated for me!". You claim that its science applied wrong and that its too much, etc...

So where is your proof of anything different? Do you have something better than what I have? Or are you just giving random opinions? I hear negativity to many of my ideas of how a bubble should flow or how designs work, but Im not hearing anything better. I do try to send my opinions to others who know better than any of us to make sure Im on the right track before just posting something. If you know better than I do... come on with it!!! I feel that its better to apply science wherever possible than to just 'wing-it' and see what happens. Im sorry that you have no interest in this approach, but others might.

You argued against me when I said that bubble plates are more likely to hurt performance, so I asked Calfo and a couple MFG's... they agreed.

So what research have you done?
 
So lets look at a few "ring" type heatsink designs.

Lets assume spazz can mill 1" thick material (spazz is that reasonable?)

We can use 1" plate aluminum drops from his local metals supplier.

Mill the proper diameter hole in the center of the plate that matches the pump body diameter. Mill the profile of the heatsink fins into the plate thick at the base thin at the top. Leave the 180 degree and 0 degree fins out to form a blank gap in each side of the ring.

You now have heatsink rings that can be cut in half to form 2 1/2 circles with a flat area to tap a hole into (where the fin would have been). The heatsinsk will be 1" wide.

Tap the hole and secure a strap (velcro, breeze clamp, whatever) to the sink. Saddle them on the top of the pump and strap em down with thermal compound.

You could also opt to sand the coating off the pump and use thermal epoxy to join the sinks to the pump. A bit of enamal to seal any exposed steal... and your in business.
 
ChemE, I will post a pic of the needlewheel I took off of it. The wheels are cut exactly the same for the bearing.

Bean, I guess it depends on whether Spazz wants to just mill down a production heat sink or start wth plate aluminum. Either way this is one of the final pieces of the puzzle for an awesome NW pump!
 
hahn... I will not waste my time with proof. Your application of science is the problem here. To informed people it is obvious, to those of lesser understanding you may appear to be a scientific marvel. Hence the reference to Cliff Claven.

I am not sure what you understand and what you google or just plain make up. It does not matter, it's just not coherant. I am not uninterested in science at all... I AM uninterested in the development of these fruitless tangents that are based on dubious definitions, wrong assumptions and your understanding of the science that makes the world go round.

To constantly have to take time to prove you wrong is what is getting so anoying. Please can we move on before this gets out of hand?
 
And on a more friendly note...

hahn if your family member wants to contact me about injection moldable parts.... I have a source for the material and engineering for the injection heatsinks. I would imagine that sale price would have to be less than $25 each to be able to move a short run of these things.
 
Back of NW pics

Back of NW pics

ChemE, Here you go buddy!
DSCN1993.jpg

DSCN1992.jpg
 
Thanks very much. The outer raised circle is the carbide bearing correct? Was this cannibalized from the original impeller or did you fabricate your own?
 
The outer ring is the outside of the ceramic seal. The inner ring is where the shaft screws into and also goes into the center of the ceramic seal. This is an exact copy of the original impeller. Spazz cut it for me on the CNC. You will have a hard time cannibalizing
the original because it is made of poly filled glass. Finding a bond that will work will be the challenge.
 
Updated skimmate pics

Updated skimmate pics

Here are the pics I promised earlier today! Keep in mind that this is 2 days from a system that was very nutrient poor already, so I thought!
DSCN2000.jpg

DSCN2003.jpg
DSCN1997.jpg
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7866049#post7866049 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by dgasmd
I would gladly go with 25" diameter and 2' tall than go to 10' tall and 12" diameter. It is obviously and exageration, but you get my point. This is especially true to the NW skimmer ebing built with the sequence pumps.

I have searched a bit on this issue and I don't understand what your reasoning is? I thought the idea was to keep the bubbles in suspension as long as possible and that would be accomplished by a taller tower. No?

I have to admit that I am still at the infant stage in understanding the workings of effective skimmers so any added info would be appreciated.

BTW, great thread, even the huffy stuff.
 
I dont want to make anybody upset but I think the dome will be more efficient if you are compairing similar "slopes" Both the cone and the dome will have equal horizontal velocity thus creating the same turbulance (vectors) but the upwards velocity will be less on the dome thus leading to a higher efficiency. Does this make sence or am I compleatly wrong here?
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7897532#post7897532 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Cuby2k
I have searched a bit on this issue and I don't understand what your reasoning is? I thought the idea was to keep the bubbles in suspension as long as possible and that would be accomplished by a taller tower. No?

I have to admit that I am still at the infant stage in understanding the workings of effective skimmers so any added info would be appreciated.

BTW, great thread, even the huffy stuff.

Thanks! The idea behind the wide body is that the turbulence is
much less than in a narrow body. A narrow body can overcome this with height. But a tall skimmer is somewhat cumbersome to
maintain. That and not everyone has room for a 6 foot skimmer.
Both situations give you increased contact time.
Mike
 
Cuby2k,
perhaps dgasmd's reasoning isnt based on performance so much as convenience... sometimes such a tall skimmer is hard to find a home for. But you are correct, about a year or so I remember a comparison between 'going higher' vs. 'going wider' based on factory specs of NW skimmers. The taller, narrower skimmer was always rated much higher than the shorter, wider skimmer of equal volume...even taking into account the margin of error most mfg's have in their suggested volume specs.

In the case of smjtkj's dome top skimmer. It appears that your water level is just below the top of the dome...so the horizontal component is negated as the bubbles start collecting below the top of the dome. In this case, everything I said about bubbles shooting sideways like kids on a waterslide is pretty much negated. Rock on.

Bean, everything that I have said here with regards to science is pretty much just based on velocity, acceleration, and position functions from freshman physics/calc. No google, just books and past experience... all easily verified if I asked a professor/engineer. Of 20 people of my closest family members, 12 are engineers, 3 of which deal with/have dealt with hydrodynamics (4 of the 12 which are also reefers) and whom I was able to confer with on the subject yesterday at a gathering. I dont post it until I'm sure... Its in me blood!

But for others, a dome top might not be a good idea if the water level is higher than the top of the dome.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7897649#post7897649 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by shadofax69
I dont want to make anybody upset but I think the dome will be more efficient if you are compairing similar "slopes" Both the cone and the dome will have equal horizontal velocity thus creating the same turbulance (vectors) but the upwards velocity will be less on the dome thus leading to a higher efficiency. Does this make sence or am I compleatly wrong here?

That actually makes sense to me. It was actually one of the reasons I initially built it this way. But I don't know enough about the dynamics to say for sure. I know there is absolutely no combining of bubbles all the way into the riser neck which is the whole reason behind cones and now domes. They then combine to form a stable foam at about the middle of the neck. Just my observations...I just got lucky that my idea worked. It was not based on scienific data. it made sense to me so I went with it!
 
I believe you are wrong about having the water level right below the top of the dome. That would maximize turbulence and ruin any hope you would have at efficiency. You want the water a good distance from any surface that concentrates the rising bubbles because velocities are changing and creating turbulence. If the bubbles collected before the top of the dome when the turbulence would not allow a stable head of foam to form and you would get little if not no skimmate.
 
The bubbles get really dense just below the top of the dome but the water level is actually about 1.5 inch above the top of the dome. I was running it higher than that but the oring I used has
started to leak. I need to replace it with a silicone oring so that it can compress to form a better seal. This black oring was somewhat stiff when i put it in, but is like a brick now for some reason. As soon as I get the new oring I will raise the level a hair more.
 
This whole idea of a dome is great smjtkj I am definatly going to build my next skimmer like this. By the way to you buy or make your dome.
 
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