Tiny Might skimmer rockin'

Re: meter

Re: meter

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7918895#post7918895 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by marcusbigdady
where did you get the kill a watt meter ,by the way sweet skimmer.....
Click to expand...
Yep ebay is where I got mine too.
 
well I got some bad news today. nobody can make a heat sink to fit the needs of the tiny might for less than $8000 tooling fee. that don't include the heat sink. so we are back to square one with the slight heat buildup of the motor. so now we need to figure out of we are just going to leave it as is or go in a different direction.

on a side note I have 2 iswaki pumps running on my 120g tank. the 30rt runs at 133 deg. and the 30rlxt runs at a whopping 157 deg. so to say the tiny might is running hot, maybe a wrong statement. once I get my new needle wheel running I will check the running temp of the motor. I think maybe I'm just over reacting on the heat issue. it would be nice if we could get it to run at 110 deg or less. but I don't think that is possible with out a major undertaking to make a heat sink.
I'm out of ideas on this subject so I will leave it to the rest of you DIYers to come up with a cost affective solution to the heat.
 
I think i will just buy a computer heatsink and bring it to a machine shop to see if they can mill it down really thin.
 
Spazz... My casting guy is WAY WAY behind (he is building a gingery lathe) and has an obligation to a whole group of folks buidling them.

So do you want to undertake lost foam casting of aluminum? I don't have the space or time myself. It's not a hard process. You just need some scrap aluminum, some refractory cement and some DIY equipment.

Hahn mentioned a family member that was willing to do injection molding for next to nothing... As I mentioned, I found a source for some injection moldable heatsink material.

The other option is to have a few sinks milled from aluminum stock. If yout don't want to use your machine, I am sure somebody else can do it for a reasonable price. We just need to supply the profiles.

You can get 1" thick aluminum plate drops on eBay or from a local supplier. Lay em on the table and cut the profile. The TM pump may take a couple of them side by side...
 
i was hoping to find somethingto wrap around the top 2/3 of the pump. this would give a considerable heat disipation area and it might be enought to cool the motor down to 100 deg. thats the key number i would shoot for. maybe its possable and maybe its not.
as far as taking on another think i dont have the time or garage space to do it. i need to concentrate on the needle wheel part of the pump. we still need to take the wheel to both extreams of the wattage scale and see if we can come up with a better design for it. also the lower the wattage the cooler the motor will run. so im in a sence trying to cure the heat problem too.
 
Those sheets of rolled/extruded aluminum/copper that are cut and bend to get bonded to the shroud dont look that bad anymore, eh? Its an easy DIY... just have to find the right bonding/thermal compound. Most of the mass we need for a good heatsink is already in the pump shroud... we just need more surface area.
 
Thermal epoxy is the only alternative.

You are going to have a hard time bending a sheet good to conform to the pump and make good contact. Instead sanding the pump body down to bare metal and using epoxy to attach fins to it may be a better idea.

Like I said, I already did it with a soda can, and then copper sheet (flashing) and epoxied copper fins. The contact area sucked in the case of the copper sheet (not to mention i wasted $20 worth of copper and epoxy in the process).

One of these days I will get around to building a small furnace and doing my own casting. My router threw a bearing yesterday... so it has put me behind on projects for a while.
 
The pump body is a cylinder, and so its flat when viewed from the sides... this is the way you attach the fins... just like the 'flower' diagram I posted. Not a hard time at all really. If you get a good 20-30 fins on the pump that are 2-3" long, that should provide some good cooling... as long as the materials that the heat has to pass through on the way are good enough. The weakest link will most likely be the epoxy/welds to attach the fins.
 
well i just got off the phone with a guy that is an engineer for a company that manufactures heat sinks. i found out that he is also putting together a salt water aquarium. this is a big bonus for us. i sent him the link to this thread and he said he will look into this and hopefuly be able to give us some advice on an econimical heat sink for this applcation and others. i think if i had a couple of heat sinks on my iswaki pumps i wouldnt need to run my chiller as much if at all.
so now we need to wait until he has some time to read the 14 pages of this thread and see if there is any recomendations he has.

i love it when i get lucky. i feel like i just hit the jackpot!
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7921218#post7921218 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by hahnmeister
Lengthwise... along the pump shroud's straight surface.
Click to expand...

yes this is what i was talking about earlier but i want to bend the heat sinks around the motor housings. the fins would run parallel to the motors shaft .
the engineer said its not very difficult a process and he has 3-4 different ideas for it. now we just need to wait until he gets time to read up on this and then post his thoughts and ideas.
 
Not sure why head to read this thread at all...

The only pertinant information is the fact that we have a round pump body that needs a heatsink.. The pump consumes about 100 watts (give or take) and is a fixed diameter with a certain amount of linear space available.

The prototype I built was clamped by a breeze clamp (marman clamp). (well velcro the first time!)

Hahn? What happend to that public offer of having your family member injection mold items with little setup cost? If your serious, have him call me and we can work something out. I have a material and can provide the design engineering.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7921706#post7921706 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by BeanAnimal
Not sure why head to read this thread at all...

Click to expand...


the reason for him to read most of this thread is so he has a better grasp of a skimmer and what it does. he is just getting back into the aquarium hobby and needs to refreash himself with all the new equiptment in the industry.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7921992#post7921992 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by BeanAnimal
Ahh a new reefer :) and possible diyer! ...the more the merrier
Click to expand...


YES! and a thermal engineer that works for a heat sink company.

bonus!

once he gets in on a couple of projects he will get hooked just like we did. ha ha ha ha
 
I used to see some oil filter heat sinks that would just wrap around them in some of the old Porsche restoration catalogs back when I had my other cheaper hobby: antique car restoration!!! I wonder if those would fit just right above the pump's body?
 
I tried to find some of those that were usable... I did not look hard but did not have any luck either.

I am sure the guy will have some opinions if he is interested... but I would push for a radiation type design as opposed to a convection design (as fins parallel to the shaft will in most cases be 90 degrees out of whack for convection type cooling).

Bean
 
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