groupergenius
Active Member
Looking good so far. You are going to remove the plastic protective covering on the reflectors, right? Are you going to be putting any fans in the hood?
SCSInet's 180g Reef Build!
- Thread starter scsinet
- Start date
scsinet
Active Member
Originally Posted by GrouperGenius
Looking good so far. You are going to remove the plastic protective covering on the reflectors, right? Are you going to be putting any fans in the hood?
Yes, and yes.
I'm using (2) 4" Nidec fans with onboard speed control. They'll rotate slowly, but speed up as the temperature rises.
Looking good so far. You are going to remove the plastic protective covering on the reflectors, right? Are you going to be putting any fans in the hood?
Yes, and yes.
I'm using (2) 4" Nidec fans with onboard speed control. They'll rotate slowly, but speed up as the temperature rises.
ifirefight
Active Member
Dave, looks very nice so far.
A little heads up on those reflectors..I have the exact same ones...after a few months the bracket that holds the mougal socket began to rust. I e-mailed the company a note saying if they were going to make SW equipment..they might want to think about using a material that wont rust and drop pieces of rust in my tank. I have never recieved a response back from the company. If you do change the bracket out with a better one,let me know,because I would like to get rid of the rusty ones.
groupergenius
Active Member
Originally Posted by ifirefight
Dave, looks very nice so far.
A little heads up on those reflectors..I have the exact same ones...after a few months the bracket that holds the mougal socket began to rust. I e-mailed the company a note saying if they were going to make SW equipment..they might want to think about using a material that wont rust and drop pieces of rust in my tank. I have never recieved a response back from the company. If you do change the bracket out with a better one,let me know,because I would like to get rid of the rusty ones.
Looks like something I could make easily out of S/S or aluminum.
Dave, looks very nice so far.
Looks like something I could make easily out of S/S or aluminum.
ifirefight
Active Member
Originally Posted by GrouperGenius
Looks like something I could make easily out of S/S or aluminum.
If your offering...I need 2. Thanks.
Looks like something I could make easily out of S/S or aluminum.
If your offering...I need 2. Thanks.
ifirefight
Active Member
Originally Posted by SCSInet
Well that's the thing I don't get... the whole reflector is made out of aluminum, but the brackets are steel... wtf???
Thats what I mean, You should write the company Dave,and complain about their inferior product.
Well that's the thing I don't get... the whole reflector is made out of aluminum, but the brackets are steel... wtf???
Thats what I mean, You should write the company Dave,and complain about their inferior product.
J
jrthomas40
Guest
good thing you live in atl...im coming to your place this summer to do a total reconstruct of my stand and canopy for my 90g!!!
wattsupdoc
Active Member
SWEEEEET!
reefkprz
Active Member
Originally Posted by SCSInet
Well that's the thing I don't get... the whole reflector is made out of aluminum, but the brackets are steel... wtf???
my guess would be metal prices, steels cheaper right now. so it costs them less to make the brakets out of steel, thinking their paint should be water/salt resistant enough.....
Well that's the thing I don't get... the whole reflector is made out of aluminum, but the brackets are steel... wtf???
my guess would be metal prices, steels cheaper right now. so it costs them less to make the brakets out of steel, thinking their paint should be water/salt resistant enough.....
wangotango
Active Member
Looks nice, can't wait to see this thing up and running.
-Justin
-Justin
scsinet
Active Member
Okay so everyone probably read that I wanted to be able to have the lights automatically move back and forth to simulate the sun moving over the reef. Of course the other advantage is that I can put a sensor on the lid so that when it's opened, the lighting rack automatically moves back.
I had ripped apart a couple copy machines (breeding ground for stepper motors) so I had some steppers lying around. Shown is the one I was planning to use on the right.
Unfortunately those turned out to be way too small. I took apart a couple of huge dot-matrix printers I had to get the belt drive mechanism that moves the print head back and forth across the page. This is the motor on the left.
The complete belt drive mechanism. By anchoring the lighting system to a point on the belt, the motor can "slide" the lights back and forth.
So I started playing around with stepper drive circuits, and found one that worked reasonably well.
So I prototyped a 2 motor driver board (one motor on each side of the canopy, working together).
Funny thing is, once I built the boards, the circuit didn't work so well anymore. I increased the voltage and BAM! I blew up $14 worth of drive chips in a split second.
Pissed seriously off and having decided that this aspect of the project was taking too much time, I've put this aspect on hold for later implementation.
Still wanted to share the "plan" though.
I had ripped apart a couple copy machines (breeding ground for stepper motors) so I had some steppers lying around. Shown is the one I was planning to use on the right.
Unfortunately those turned out to be way too small. I took apart a couple of huge dot-matrix printers I had to get the belt drive mechanism that moves the print head back and forth across the page. This is the motor on the left.
The complete belt drive mechanism. By anchoring the lighting system to a point on the belt, the motor can "slide" the lights back and forth.
So I started playing around with stepper drive circuits, and found one that worked reasonably well.
So I prototyped a 2 motor driver board (one motor on each side of the canopy, working together).
Funny thing is, once I built the boards, the circuit didn't work so well anymore. I increased the voltage and BAM! I blew up $14 worth of drive chips in a split second.
Pissed seriously off and having decided that this aspect of the project was taking too much time, I've put this aspect on hold for later implementation.
Still wanted to share the "plan" though.
J
jrthomas40
Guest
man that is crazy....i only have the knowledge to pay someone else to do it
ifirefight
Active Member
Originally Posted by SCSInet
I had ripped apart a couple copy machines (breeding ground for stepper motors) so I had some steppers lying around. I took apart a couple of huge dot-matrix printers
WHO has this stuff lying around??? I think SCSI in actually the REAL Fred Sanford.
I had ripped apart a couple copy machines (breeding ground for stepper motors) so I had some steppers lying around. I took apart a couple of huge dot-matrix printers
WHO has this stuff lying around??? I think SCSI in actually the REAL Fred Sanford.
reefkprz
Active Member
Originally Posted by SCSInet
I'm a total pack rat. Whenever I can get my hands on something that I know I can build something else out of, I hang onto it.
me too. that's why my workshop is overloaded with random crap. but I dont know how many times I have needed something totally random and had it saving myself another 10-20 bucks
I'm a total pack rat. Whenever I can get my hands on something that I know I can build something else out of, I hang onto it.
me too. that's why my workshop is overloaded with random crap. but I dont know how many times I have needed something totally random and had it saving myself another 10-20 bucks