JDowns Red Sea Reefer 525XL Ver. 2.0

[dantimdad]

That's slick!

We will need to build one of these for the salt mixing station for the store.

1000 gallons.

 

[JDowns]

Its always nice when a 22 hour print comes out perfect. Now for the lengthy process of dissolving PVA.

Really liking the idea of interchangeable impellers. Printing another design today that is just a simple axial impeller.

 

[dantimdad]

Sweet!

I have wanted to get a dual extruder for that reason. Just don't know how often I would use it.

 

[JDowns]

Sweet!

I have wanted to get a dual extruder for that reason. Just don't know how often I would use it.

I don't use it that often. Its really only useful for complex parts that can't be broken into multiple prints and solvent welded together.

I've gone through three nozzles on this printer. The current one is on its 11th roll of filament. The second nozzle hasn't even gone through a full roll. So that should put it in perspective how much I use the second extruder. Its a nice to have, but you could get away with one nozzle and just print the supports with the same material. But with Breakaway or PVA the print will come out much nicer with less post processing involved.

 

[dantimdad]

I saw a video of it and was impressed how it looked like there were never supports used.

One thing I hate is all the post processing.

If you see some of the stuff that @TheHarold is printing without supports on his prusa, it's pretty impressive.

BTW, I picked up an A8 for $30 saturday that needs some work. I am going to print flexible with it since it's direct drive. The enders just won't do it.

 

[zbryant91]

We have a couple of commercial grade printers at work for R&D that use soluble support and we use a heated ultrasonic cleaner to dissolve it relatively quickly. How do you dissolve yours? Just curious.

 

[JDowns]

We have a couple of commercial grade printers at work for R&D that use soluble support and we use a heated ultrasonic cleaner to dissolve it relatively quickly. How do you dissolve yours? Just curious.

I just use a small powerhead ( I think its the old powerhead from the Nuvo 10) and warm water in a couple gallons. Let dissolve for about an hour. Remove as much goop as possible. Drain the water and repeat.

This one went pretty quickly. Most times I'll just let it run overnight if I'm not in a rush.

Now I just need to figure out how to easily get it out once I drop it into a 70 gallon tank. I think I'll be epoxying a magnet to a length of 1/2 pvc.

 

[zbryant91]

I just use a small powerhead ( I think its the old powerhead from the Nuvo 10) and warm water in a couple gallons. Let dissolve for about an hour. Remove as much goop as possible. Drain the water and repeat.

This one went pretty quickly. Most times I'll just let it run overnight if I'm not in a rush.

Now I just need to figure out how to easily get it out once I drop it into a 70 gallon tank. I think I'll be epoxying a magnet to a length of 1/2 pvc.

Gotcha. I guess the support for the smaller machines is made to work that way. We are running higher temp plastics so I guess that’s why we have to heat it so much more. Ours dissolves at ~150-170

 

[ReefKeeper09]

This build is BEAUTIFUL. Great work. I look forward to following this thread.

 

[JDowns]

I'll update the stirrer tomorrow when I get a chance. Making a few small tweaks tonight. The Lily Impeller works really well for keeping a good solid rotation going, but fails for a good mixing. I worked up another design that using just 40% of the motor mixes the container much better. I really should change the ratio to a 4:1 or 5:1 to put the motor into the sweet spot, but need to test the amp draw with the current attachment. Last thing to do would be to source better pillow bearings. The ones I current have are the only source of noise left. Not the biggest of issues, but there must be quieter bearings out there that will alleviate the low hum. But first test this thing will mix some serious salt in a 70 gallon container, at less than 7vdc and most likely well under 10 watts of power.

 

[dantimdad]

Slick!

 

[JDowns]

Mixing the first batch of salt in a 70 gallon container. This is 30% PWM at 8 watts. It does consume 17 watts at startup and slowly ramps down as the circular motion is created. After 30 minutes the container is nearly clear. I don't think it would take longer than an hour to fully mix.

 

[dantimdad]

That is totally awesome!

Fantastic work my friend.

 

[JDowns]

Took a few top down shots while I had the water level down during a water change.

 

[crusso1993]

Updates?

 

[JDowns]

Updates?

Not much new going on. Tank is humming along nicely. In the midst of a quarterly Chemiclean maintenance dosage. Tank always looks so clean and clear afterwards. Frag rack is getting full and going to be close to off loading some more frags.

Haven't had any DIY projects lined up for the tank lately so started on a 1/8 scale self driving rover project I've been meaning to get to.

 

[dantimdad]

Been wondering how you were doing.

Top down shots look great!

 

[crusso1993]

Hey there... Any updates? Anything new and different?

 

[JDowns]

Hey there... Any updates? Anything new and different?

Nothing really new. Been so busy with projects lately that haven't had much time to deal with the tank, which is probably a good thing. Running into a small problem though. Things are starting to grow into each other and I"m in dire need of a trim. I do need to make up my mind on a few small colonies and get rid of some due to poor spatial planning.

 

[dantimdad]

That's a good problem to have!