New 75 Gallon Build
- Build Thread
- Thread starter eagle
- Start date
- Tagged users None
OP
OP
eagle
Active Member
It helps a lot. My father in law is the tool man! He has 2 of everything and knows how to use em. I'm working on my collection lol. I have most all the parts for a cnc router project. I need to get busy with it and finish it.
OP
OP
eagle
Active Member
I ordered my arduino mega adk today and a 36 volt power supply for pumps. I got a generic mega adk on ebay for 1/3 of the price of a "official" arduino. The arduino project is open source which means anyone can build one and sell it. The only stipulation was that "official" arduino boards would carry the arduino brand name. So basically you are paying 3 times extra for the name on an official board lol. I can't wait to get it all put together. It amazes me how jacked up prices are for something that is "controlled" or "controllable". I was looking at the mp40 specs and price lol. OMG that's crazy. You can do more with a 9 volt mini polario and a microcontroller. It's pretty I guess. I have been talking with Andrew at Recent Articles | Practical Maker. He makes the aquarium shields with bnc connectors for probes. He has been a great help. I think I am gonna go with his ultimate board since it has a real time clock already onboard. So the arduino knows what day and time it is etc. It has 2 bnc ports and a Conductivity port. I told him I have a calcium probe as well and he was kind enough to offer a free bnc shield if I would let him know how it works with reading calcium levels. So, really nice guy to kick ideas around with. The mega adk is a nice board because it has tons of input and output pins and google has partnered with arduino with the adk to make it easy to interface with a droid phone or tablet.
OP
OP
eagle
Active Member
Still at work ughh. It's been like Christmas for the wife with all the packages coming in at home. I've had a lot of researching time this week and ordered most everything I need. I joked to the wife that she could go ahead and put it all together lol. The cool thing about ebay is good prices, the bad thing is you have to make seperate orders on most all of it. Even though most places do free shipping on the light electronics parts. The waveline pumps came in, and the Avast Skimmer. The venturi fits :bigsmile:. Many thanks to Avast for machining a venturi for that pump. The Aquamaxx biopellet reactor showed up finally. They were on backorder. Biopellets from BRS. I found a cheap 400 gph dc pump online that is built to run in saltwater, and it showed up. I got the arduino mega in and power supply. Motor shields and dosing pump. In my week of research I found some really neat items to make the controller easier to work with. I found a screw shield with real time clock onboard and it has the header pins to run a 3.2 tft touch screen on it. It was in Europe, of course lol. Here's a pic of the arduino mega the screw shield and the touchscreen I got.
Arduino Mega ADK
Mega screw shield with RTC and TFT Header
3.2" TFT Touchscreen 320X240
It's a pretty nice shield for $60. Really nice! The touchscreen was $14.00. The shield has pins on the underside that slide right into the arduino headers and the touchscreen slides into the shield. So it's pretty plug and play. The addition of the real time clock (so the arduino can keep track of what day and time it is) and the screws for all your input and output wires really sold me on going with this layout. It should make it much cleaner and easier to work with. In doing this I will not be using the ultimate board from practical maker. I will just use his individual bnc sensor shields. These BNC Shields can be stacked for multiple Probes. This way was cheaper and cleaner with the addition of a touchscreen.
BNC Sensor Shield for Probes
I spent most of the week stumped on one problem. When the waveline pumps showed up my wife sent pics of the connectors and I saw they were 3 pin DC connectors. That really sucked, because that meant they were more than likely 3 Phase Brushless DC motors. Much harder to drive than your standard DC motor. But at the same time they are much more efficient. So I contacted the makers of the pump and it was confirmed that these are 3 phase 4 pole Brushless DC Motors with hall effect sensors. (like an older CDrom drive motor) So I searched and searched. The cheapest solution I found was to use a ESC (electronic speed control) like the ones used in the RC hobby. To find a 24 volt ESC I had to look at the RC Plane hobby. I got 2 ESC's for $40. So that was a curveball and I will have to see how it works out. Fingers crossed. If not then there is one motor shield I've found that will do it but it wasn't the cheapest option, so I'll try this first.
I spent the rest of the time studying on another forum post about arduino's and LED lights. I hadn't looked into them before, it was in the back of my head about maybe someday doing it, but after helping another forum member out we got a lot of it figured out and it looks like it will be a great addition to this controller someday. It's really simple.
Maybe I can get home in a week or so and get all this put together and going. Get some pics posted and see how everything works. I'm way behind on some other projects. I even have friends starting to ask when my cnc machine is supposed to be finished and what's taking so long lol. It's too cold to work on it now and so much going on in the summertime. Can't do it all at once I guess, just too many things goin on at once sometimes. And it's getting close to garden time already in the south so I gotta hurry up lol. I will get some pics up when me and the wife get to putting this stuff together.
Arduino Mega ADK
Mega screw shield with RTC and TFT Header
3.2" TFT Touchscreen 320X240
BNC Sensor Shield for Probes
I spent the rest of the time studying on another forum post about arduino's and LED lights. I hadn't looked into them before, it was in the back of my head about maybe someday doing it, but after helping another forum member out we got a lot of it figured out and it looks like it will be a great addition to this controller someday. It's really simple.
Maybe I can get home in a week or so and get all this put together and going. Get some pics posted and see how everything works. I'm way behind on some other projects. I even have friends starting to ask when my cnc machine is supposed to be finished and what's taking so long lol. It's too cold to work on it now and so much going on in the summertime. Can't do it all at once I guess, just too many things goin on at once sometimes. And it's getting close to garden time already in the south so I gotta hurry up lol. I will get some pics up when me and the wife get to putting this stuff together.
OP
OP
eagle
Active Member
It's been a while since I posted anything. I have been stuck at work a lot lately. The tank is coming along nicely and we have a lot of frags and fish in it. I have made some changes to my original designs and equipment. I took the fuge out and have taken a lot of the sand out of the display. The biopellets and skimmer have done such a good job at keeping levels undetectable that I decided I could use the fuge tank for top off water and water changes. I was starting to get worried about the 0 phosphates and 0 nitrates. On one of my 14 hour drives home from work I got to thinking of a better way to run the biopellets so I can control the nutrient levels. I think 300 gallons an hour running through the reactor was just too much. My levels never came off 0. I tried feeding more and the hanna checker still read 0 lol. So I decided to plumb the reactor in a recirculation design like a calcium reactor. This way I have plenty of flow to stir the pellets however I like and can pinch down the amount of water running through the reactor. After several days running it like this I finally got a reading other than 0. Now I will monitor it and adjust the flow thru the reactor accordingly.
I have been working on my controller when I've had time. I don't have many pictures. I'll take some more next time at home. Me and my brother decided to use tip120 transistors and make our own controllers. All of the pumps, solenoids, and fans I wanna run are low amperage. The Tip 120 will handle 5 amps and all the voltage we need. So for 90 cents a transistor we just built our own boards. It wasn't very hard to solder up. Here is a pic of the start of a 12 transistor board. It can PWM control 12 different things. I don't have a pic of the finished board with me but we added screw terminals and used wire to jumper all the transistors to the terminals. It will make it easy to wire in different pumps etc. We also decided to use a speed up capacitor on each transistor to smooth out the PWM signal. It was a prototype for sure lol. Not the prettiest and if I have to make another I'll use a bigger board and lay it out different. But it works. I made another little board with screw terminals with a 12 volt rail, a 24 volt rail, a 5 volt rail and common grounds. The pumps I have are 24 volt, fans and solenoids are 12 volt, and gonna run the arduinos on 5 volt. I hacked up a computer power supply for the different voltage supplies. I got a little lian li mini itx computer case with power supply on ebay for $26. It worked out well. Everything is gonna fit inside. We made a enclosure out of a radioshack project box and mounted 4 X 12 volt dosing pumps to it. It turned out pretty nice. I'm ready to get it all wired up and going.
I got two of the chinese WP-40 pumps coming. I know they are way too much flow for my tank if they were run wide open lol. But we are gonna run them with the arduino. Should be able to make some nice waves and unique flow. Shut down for feeding and throttle em back at night etc... I got a Kalk stirrer from Avast last week and it is super nice. Very nice people over at Avast. I went ahead and got the larger one so I don't have to refill it so often. We are gone on trips and vacation a lot so I want to make it self sustainable for at least a couple weeks at a time. I need to get a swabbie for my skimmer and might rig up a way to pump out skimmate to the drain when it's full. Right now I just have an old school float for ato lol. It's working though. Prolly 7 or 8 yrs old. I pulled it out of my attic and cleaned it up. Still works
Sorry my pics are fuzzy but my battery was dead on my Nikon and I had to snap these real quick with my phone before I left for work.
I will get some more pics coming.
I have been working on my controller when I've had time. I don't have many pictures. I'll take some more next time at home. Me and my brother decided to use tip120 transistors and make our own controllers. All of the pumps, solenoids, and fans I wanna run are low amperage. The Tip 120 will handle 5 amps and all the voltage we need. So for 90 cents a transistor we just built our own boards. It wasn't very hard to solder up. Here is a pic of the start of a 12 transistor board. It can PWM control 12 different things. I don't have a pic of the finished board with me but we added screw terminals and used wire to jumper all the transistors to the terminals. It will make it easy to wire in different pumps etc. We also decided to use a speed up capacitor on each transistor to smooth out the PWM signal. It was a prototype for sure lol. Not the prettiest and if I have to make another I'll use a bigger board and lay it out different. But it works. I made another little board with screw terminals with a 12 volt rail, a 24 volt rail, a 5 volt rail and common grounds. The pumps I have are 24 volt, fans and solenoids are 12 volt, and gonna run the arduinos on 5 volt. I hacked up a computer power supply for the different voltage supplies. I got a little lian li mini itx computer case with power supply on ebay for $26. It worked out well. Everything is gonna fit inside. We made a enclosure out of a radioshack project box and mounted 4 X 12 volt dosing pumps to it. It turned out pretty nice. I'm ready to get it all wired up and going.
Sorry my pics are fuzzy but my battery was dead on my Nikon and I had to snap these real quick with my phone before I left for work.
I will get some more pics coming.
OP
OP
eagle
Active Member
Thanks mike. I am cheap at heart lol. Avast was a great find for me because they have the diy kits. So if you can glue acrylic they have some nice stuff for decent prices. And the people have been really great. I'm a techy too so the electronics and controller have been fun. All the new low wattage dc pumps are pretty nice. Wavemakers etc.
I've only burnt up 1 arduino so far lol. I got a motor shield that said it was rated for up to 36 volts. Long story short, it wasn't lol. The capacitors blew up in our face when I plugged in the power supply. Fried the duino but was only a $25 loss. Things have changed a lot with the carbon dosing since i last had a tank. I'm pretty amazed at the 0 readings on nitrates and phosphates. Its been a blast starting this tank up. I haven't had any of the old nuisances of the initial cycling period. It's gonna be a sweet setup when it all comes together.
Sent Via the R2R Forum APP
I've only burnt up 1 arduino so far lol. I got a motor shield that said it was rated for up to 36 volts. Long story short, it wasn't lol. The capacitors blew up in our face when I plugged in the power supply. Fried the duino but was only a $25 loss. Things have changed a lot with the carbon dosing since i last had a tank. I'm pretty amazed at the 0 readings on nitrates and phosphates. Its been a blast starting this tank up. I haven't had any of the old nuisances of the initial cycling period. It's gonna be a sweet setup when it all comes together.
Sent Via the R2R Forum APP
OP
OP
eagle
Active Member
My wife got the WP-40 pumps put in today (i'm still at work) and they have some horsepower!! One pump on W1 setting has the water sloshing too hard. It is running nice on W2 setting with the wavelength turned all the way up. She said she can't hear it without getting real close up so that's good. Great price for that kind of water movement. Took a little time for shipping but so far well worth it. I have some more frags coming tomorrow. Got some nice blues and purples. Cali tort, Oregon tort, Blue tip valida, blue bottlebrush, purple monti digi, blue tenuis. Can't wait to get home and check em all out.
OP
OP
eagle
Active Member
I picked up a frag pack off eBay from "aimforever5000". Super nice guy!!! His packaging and communication was great and he gave me a free Oregon tort and 3 other nice freebies. I was blown away lol. I asked him if he had an Oregon tort frag for sale and he said he would throw in a small frag. I was pretty happy about that. I never expected the other 3 freebies.
