Octopus Skimmer Mods

[ChemE]

Power factor is how much power drawn from the source is rejected back to the source by load because of a phase angle between current (amps) and voltage. The closer the power factor is to 0, the larger the fraction of power is rejected back to the source.

Comparing amp draws between different devices is meaningless since they have very very different power factors. My Rio 2100+ has a power factor of 0.5, by Triad T5 ballast has a power factor of 0.98. The Rio sucks more amps but the Triad sucks way more watts because of the power factor.

[Roland Jacques]

Chem E
Ok, i starting to understand this Power factor. So what determines the powerfactor? Or is that just a fuction of the "watts meter" only. So the power factor of the gen-x could be very different.

[Abengochea]

has anyone bored out the venturi on the water side. Does it make a difference if made larger?

[Roland Jacques]

Originally posted by Abengochea
has anyone bored out the venturi on the water side. Does it make a difference if made larger?

If you plain on doing my impeller mod you will probably want the ID smaller not bigger. less water more air = less in body turbulance.

I did round off the the shape edges all the way up to the air hole on the back side of the Venturi. it did make a good differance about 1-2 scfh.

My impeller mod changes everything when it come to mods, for me anyway. I recomend you mod the impeller first. After that, then you can gauge what else you may want to do. i think 20-24 scfh of air is good enough for most people with the NW-200.

[Abengochea]

cool, thanks for the heads up. I was just wondering since I just opened up the elbow and was in the mood to shave more plastic

[Roland Jacques]

if you want the clear tube end (inside the union) could be tappered, that also helps

[Abengochea]

thanks again, I wouldve never thought of that one

[Abengochea]

thanks for all the help roland. I was a little scared to do the elbow mod but it was very easy. So was the tapering of the clear pipe going into the chamber. I forgot to stop at lowes to get some orings so I just enlarged the stock one using the dremmel. I would imagine it would work just as well. Thanks again and keep pushing the limits to these skimmers

[ChemE]

Originally posted by Roland Jacques
Chem E
Ok, i starting to understand this Power factor. So what determines the powerfactor? Or is that just a fuction of the "watts meter" only. So the power factor of the gen-x could be very different.

Power factor has nothing to do with the meter, it is unique to the electrical device. Resistive loads (like your aquarium heater) typically have Pf's close to 1 while highly reactive loads (pumps) have Pf's closer to 0. I've tested three different sized MJ's, a Rio, and now an OTP-3000 and they all have power factors of about 0.3. Which means that 70% of the V*A they draw from the wall they put back to the wall. You only get billed for what actually gets used.

Your OTP-3000 has a Pf of about 0.3 too but you aren't able to measure it with an amp meter. The amperage yours is drawing is perfectly consistent with mine.

[Roland Jacques]

Chem- E,
Thanks for taking the time to explian this Power factor.

It does explain a couple of things to me. Number one is why without any impeller at all! the pumps measured 2.9 amps ???? ill have to order that Kill A Watt meter.

This place is great, i just keep on on learning things. The older i get, the more apparent it becomes to me as to how dum i am. Thanks again

[ChemE]

No problem Roland. I know what you mean; the more I know the more I realize how little I know.

[Robert Patterso]

Originally posted by Ereefic
Turn off the skimmer for a day or 2 and see if the temp. drops or stays there.

Turned off skimmer yesterday evening, this morning temp was 77.9, lights have been on for approx 4hrs. current temp is 79.9. Going to turn skimmer back on see what happens.

[Ereefic]

FWIW, I added 2 circles of gutter guard to the impeller (with both needlewheels on) and there was no difference. Tried 3, the pump would not spin.

[clkwrk]

Which pump ..sorry if I missed it between the threads

[Ereefic]

I've got the OTP-3000.

I'm not going to mess with it anymore because it's doing a good job, and i don't have money to get new parts if I break something. Going to let the others run theres for awhile and see how they do over time before going any further.

[RichConley]

Eerefic, have you done any elbow porting, or was yours essentially stock?

[Ereefic]

Originally posted by RichConley
Eerefic, have you done any elbow porting, or was yours essentially stock?

I did open up that elbow and modded the venturi, that's it.

[Roland Jacques]

Rich,
hows your skimmer running? how much air are you feeding your skimmer now? where your water line?

[RichConley]

Roland, only about 18-20 scfh right now. I totally rebuilt my venturi, and went back to standard airline, and its just not pulling as much air. I need to rebuild it again. PIMA. It would probably work great if I added a second airline to the venturi, but honestly, I'd rather go back up to the big stuff, and get back around 25+ or so.


I'm really tempted to ditch this pump, and throw the OR1700 I have on it, with some gutter guard. I think I could probably get 20ish out of that, and I dont think we need any more than that.

The 3000 is a horse. I really think on a recirc setup with a lot of tweaking we could get 40ish out of this thing, and theres no way in hell the neck could handle that.


Output is set below the bottom of the union.

[hahnmeister]

Has anyone slapped a OR3700 on any of the larger octopus skimmers yet?

[mkarston]

Originally posted by mkarston
Has anyone used either of these pumps on the Octopus 150 or 200?

GX2400
GX4100

I take it no one has done this?

[RichConley]

Originally posted by hahnmeister
Has anyone slapped a OR3700 on any of the larger octopus skimmers yet?

yeah Hahn, someone did a while back. Not a big difference. The elbow is the big issue. Once that gets ported out, not a problem.



Hahn, I really think the OTP 3000 is a much beefier pump than an OR3500. It certainly pulls more wattage from a base standpoint. After porting out the output, mine was pulling significantly more air than a OR3700 is capable of. MOST of the issues are with the plumbing between the pump and body.

[JoeESSA]

Anyone made a mod to improve air intake of OTP 2000 for RPS-2000 skimmer? If so, what did you do?

Don't know if this has been covered earlier, I get dizzy trying to go through all the posts...

Thanks

[Roland Jacques]

yeah Duece has done a little work on it. pin wheel mod. if you have a flow meter , you should try my gutter wheel mod. on it maybe only 2 or 3 layers. looking at the pump it might make a good differance. im still trying to find a venturi for my OTP 2000 before i test it.

[ChemE]

OK, for those of you not keeping up with the Bum Kicking Thread...

During a water change tonight I pulled enough water out to drop the level in the sump about 4". My NW-200 is still plugged in to my Kill-A-Watt from the posts on Pf. The power consumption went from 65 watts to 61 watts when the water level went down (this implies more air being drawn at 61 watts). I then added more fresh salt water than I took out to see if the opposite effect would be observed and sure enough the power consumption went back up to 67 watts once the level in the sump was higher than I had started. There is clearly less air in the neck of the skimmer at this increased depth.

Those of you with Dwyer meters should spend a little time taking air draw measurements as a function of immersion depth and post back the results. Clearly there is an optimal depth that these should be run at.