Garage1217's 225G starphire / led / awesome build!

[Garage1217]

Returns are 1"

[Reef-o-Roni]

I put a bubble blaster on your old msx 200 and could'nt be happier with it

[Garage1217]

You slapped on a bb5000 on that msx200? WOW! Bet that thing is insane now! That pump is almost way to much for that skimmer without an extended neck! Props to some mad science work, sounds like something I would have done haha!

[Helfrichs Chic]

Someone was talking about the bubble blasters to me the other day... I have a ASM g3 can I add one to it or just get a new skimmer lol. I just got this ASM and its doing a decent enough job but as I add more and more SPS and fish I know I am gonna need a real work horse.

[Garage1217]

If it is working for you and you are happy with the skimmers performance / results then just keep it until it dies Otherwise, I would upgrade the skimmer / pump totally.

[Girly Gears]

Hey Garage,
I hope you get real detailed on that LED build,cause I want one and I'm not the quickest cat when it comes to wiring. From what I can tell so far, they are all wired in series, and just how many LED's can you run off of 1 driver? I am trying to adapt this to my 40B that I'm setting up soon. Also, since I don't have access to a CNC, is it possible to use a router to round the edge off of the polypropylene? I'm kinda worried it might melt. Other than that, this is an outstanding build, and I'm tagging along! Best of luck!

[Garage1217]

Hello I will be pretty detailed. The leds are wired in series and the total number really depends on the type of led you run. This unit is capable of 48V so for example, if you have an led with a forward voltage of say 3.5V, then you could technically run 13.71 *LOL* So round it down to 13 of them. However to keep things even, most would run 12 leds.

If you have a high speed router for edges you will be fine but it never cuts very clean on a table saw unless you have a really good blade, which I do not. So I had a local plastics place with a monster CNC table slice it up for me to perfection.

[Girly Gears]

Right, was thinking of going with the same as yours since Cree has totally made a good name for themselves in respect to aquarium light. Thanks for the explaining the drivers thing for me, it's what I thought, but seeing as you do this for a living, I'd trust your advice more than my own for sure!

[Garage1217]

All parts ordered for the motorized light lifter.. Oh yeah forgot to mention that part of the build haha! Teaser pic... This is the first part that I just finished building out of a kit. Have some more mods to make it more robust but what you are looking at is a DC bi-directional speed controller Hopefully all of my parts for this build will be in rather soon so I can document it. As soon as stuff starts arriving, updates will start flying as I really want to hit my goal of a march 5th fill date, or sooner!

[Rytek]

Dude it has been great to watch your build. Great detail. As we all bring various talents to the collective reef hobby each person can play apart in furthering the fascinating venture of building a reef.
You are a large contributer to that end and for that I thank you.

[aleonn]

Very cool to catch up to your build thread again. BTW, thank you for informative thread about the Water Blaster pumps. Love my HY-7000!

[jrelec08]

just read your thread last night killer attention to detail really makes me want to replumb my tank better. I did notice that your hanging your plumbing with metal straps wont they rust with all that humidity in your stand? I really love how you have the patients to do it right the first time and haven't rushed any detail of your tank. Im looking forward to see the ats that you will perfect im sure great work man you inspire us all subscribed to this thread now

[Reefahholic]

Very nice, is that an American DJ power strip with the blue switches?

[Garage1217]

Thanks guys!
- The 7000 is a BEAST! I have the 5000 for my return and bb5000 on the skimmer. Cannot wait to get them back into action. Stellar pumps!

- The straps I used are for electrical and are galvanized. If they start to look funky, I will take them off one at a time, glass bead them (I have a pretty decent shop) and paint them in anti-rust paint. Will get to that when the time comes. They should be fine... will see!

- Not an American DJ unit, was another brand called technical pro. Not sure if they still make them. American DJ units only come in red switches and I wanted blue so found that one / I have another spare as well. On the technical pro units however, the fuse holder is CRAP and if you have more than 8a running through the switch panel the fuse will overheat and melt the solder off the wires internally. I modified the units / they have an internal fuse and 12awg wire now so they can handle whatever you throw at them. But for the $29 I paid for each or whatever it was, I am not complaining!

[poolkeeper1]

Hey Garage, Remember way back i asked if you would be interested in building me a LED unit? Well I found a 70 bulb Cree 3W DIY one for sale with all the pieces and reworked it to my standards and got it fired up last night. It still needs one more driver to light the last bank and I'm waiting on the Dimmable Drivers to run Sunrise/Sunset But. Am i glad i read your thread as these lights are amazing and i don't even have the Optics on them yet (My Buddy forgot to bring them) back after he did all the rewiring on them. I will post up some Photos so you can see what your in for! Amazing.... Not trying to Hijack your thread just Kinda thank you for the Kick Start to get LED's on my tank.
Bill

[Garage1217]

Right on man! Will be cool to see no worries on a thread highjack, my threads usually end up being a total wreck, ADD style as they bounce all over anyways

[Garage1217]

Ok lets start off with the build list / bom for my light lifting machine of DOOM. Will it work? I say YES. Why? because I want it to. Time will tell however as I built all this in my head the other night haha. With some power shopping, you can probably build something like this for cheaper than I.

- Motor... One kick butt high torque window / wiper motor from robot market place! I choose a butt kicking window motor for the torque and metal gear box. Also motors like this have extreme holding power when off which means it will not go in reverse from the weight and let the light lower. Picture trying to pull down a car window.. yeah does not happen unless your car really sucks
http://www.robotmarketplace.com/prod...-218-1001.html

Next up! I need GEARS. I am going with a 15 tooth sprocket for #25 chain which will be drilled out and placed onto the kick butt window motor. I chose a 3/8 bore sprocket, however the wiper motor shaft is larger. Will get to drill out the sprocket for it to fit the motor shaft
http://www.robotmarketplace.com/prod...kets_main.html

Now the 15 tooth sprocket on the motor will be driving a 30 tooth sprocket with 5/8 keyed bore also located at this link... This will reduce the speed of the pulley shaft by 1/2. Not going to bother to get into the fancy numbers but the basics are the 116 peak rpm motor will be reduced down to around 58rpm at the pulleys.

That 30 tooth sprocket is going to attach to this 36" steel keyed shaft which will hold the pulleys that will draw the cables up which will be attached to the light, thus lifting it in all of its LED glory!....
http://www.thebigbearingstore.com/se...2-Keyed/Detail

The shaft itself is going to be supported by these pillow bearings.... I plan for the whole motor assembly to be mounted in the attic, so all you will see is the cables coming out of the drywall. You could however mount this thing upside down and hang it from the roof like some other builds have their lifters.. However not... what I want to do.
http://www.thebigbearingstore.com/se...-Pillow/Detail

Now you sort of get how this is going to work.... maybe. Next up, how I am going to make CHEAP pulleys for each cable! Each side of each cable pulley "2 in total" will be one of these shaft collars...
http://www.robotmarketplace.com/prod...lars_main.html

On the inside of each shaft collar will be a frame washer which will act as the sides of the pulley guides "pics soon to come" So the 5/8" shaft will end up being the pulley with the collars and washers attached! Since the shaft is 5/8", that makes for around 2" circumference. With the shaft turning at a max of around 60rpm, it will give a max lift of around 120 inches per minute "yes I rounded the numbers"

Now, since I like complicating things a little, I wanted very, very smooth lift and lowering ability. So instead of an On / Off switch to raise and lower the unit, I incorporated a bi-directional speed control so the actual rate of lift will depend on how far I crank the knob. This will make lift and lowering glass smooth... in theory The speed control I chose is located here... You will see it is only rated for 5amp, but the mods I do later should give it the ability to handle over 49a for very short periods of time. I do not expect anything close to this however. And of course there will be an on/off safety switch.
http://www.hobbyengineering.com/H1742.html

Now, how do I power this thing? I need to send 12VDC to the speed control so I need a cheap power supply capable supplying a decent amount of current. So I found this cheap unit on the ebay machine rated at 30a
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...=STRK:MEWNX:IT

Now, you technical heads may be getting the picture if the evil machine that I plan to build to raise my large and rather heavy light assembly. For those that are looking at the page cross-eyed, I will draw a picture when I get a chance of how things will be layed out and work All parts are inbound so probably cannot start the build until next weekend. Just thought I should start the basic BOM.

[Garage1217]

This should help give more of how the doom lifter will work haha.

[Rytek]

I like it so much it hurts

[oscarslr]

Very nice, Love the tank, I have the exact same size being built by leemar with an external overflow, they do a nice job. what gph rating is your return pump?

[Garage1217]

1300ish

[Garage1217]

Ahhhh.... what is this? Please ignore all the plumbing supplies all over the floor haha! Just pay attention to the middle of the floor
- 3 DIY Avast engineering MR5 media reactors
- Custom CA-1 calcium reactor! Reactor body is 6x18" and is perfect for the 225!



This weekend is going to be busy that is for sure! I am about finished with the light fixture build, heatsinks are being anodized and TONS of pics to come. Stay tuned!

[Garage1217]

UGH.... This week was great and sucked all at the same time.
- Picked up all the heatsinks from the anodizing shop. They acid washed them hardcore and it ate enough of the threads out of all 140 4-40 led screw holes that the screws do not grip properly in any holes So now I have 240 stainless button heads that I cannot use. Good news is I can go to a metric M3x6 and it will bite hard and work just fine... Now just need to find 240 of them locally by tomorrow... yeah... right...
- Went to pick up the laser cut fan grills from my buddy that has a laser etcher / cutting machine. His son accidentally let his huge dog out and he latched onto my arm and sunk a fang deep as sin into my wrist. Yeah that hurt and squirted quite a bit of blood. Never meet a dog that did not like me until now, and this one really hates me *LOL* Ah well I will live. Dog is up to date on his shots and I was already on antibiotics so not much risk.

Well anyways the fan assemblies turned out great! I left the centers open on purpose by the way, I like the turbine look and no one is going to accidentally get their fingers in them anyways where they will be mounted. And yes... I know I am going WAY overboard on little details like the fans, heatsinks and so forth that really will never be seen but it makes it fun.

Oh one last note before some pics of the heatsinks and fan assemblies, the whole light rack I designed is still at the machine shop. They did not meet my deadline of today so will have to be assembled next week. No sweat, I have other items I can do.

Ok enough babble... some pics of my fan assemblies and heatsinks and how they will look assembled Just wait until you see my light rack. It is SICK.

First pic, 5 of the assembled fan assemblies stacked together with 1 of the 5 heatsinks on the right.


In this pic, I set a fan assembly down into the CNC'ed cutout on the heatsink so you can see how it will look. The light rack will be tying all this stuff together in total awesomeness

[Rytek]

Great job. More posts!

[L98-Z]

Interesting attention to detail. Nice work.