New 46 Gallon Reef Tank

[esacjack]

nah... Two radions would run me 3 times the amount of what I paid for the hardware so far.

24.00 Heatsink (2)

92.00 Lumia (2)

6.50 LDD-700H (10)

25.00 PS180 (2)

35.00 Typhon (1)

382 (sans tossing a few drivers in the bin) (oh yah, and the old typhon.. )

If I wasnt being such a pain in the *** about how it looks, it would be stuffed in a tupperware, and hidden behind the tank somewhere... I honestly only needed to replace 2 LDD's, but grabbed the full lot of 10. I'll use the remaining drivers to convert the cube to LED's as well. So all in all, it works out ok... Plus, ANYONE can slap a kessil or a radion over their tank... but a real man burns and shocks himself for the cause.... *FLEX*

[Planeden]

Plus, ANYONE can slap a kessil or a radion over their tank... but a real man burns and shocks himself for the cause.... *FLEX*

And we wonder why women think they are smarter .

[esacjack]

ha, The first time my fiance saw sparks flying from my garage, she flat out asked " was it worth it? " .... It totally was...

[(Bio)³]

ha, The first time my fiance saw sparks flying from my garage, she flat out asked " was it worth it? " .... It totally was...

Best comment of the month ^^

[Planeden]

ha, The first time my fiance saw sparks flying from my garage, she flat out asked " was it worth it? " .... It totally was...

First time mine saw sparks in the garage they were flying out of the breaker box at her. She tried to ban me from electricity work after that.

[esacjack]

ha... always shut off the main before working on the breaker! or at least make sure you're standing in water...

[Planeden]

ha... always shut off the main before working on the breaker! or at least make sure you're standing in water...

I was safely in the kitchen with the switch I just misinstalled. Asked her to turn the breaker on for me and wait to turn if off if she smelled cooking hair. I was fine...

[victoly]

Well I managed to get everything figured out last night, and had both channels working great, except some minor glitches with RB on fixture 2. I'll sort that out tonight. I am noticing that some of the drivers get -VERY- hot and the power supplies get insane hot! Cooling fan I installed, isnt going to cut it. Hopefully I can figure out a cure, as I really dont want to dismantle the entire thing to put into another enclosure... Also, the heatsinks are still getting extremely hot, hot enough to keep me searching for a better cooling solution.

Also, my typhon stopped working this morning, so Im working with boost on exchanging it.

put a thermometer to em all, interested to see what kind of heat the lumias and the PS crank out.

[esacjack]

yeah I was going to use an ir therm to check it, but I also have some really nice and

Well I managed to get everything figured out last night, and had both channels working great, except some minor glitches with RB on fixture 2. I'll sort that out tonight. I am noticing that some of the drivers get -VERY- hot and the power supplies get insane hot! Cooling fan I installed, isnt going to cut it. Hopefully I can figure out a cure, as I really dont want to dismantle the entire thing to put into another enclosure... Also, the heatsinks are still getting extremely hot, hot enough to keep me searching for a better cooling solution.

Also, my typhon stopped working this morning, so Im working with boost on exchanging it.

put a thermometer to em all, interested to see what kind of heat the lumias and the PS crank out.

calibrated heat probes.

[victoly]

i used an IR on mine. its kinda finicky about reflective aluminum

[esacjack]

revisited the tank mounts this week. Decided to just frame out a top-of-tank ladder bar out of angled alum.

So far, no bending, or arcing, or any issues of any kind. New drivers should be in on tuesday, so I'll pick up where I left off. Starting to rethink the container I'll be using to house the drivers and power supplies. I may need to switch to a different kind of cooling solution as well.. I'll know more when my drivers get here and I get back to the grind.

Still have a bit of sanding to do. I may even paint the mount black. Although I do kind of like the aluminum finish.

I also keep getting the question "Why are you spending so much time/money on a 46 gallon tank?". The answer is simple. This tank will only house cherry items I select. I will not be settling for common brown or 'red' corals that are really just brown. I will be limiting what goes in the tank to keep it clutter free. Currently I'm eyeballing 4 particular variants of acro, several cherry zoas, acans, monti's, and chalice. Im going to try and go for a very open look with bright colors. Also, these lights cover a 24x24 area. They can easily be migrated to a larger tank when/if I decided to go that route. My sump is also sufficient for a larger tank, as well as my skimmer. The only limiting factor in my rig at this time is the display tank itself. Even the return pumps are 1800gph, with 3 600gph power heads adding extra flow if needed. Im actually still considering going bare bottom.

[Planeden]

that mount certainly looks strong enough.

who are we to question how much you spend on your tank? we aint your fiance.

looking forward to seeing the cherry up and running.

[(Bio)³]

whats wrong with spending money on a tank?

I'm building my fluval edge 6 gallon with 13 gallon custom sump and 5 gallon ATO. I just bought a Vega to put on it.

[esacjack]

hey, i know we all spend gobs of money on our tanks... just setting the record straight for the budget reefers

[esacjack]

Updates coming soon!

[esacjack]

So between the wedding, getting furloughed, starting a new job, holidays, etc.. The project was scuttled for a short while. Last week I picked up a new Hakko FX888D for myself for christmas... So of course, I had to 'test it'.... Much to my wife's dismay, my 'man cave' has been converted into a scene from Iron Man. Wires and solder everywhere. I've started over on the control box. Things were too crowded, shorts were happening left and right, It just was a pain in the ascii to work with anyway.

So I picked up an outdoor sprinkler control box, 10 new drivers (mouser had them on sale for 5.00 ea!), a new controller, and some standoffs. I also picked up a few sets of the CoraLux 5up boards.

So I may have gone overboard with the amount of free space inside the box. I plan on using this space for my Jebao controller, and possibly my RKL head.

I used a newer SilenX high flow fan for the inlets. For back connecting the lights to the control box, I used 15 Pin VGA.

I opted to use separate power cords for each light. My reasoning for this isn't what you'd expect. I actually did it for the sake of maintenance. After blowing a driver or two with the first setup I had to tear down the power and connectors, which was a pain in the ascii. So this time, I wanted the ability to isolate each fixture. In the picture I have the boots/housings off of the cable to test for voltage drop.

5UP Power up test. I love/hate these things. I love how easy they are to slap together. I hate how close the traces and pads are to each other. I've already lost 2 drivers to arc'ing in the old rig. I'm not in the mood to lose another!

Attaching wiring to 5 ups.

I'm almost done setting it all up and getting the timers setup.

I am having one issue that I could use some help with. 2 channels on the fixtures, White (ch1) and Violet (ch3), have these odd dead spots in the dimming cycle. (Keep in mind these are PWM drivers, with the Typhon handling the dimming) White works flawlessly and smoothly till 35%, at which point it turns off. It stays off till the ramp or manual dimming hits about 80% and then turns back on. Violet ramps fine till it hits 83% and shuts off till 98%. Royal Blue (ch2) and ancillary colors (red, green, blue, ultra violet ch4) work completely fine 0-100%.

Considerations ;

I am splitting a 12v 1000mA wall wart between my three fans and the typhon controller.

I am splitting the 4 channel controller into 10 channels. From what I've read, you can do up to 12 total, Though only 8 is supported.

I have removed fixture 2, and run with only one fixture being controlled by the typhon. The channels cutting out continue to do so, although the number sometimes varies, i.e. 34% +/- 5%.

Edited December 12, 2013 by esacjack

[Planeden]

Keep in mind, most of what you say in here sounds like Charlie brown's teacher. But can you, or will it help to isolate, switch channels 2 and 3 to see whether it's the light, wires, controller, wah wah wah, ruh fruh grumph...etc?

[esacjack]

Keep in mind, most of what you say in here sounds like Charlie brown's teacher. But can you, or will it help to isolate, switch channels 2 and 3 to see whether it's the light, wires, controller, wah wah wah, ruh fruh grumph...etc?

The problem definitely resides on channel 1 and 3. Switching the wiring just makes a different color behave similarly. I feel as though its current related.

[esacjack]

I should add, that moving the PWM +5v to the +10v side, only results in the lights going into shutdown mode (pull down resistor senses no signal and shuts the lights off)

[esacjack]

Success! It was a flaky ground on my PCB. Applying a jumper across the two ground terminals, both eliminated the dimming hum, and the dead spots in the dim cycle.

dimming is smooooth as butter

I should explain by mentioning, I discovered the two channels having an issue (1 and 3) were using the same grounding terminal on the power supply. Which led me to the "Ah ha" moment..

Edited December 12, 2013 by esacjack

[Planeden]

Success! It was a flaky ground on my PCB. Applying a jumper across the two ground terminals, both eliminated the dimming hum, and the dead spots in the dim cycle.

dimming is smooooth as butter

I should explain by mentioning, I discovered the two channels having an issue (1 and 3) were using the same grounding terminal on the power supply. Which led me to the "Ah ha" moment..

glad i could help or did i not acutally say anything like that? because that is exactly what i was thinking...i may have just forgoten to say ground and jumper.

[esacjack]

Actually you did help me out, just not in a way you would think... When you said "Switch the cables around" it triggered a memory, that I had previously swapped channels to test the drivers. I went back to the control board to switch them back, and thats when I noticed the shared ground... So yes, Thanks!

[victoly]

Very impressed with the build quality and documentation! I, for one, am ready to see how it performs!

[esacjack]

Thanks, so far I've fired up the two fixtures individually. Contacted Coralux about the flaky ground and they are sending me a new pcb. Now I'm kicking myself for using silver solder, as its a real PITA to get off these PCB's. At 100% just one fixture lights up an entire 36x18x18 area without flinching. If I didn't have a center brace, I could definitely see only needing one for a 36" tank. Currently I have them ramped to about 35% and its still pretty dang bright! I should have both fixtures ready tonight for full testing.

Incidentally, anyone interested in a Typhon controller for PWM, StevesLED's actually adds 100ma signal boosting transistors. Which allows 10LDD's per channel, for a whopping 40 drivers total.

I have a second Typhon here that I'm going to be tinkering with. I plan on adding a few features that I'd like to see. When complete I'll add to this thread as a download.

[victoly]

I really feel like Neptune needs to take advantage of this multidriver movement, and put out a full 4 channels per VDM port for a total of 8 channels. Hell, a 3rd port sans VDM expansion box would be amazing.