9/17/03:
Well, I got everything setup and going. Some troubles with the Loc-Line fan nozzles. I only got the connector and the nozzles, I didn't realize It would bend but about 20 degrees on one joint. So when I fired everything up after adding my sand, it became a snow storm...I figured it would calm down in a day or so....wrong....I noticed it was actually clearing a hole in 4 places in the sand all the way to the bottom acrylic. That can't be good for a pump to have sand running through it. So....I ordered some more locline tubing, and in the mean time added 90 degree 3/4" elbows to the outflows in place of the fan nozzle. It is all settled now...and I am currently working on the pH...8.0 currently, adding SeaChem Ref Buffer daily, waiting for pH 8.3. My Live rock is curing at the dealer currently, and should go in in about a week and a half. I will have the pH right by then.
Now for the reason for this update, I have previously shown my x-10 controlled lighting system. I have it running on the assigned schedule now, and WOW does the water heat up. The canopy lights have a fan, but the temp in the water is 84.4F when the main lights are on, and 83 with them OFF! I am not sure, but I think that even though I went with an Iwaki, it is adding heat to the system. The house is central air, and the temp in the room is 72 degrees. BIG problem. I hope I don't have to buy a chiller, and I have read alot on the ReefCentral forums about using fans over the sump and in the canopy to bring down the water temp. I saw several people using computer case D/C fans for this, and figured what the heck. I got 5 Panaflow fans made by panasonic from Digikey for $70. That is alot cheaper than a chiller, and also much cheaper than buying them from the computer overclocking stores (where do YOU think they get their fans?). So, I noticed people reporting they were using old computer powersupplies to power their fans...I asked myself why? The power supply for a computer is a switching powersupply made to provide 12v and 5 volt rails as well as some specific voltages to the motherboard connector. The fans are just basic D/C fans, you don't need a computer power supply for them.
The panaflows I got were 120mm fans (= big) 12v, .2 amp. and only 30 decibels (VERY quite). Like I said, I got them from digikey and the part# there is : P9748-ND $15.58 each. Interesting that the CHEAPEST computer shop price for the fans was $19.99 because they are sold as "Stealth" fans...lol. After the fans got here, I pulled out a handy 9v wall wart I had saved from some small appliance that died...checked the voltage with the multimeter..and bingo.. 11.8 volts. In case you didn't know, the majority of the wall warts that come with inexpensive electronics are "unregulated" meaning NOT ACCURATE on the level of voltage they supply....most of the time they put out more...alot more...than they say. This is because most modern electronics use a voltage regulator on the pcb to control the actual voltage going to the components, so it only matters that ENOUGH power gets to the regulator. Then I grabbed some scrap pcb, drew out a quick and dirty bus circuit with a magic marker, and dremeled out the intervening copper (waste of time to etch this simple, ugly circuit). Took all of 3 minutes with a burr on the dremel. Here is a shot of the board:
This is the bottom of the board, the top has a power jack on it and you can see the two pins in the picture above on the right side. Here is a picture of the top with the P5 type power plug (female) that fits the wall wart. It was a two sided scrap of pcb, so it made it easy. I made the top part the positive bus, and the bottom the negative. You can also see the size, those are some spare hard drive molex connectors ( I save EVERYTHING heh).
A little closer view of the outstanding routing I did with the dremel...heh...it works OK?
