Matt's DIY auto-top-off

[mp216]

Hey there!

 

I am new to NR and let me just say that this site is amazing. Like many other newbs, I have been quietly lurking in the background reading up on everything and dreaming about having my own nano-reef. I finally bit the bullet and decided to buy a NC12, only because I was able to get it for a very good price. Needless to say, I am very excited. Since I am going to be moving in a few months, I thought I would wait until after I move to get things set up. In the mean time I will be keeping myself busy DIYing and modding my cube until its ready to go.

 

I was reading about auto-top-off units on other posts and thought this might be a good start for me. From what I have read, there is a great deal of concern about one major thing: Float switch failure!

 

I did some research and found a great way to overcome this problem. The basis of my design will be Undertheradar's air powered ATO. Let me just say here thank-you to Undertheradar or whoever came up with this design, and I hope I am giving the appropriate person their due credit. If you want to build a pump like mine, read Undertheradar’s post first so you can understand the concept.

 

Here is the materials list and prices for my ATO.

 

- Battery powered pump, Wal-Mart (fishing dept) $7

- Cigarette Lighter voltage adapter, Wal-Mart (electronics dept) $16

- Float switch, aquahub.com $6.49+shipping

- 12 Volt Shutoff timer and Relay $24.99+shipping

- 12 Volt plugs and LED w/resistor (all optional) radio-shack approx. $10

- 12 Volt power supply, found in my basement $free!!!

 

I started by gutting out the battery compartment on the air pump. I won’t need the batteries; I’m using a 12 volt DC plug in power supply. I gutted the box using a utility knife and my dremel tool. I cut off all of the plastic tabs and then ground them down with the dremel.

 

The pump:

 

Gutting the pump:

 

This little pump was cheap and in testing was able to push the water a good 4 to 5 feet up through airline tubing. The only problem I could see with this pump is that it is LOUD. Any battery pump should work, as long as it is 3 volts. I tested a 1.5 volt pump that couldn’t push the water at all, so stay away from those. The first step was to gut the insides of the battery compartment. I am doing this so that I can make room to mount the two circuits that I will be using in conjunction with the pump.

 

In order to power the air pump (which is 3 volts) with a 12 volt power supply, I needed a way to reduce the voltage. To do this, I found a voltage adapter at wal-mart that is supposed to be for using your portable CD or MP3 player in the car. It came with a tape adapter (obviously wont be used) and has a switch on it to choose various voltages between 1.5 and 12 volts. I will have it set at 3 volts to power the pump. I took the plastic case off of it and cut the wires so I was left with only the circuit.

 

12 volt to 3 volt circuit after being gutted from plastic case:

 

The most important part that I am using is the timer relay. This relay is very cool; it is an ELK 960 model timer relay.

 

The ELK 960:

 

I bought the relay here:

http://www.sailorssolutions.com/index.asp?...s&Item=EK01

 

The voltage used to “trigger” the relay is 12v DC. The relay itself can control DC or AC power; in this application I am using DC. The relay runs on a timer that can be set in second or minute increments, between 1 and 60. The timer will be serving as a failsafe. If the float switch gets stuck, the timer will automatically shut off the relay and not allow power to go to the pump. I wired an LED into the pump box that shows me when the float switch is activated. If the light is on and the pump is not running, then I know something is wrong with the switch…I drew some diagrams to help explain this better because it is probably confusing.

 

When the float switch is open (normal operation):

 

When the float switch is closed (normal operation):

 

When the float switch is closed, after time expires (failsafe operation):

 

Before mounting the circuits into the battery compartment of the air-pump, I completed all of the wiring first. For the power supply and float switch, I drilled holes and added 12 volt “M” sized plugs. I also drilled a hole and mounted an LED into the top of the box to show the status of the float switch. I got this LED at radio-shack; it was pre-wired with a resistor so it runs on 12 volts. Here is the LED. The clearance inside the box itself ended up being very tight, but everything fit. The plugs are optional, but I would definitely recommend wiring in the LED to show when the float switch is operating. I soldered and heat-shrunk all of the wire splices and connections. This is also optional, but if you want to stuff everything into the battery compartment like I did you should consider it, space is very tight.

 

I can’t really tell you step for step how I did the wiring. Just take it slow, make sure your wires are the right length to fit everything inside and still be able to open the box, and check and double check everything before you plug it in. Use this wiring diagram:

 

Here is everything wired up and inside the air pumps battery compartment. I used double sided tape to mount the circuit boards to the walls of the box:

 

Here are some close ups of how I wired in the plugs:

 

And the LED:

 

The final product:

 

Well that’s everything. So now I have an auto top off that will shut down after a pre-set amount of time, with an LED that will indicate if there is a problem. All I have to do is check for the red light and keep the top-off bottle full. I’ve seen other ATO’s with timer fail-safe’s for about 180 bucks, this one is around 60 give or take. In reading the DIY section, there must be a million other uses for this relay. I’m pretty sure it could be used for a wave timer or a fail-safe in other systems. A good use might be to shut off lights in the event of a cooling fan failure… the possibilities are numerous. I can’t wait to see if anyone else uses it for creative purposes. The relay is rated for AC as well as DC power, so it can be wired to anything in an aquarium. Let me know what you think of my design and thanks again for all the info.

[RBuddha]

mah head asplode.

[Kirin1]

Killer!

 

Makes my DPDT relay top off look stone age!

[Gvtv44]

whoa....

You got skillz

[trumph]

What's in the carboy??? Quick guess....a Nut Brown Ale overdriven with an extra 3# of Amber DME for an initial S.G. of about 1.063?

 

Since your ATO is over-the-top , I figured likewise for your beer.

 

Homebrewing is a definite fit for the do-it-yourself category..

[mp216]

The carboy contains a "red ale". I try not to get too crazy with my beer (yet). If my auto-top off doesnt work, no big deal. If my beer is bad, now that is a serious problem. There must be alot of homebrewers here on NR, the two hobbies seem to go hand in hand. Do you homebrew trumph? If so, I was wondering If I were to buy a refractometer, can it use it to test my beer and my reef?

[jahreefer]

The carboy contains a "red ale". I try not to get too crazy with my beer (yet). If my auto-top off doesnt work, no big deal. If my beer is bad, now that is a serious problem. There must be alot of homebrewers here on NR, the two hobbies seem to go hand in hand. Do you homebrew trumph? If so, I was wondering If I were to buy a refractometer, can it use it to test my beer and my reef?

I would agree, I love to make my own brew and I love my reef. I can sit back, drink my brew and enjoy my tank, Sweetness!!!!!!!

[mybuickskill6979]

dude good shizzle. looks like you got it on lock down. it would have been alot cheaper had you just gotten the components for the bored and made your own relay but hey WTH lol!!

[mp216]

dude good shizzle. looks like you got it on lock down. it would have been alot cheaper had you just gotten the components for the bored and made your own relay but hey WTH lol!!

 

Thanks! I did think about building my own circuits. While I have a good understanding of how they work, building them myself seemed a little over my head. Maybe next time... hmm

 

Its funny with the beer, I often find myself sitting in front of my tank drinking some of my homebrew. Very relaxing...... and my tank is still empty!

[trumph]

For your refractometer question....just buy a beer/wine hydrometer, along with its accompaning beaker, which has all the necessary scales imprinted on it for your beer, mead or wine making needs. For saltwater tanks use a refractometer with gradiations for saltwater.

 

I brewed constantly in the 1990's, mainly all-grain batches of 10 gallons each. I made a 1/2 barrel set-up out of 2 kegs and a custom made mash tun. I still have a carboy filled with wort that's been fermenting for the last 6 or 7 years....not sure if I should bottle it, donate it to science or shoot it!!

 

 

Another pic of some brewing stuff taken tonight...

 

 

Computer nerd alert!!!! That computer on the shelf on the left hand side of the pic is an Amiga 2000. It cost me over $3000 in 198???? don't remember. It was a high dollar item because I got it with 3 (read that as three) megs of system ram along with that huge 13" monitori!! The standard model only had 1 meg. Also had room for a couple of the new 3.5 floppy drives along with a 5.5 floppy port. Mine only had one 3.5 with no hard drive. A 10 meg hard drive was over a grand back then. I was working all the local boards with a smoking 2400 baud modem which replaced my 300 baud modem. After I became a sys/op (system operator) on one of the boards, I upgraded to a 4800 baud modem which cost me dearly...I simply could not afford the new 9600 models!!! A 1 meg file D/Lwould take over an hour at 2400 so to get all the latest bootleg games from Germany I needed a faster modem!!!

 

Sorry for the major hi-jack of your thread...I should go to the lounge with this stuff.