Weetabix7 Posted October 16, 2009 Share Posted October 16, 2009 It worked???? Ohmigosh, ohmigosh, ohmigosh!!!!!!!!!! Link to comment
deepdvnarq Posted October 16, 2009 Share Posted October 16, 2009 great job opy!.....now ship it to me! haha! really though, really nice setup. that's just something else on the list that i need to learn how to do. yeah....screw patents...... Link to comment
MGDMIRAGE Posted October 17, 2009 Share Posted October 17, 2009 AAAAAAAmazing! coolest setup on a pico! Link to comment
evilc66 Posted October 17, 2009 Share Posted October 17, 2009 Nicely done. Seems like your drivers have better low current performance than most drivers like the Buckpucks. Link to comment
cptbjorn Posted October 17, 2009 Author Share Posted October 17, 2009 Just got home and done acclimating my new corals from my LFS's sale, I completely underestimated what the turnout would be at this thing holy crap. They opened at 9 and we showed up at 9:15 and waited 20-30 minutes (in the rain of course) to even get in the door, and then spent an hour squeezing through and around people to see everything and waiting for my number (127 ) to get called. Then 15-20 minutes of working with an awesome salesman to pack a large box full of stuff for my sister, her fiance and I and then an hour and a half or so waiting in line to buy the stuff and get out of there. We didn't get out the door until 12:30 or something, it was basically 20 minutes of getting stuff done and 4 hours of being in the way and freaking out that the stuff I wanted was going to be gone by the time I got it in a bag with my name on it. Anyways I got 9 ricordia florida (4 green, blue, yellow, orange, red and purple), a couple small candy cane frags, and my sister's fiance and I both went in on a nice looking 5 headed hammer coral and a rock with 4 different leathers on it that we are going to try to frag and share. And then, when I was second in line almost ready to pay, I walked up to a display tank they have by the register that is normally all NFS but noticed a couple little frags tucked in the corner and ended up nabbing a small nice looking white and red acan frag with one head and at least 4 babies forming. I still haven't decided how I am going to divide all my stuff between my pico cube and my picotope, for now all the small stuff is packed in the cube for a day or three until I see what everything looks like when settled in. Probably 5 ricordia, a candy cane and the acan will stay, and a small head of the hammer coral and a small frag of finger leather once they show signs of being happy Plus I saw the appleberry montipora in person today and DO WANT. If I don't win they do have a small frag of it for sale but its $100, almost as much as I just spent on everything else... Pics later, my lights are off for a couple hours Also thanks for the compliments guys and @ evilc: the drivers are nothing fancy, just the LM3404 typical application circuit @ 400kHz. Probably nicer than the buckpucks in some ways but they also need a resistor change depending on how many LEDs you want to run and the inductors whine like none other when dimming if you aren't careful with the pwm. Link to comment
evilc66 Posted October 18, 2009 Share Posted October 18, 2009 It's got to be the 400kHz operating frequency. That will make for smooth operation at low current. I'd be the Buckpucks are running at a much lower frequency (they have an erratic cutoff just below 200mA). I'd love to dissolve the potting on one of those one day and see whats inside. Link to comment
cptbjorn Posted October 18, 2009 Author Share Posted October 18, 2009 Here's my stuff: I'm going back for day two in about 8 hours, they are somehow getting another large shipment or had a bunch of stuff stashed and I have to go just to make sure I don't have to have any of it Hopefully going to be there a half hour before opening this time It's got to be the 400kHz operating frequency. That will make for smooth operation at low current. I'd be the Buckpucks are running at a much lower frequency (they have an erratic cutoff just below 200mA). I'd love to dissolve the potting on one of those one day and see whats inside. They only go down to 200ma? I'm kinda surprised actually, my guess is it's just a little 8 pin uC like a pic with a logic level mosfet, inductor and capacitor (maybe 2). If they actually had competition I bet they would be selling for 8 or 10 bucks each... edit: so, how about those acans under actinic? Link to comment
Weetabix7 Posted October 18, 2009 Share Posted October 18, 2009 Looks like you made some nice scores! Be sure to feed the Acan, and it will grow. I like to use Frozen Mysis. Link to comment
cptbjorn Posted October 18, 2009 Author Share Posted October 18, 2009 Just got back, we were like 5th in line today and they had 20 assorted $5 frags and 20 $10 sps frags plus a bunch other for 15-20. The exact kind of deals I was looking for Only took an hour and a half or so this time and half of that was because we were there 45 minutes before opening. There were a bunch of people with their eyes on all the cheap corals so while I wanted to clear half the rack I kept it down to 4; picked up a 50-60 polyp yellow/green zoa rock, a single headed green acan, a 1x2 frag of what I think is a brain coral, and... a small, very well healed/encrusted green birdsnest. I wanted an encrusting or cap montipora frag of some kind but there were no montis at all in the cheap section and the montis in the normal price section hadn't changed since yesterday and were... well picked through. whats in here?? That would be a partylite "infinite reflections" candleholder. Super cool when burning candles, but just looks like its full of whatever stuff is nearby the rest of the time which appears to be my rolls of solder wick, my helping hands magnified parts holder and a box of airline tubing stacked on a half built computer. For me that sounds about right Link to comment
cptbjorn Posted October 19, 2009 Author Share Posted October 19, 2009 I basically did a draft with the ricordia and ended up with a blue thats about to split into 2/3, a teal, a green and an orange in this pico. The sign said "acclimated to 250w MH" and they are quite pastel looking compared to my other rics in my picotope so I'm thinking they might all do some color changing. Also theres the new green acan in the middle and the maze brain, which was fairly plain looking under MH in the $5 rack but something about the LEDs makes it the new brightest coral in my tank. The thing glows like I only have the blues on all the time The birdsnest fell and was sitting on a ricordia, it couldn't have been there more than 10-15 seconds but now it has two small spots where the flesh fell off It seems like the damage happened right away in maybe an hour or so and now there has been no change in appearance in like 6 or 8 hours so I think it is stable... If it gets worse I'm going to have at it with a bone cutter though... We'll see I guess. And the fts: I'm pretty close to the part where I just let it grow for a while, just a few frags to gather from my sister and my picotope and a couple other things I'm working on. Oh yeah and the other fish store I frequent does their anniversary sale in November Now just to convince myself to start gluing stuff down... Link to comment
HeyLookItsCaps Posted October 19, 2009 Share Posted October 19, 2009 simulated sunset/sunrise?! omgzor! i think we need a time-lapse. Link to comment
pismo_reefer Posted October 19, 2009 Share Posted October 19, 2009 i think we need a time-lapse. Link to comment
cptbjorn Posted October 19, 2009 Author Share Posted October 19, 2009 I've tried pretty hard to do something like that but I've never been all that into cameras and I don't know if it is possible to do that with either my (point and shoot) camera in picture or video mode or with my (surprisingly good picture quality) webcam. I don't know the camera terms for what I need to do but basically the camera adjusts to make all my pictures look basically the same brightness and after I meticulously set up like 20 shots I end up with 10 blues and 10 whites that all look pretty much the same... My other sister and my uncle are the camera people in the family and I'm going to make one of them help me do it once I get my stocking and arrangement to a semi-permanent state in a month or so though. It looks about like you probably imagine it does though, about the light of a single small blue LED moonlight fading up to full actinic and then fading from there to a ~14k look. It's pretty cool, everything is wide open and happy by the time it hits full power Link to comment
cptbjorn Posted October 20, 2009 Author Share Posted October 20, 2009 Bah, true to form I won nothing, in fact nobody I know did and we had... a couple tickets in there lol. Game plan is wait a month or two until I see some growth to know everything is happy and then hit up Fraggle Reef since they have that same montipora. If the birdsnest does alright that means I should probably be fine to add montis right? I'm wondering if I should try to get my hands on an inexpensive frag before I spend that kind of money on a chiclet? Link to comment
Weetabix7 Posted October 20, 2009 Share Posted October 20, 2009 Wow, looking really nice with all the new stuff. I like the Maze Brain and the Acan, as well as the Cloves you have peeking out from the back. It wouldn't hurt to dip that wounded SPS. You could do a Lugol's Iodine dip or dip it in pretty much any over the counter coral dip. If you do Lugol's, do: 1 cup tankwater 1 drop lugol's iodine 3 mins Link to comment
cptbjorn Posted October 20, 2009 Author Share Posted October 20, 2009 Thanks I just followed your directions with the lugol's and it started to open back up within a couple minutes of putting it back. It looks pretty good and I believe the alive parts fully extended all day today but it was straight from a fresh shipment to the LFS so its been in 3 tanks and 2 bags and 1 ricordia in the last 3 days... I'll be impressed if it survives all of that even if it looks fine now. Is the dip supposed to be a one time thing? Or do I repeat at some point? Link to comment
cptbjorn Posted October 23, 2009 Author Share Posted October 23, 2009 So I ordered a couple of these little fan/heatsink combos and they showed up today so I just spent an hour or two drilling and tapping and soldering and now I've got this: The fan and LED both run off a single 5v@2a supply and while the (12v) fan is barely spinning everything is cool to the touch. For now the LED is just running directly from the 5v through a 3 ohm resistor and getting about 550ma because I didn't have the right resistor values but next time I make a mouser/digikey order I'll get it running at 1000ma. I might decide to rig up a proper LED driver for it but meh, don't really see the point just for one LED that doesn't need to be dimmed since the 5v supply is a switching supply with a constant voltage. I'm going to have to paint the inside of the cover and maybe add some sort of baffle to help with light spill but I'm liking it so far Also actually having the top fit close instead of leaning on the picotope light I had back there should help reduce evaporation. On an unrelated note I have seen at least two, possibly 3 stomatella snails with really cool patterns similar to my virgin nerites on their shells. I'm hoping I got at least one dude and one chick (snails work that way right?) because they are never for sale anywhere, I've read they reproduce readily, and they are as cool if not cooler than any snail I've paid money for. Link to comment
evilc66 Posted October 23, 2009 Share Posted October 23, 2009 If you can make that tank into a stomatella breading ground, all the better. I hate how unavailable they are. I have only ever got them as hitchickers. I would buy dozens of them if they were available. Link to comment
cptbjorn Posted October 24, 2009 Author Share Posted October 24, 2009 Hmm, I wonder how hard it would be to set up a divided 10g or something to raise both stomatellas and virgin nerites. I think both would be a lot more popular if they were actually available... I seem to be a whole lot better at growing various types of hair algae than all the slimy coatings and diatoms that the snails like though. Maybe because my snails are doing their jobs while my hermits just eat snails and coral foods? Anyways so my power is out right now and I first set up my battery powered air pumps to see how they work. I like my water levels so they are 1/8" from overflowing when the power is unplugged and I'm getting tons of spray everywhere in the tank vicinities. So I have the generator running until either the power comes back on or it runs out of gas. Hopefully the former. I've decided I'm going to do some testing with my pumps and see if either of the pumps in there are efficient enough to run off of a battery for an extended period of time. The maze brain put out some wicked sweeper tentacles when the flow and light had stopped, it has been doing small 1/4" ones at night but these were well over an inch long, luckily there isn't much around it yet. Hopefully it doesn't start extending those with the flow on, I don't have room to give anything an entire inch of space lol. Oh sweet, power just came back on. Link to comment
badfish816 Posted October 24, 2009 Share Posted October 24, 2009 my lfs has hundreds of stomatellas. he threw in two for me for free when i picked up my nass snails. now i have like 5 in my pico. if i get alot more i'll start shipping them out to people..lol the tank is looking awesome by the way! Link to comment
cptbjorn Posted October 24, 2009 Author Share Posted October 24, 2009 Thanks, I think my LFS has a lot of them because I've had one in the bottom of the bag more than once when buying corals but never really seen them in their tanks. I've noticed they are more reclusive during the day so that probably has something to do with it. I just completed an hour of surgery on my light, the 4 blues at 700ma have been replaced with 3 royal blues at 1000ma. Watching them fade in for the first time right now and I did no testing first so I have no idea how bright they will be at 100% They are at 60% right now and looking like they will easily pass the blues, pics later I also just got a shipment notification of the UV LEDs I ordered that will replace the 4th blue LED I removed, hopefully they get here soon. Also ordered some reds from dealextreme (backordered with no ETA...) and I'm thinking about swapping my cool whites for two of the new XP-Gs and a red or an RGB. Don't get me wrong it looks great with just blue and white but this way I'll be able to set my tank to look hot pink for pictures if I want since the red will be on its own driver on the arduino I'm mostly just curious what adding a little red looks like so I'll see when (if) they get here and decide then if its worth the work to add it in. Link to comment
cptbjorn Posted October 26, 2009 Author Share Posted October 26, 2009 So just when I was starting to learn a few tricks to get pics of the blue LEDs now the royal blues are quite a bit different. The side of the birdsnest that was getting the most light bleached pretty bad and the blue candy cane to a lesser extent and I don't want to mess with the light just to take pics so this is about the best I can do for now: I have the light dimmed to about 2/3 and have it moved forwards a ways to remove them from the brightest light so hopefully the bleached corals can recover, I've already messed with the flow and the lights enough in the past couple days and I think relocating them would probably just make them more angry... The bare spot on the healthy branch of the birdsnest has mostly healed which leads me to believe it is happy besides having too much light on the other side for a while there. I dunno any ideas? Am I doinitwrong? I put about 1/3 of a stick of magic putty into the lower left of the scape to replace the quick unstable stack of rocks I cobbled together after the shelf collapse a little while back with something that holds frag plugs instead of using them as structure. I keep having to mess with my pump and I'm thinking about rigging a small external closed loop possibly with a 12v computer watercooling pump so I can control it using an arduino pwm output. Maybe with two pumps so I could do some cool alternating flow/wavemaker effects but the pumps are pretty spendy at ~50 bucks each. My virgin nerites have started to leave eggs on the glass and rocks so I've stopped cleaning the glass and plan to remove the micron fabric from my HOB when they start to hatch. I'm pretty sure they are fertile because there is a small pink colored male that devotes about 50% of his time to making that happen lol. I don't think I have anything that will eat them so if a couple can successfully navigate the pump rotors during their 4 day long free-swimming stage I should have some new snails maybe? Link to comment
plantarms Posted October 27, 2009 Share Posted October 27, 2009 you really have an awesome pico setup, i'm especially interested in your arduino microcontroller. where did you order the controller and the led shield from? would you be willing to help me out with mine when I get to that point in my LED build? Link to comment
cptbjorn Posted October 27, 2009 Author Share Posted October 27, 2009 The arduino concept is awesome for prototyping and if you have plenty of space to work with but with the tight spacing inside my light and all of the features I wanted to include I had to take the various "blocks" of the circuit and redesign it onto a couple compact circuit boards. I gave up a lot of the easy expansion and flexibility because while I'm poking around in the dark getting the software going, I knew pretty much exactly how I wanted the hardware to be. If you want to do something similar I would probably order something like an arduino duemilanove board and a character LCD along with buckpucks to run your LEDs. I found it to be pretty easy to make the arduino control the LEDs and have a basic LCD readout, but now I'm trying to add other stuff for it to do at the same time without messing up the LED part of the program and I'm lost I'll do my best to help you though Link to comment
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.