Ralph's 90RR Predator Reef! New Fish! Moar Wrasses!

[NirvanaandTool]

Thanks Eugene. It was a tough loss. I had him for over 2 years. No one on Lionfish Lair can really come up with a reason to why wasps sometimes seem to do that but now I've had 2 do it within a few months. It doesnt add up cause my fish get preventative quarantine (& treatment) and I feed a super varied diet. The redfin was obviously a healthy and fat fish and I still cant wrap my head around what happened. Just was his time I guess.

 

The pump seriously is awesome. My wife didn't even know it was running. Even at max flow the thing is silent. I wish everything in the tank would be this quiet!

[NirvanaandTool]

Made some 90 progress this weekend.

Brought it inside in its final resting spot.

First Coat of stain on the canopy

Coat #2

(Sorry that these two pics suck - taken with flash in the garage at night)

I think it needs 1-2 more coats of stain. Then probably 2 of poly and then it should be good to start to work the LEDs onto.

I can't believe how close I am to actually starting this thing up. Maybe 2 weeks away? Need to get another Brute or two so I can make enough SW for this beast!

[NirvanaandTool]

90 Progress! Never realized how much work I had left on this sucker.
Made some progress this past weekend but nothing huge. Stained the inside of the canopy and got all the little nooks and crannies that I missed in the first two coats. But sadly it still needs 1-2 more coats on the outside. Then poly.

Also started on my LEDs. Soldered up my 6-up LDD board and got to work on planning out my Evil Clusters.


Oh and I got this BEAST. Reef Octopus XP2000 Skimmer.




Compared to my previous Reef Octopus 1000int Skimmer.

Actually fits though. Getting the collection cup out will be a little interesting but "Go Big or Go Home" right?



& Moar progress last night!

Started the LED build now that my molex holders for the Bridgelux ES came in.





That's just Neutral White (in the center,) Royal Blue (big chips in the corners), & Blue (small solderless leds). It still needs Cyan, Hyper Violet and True Violet. Realized I can probably crunch down the spacing a little tighter too now that I'm looking at those pics. More work tonight hopefully!

[Reefmaster1996]

Subscribed, fellow bxra user

[NirvanaandTool]

BXRA 950 crew.

 

 

Finished cluster minus limes. Not even going to bother wiring it cause its going to get modified thanks to freakin Jedi haha

[Reefmaster1996]

On the same stage, making the final arrangements in order to fit n some limes.

[NirvanaandTool]

Always fun right? I was all ready to wire these suckers up and then these limes came out.

 

Have you ordered any yet?

[Reefmaster1996]

No, but I did order a ldd for it, I need another coralux ldd board, and then I need the limes and uv rebels. Still buying parts, so it'll be a while before I get a final product.

[NirvanaandTool]

Coralux is shut down til June 2nd but Reef LED Lights has LDD boards in 2, 4 & 6. They just don't have the 24 pin dip socks to make the LDD removable so you'd have to get that somewhere else. http://reefledlights.com/product-category/drivers/

 

I havent ordered anything yet either. I did order my home theater PC case that I'm going to house all the LED guts in and an assortment of 3 pin fan cable extensions for easy fan wiring from the PC's power supply. Next I need to at least order some limes and then worry about LDDs and a board.

[Reefmaster1996]

Cncreef has ldd drivers for cheap in the classifieds section, I'd reccomend getting them from him since he ships really economically (usps priority) and has the well priced. That's where I got all of mine, and the one for my limes. I still need to get fans and a lot of other crap to make mine work, check it out so far on my tank thread http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/313718-reefmasters-back-on-track/page-19,How come they're shutdown, and do you mean the output and input terminal thingys

 

Thanks for the link.

[NirvanaandTool]

Really? Not seeing them on the site.

 

I just picked up 120mm Coolermaster fans from Newegg for my canopy & using the stock 92mm fans from the Maker's heatsink. the 92s will exhaust heat out from the sink out the top of the canopy and the 120s will blow air through the canopy to cool the water. I'm planning to extend a molex cable from the PC case to the canopy and from there, split it into 4 3pin fan cables with extensions. Should be a clean way of wiring it all.

 

They shutdown to work on getting new product ready it seems like. From the site:

 

CORALUX Will be closed through Monday, June 2nd. We’re working on some great new products that we’ll be bringing to you shortly after we return.

 

I mean these things : It's essentially a LDD socket. You solder them to the board instead of soldering the LDD to the board so the LDD is removable.

 

Already subscribed to your thread. Just need to read through it, from what I'm seeing so far it's damn impressive. The DIY work is awesome!

[Reefmaster1996]

Thanks, it's been a long journey from sheets if glass and 2x4 to zeovit reef. Thanks for the heads up on those ldd sockets.

 

CNC has them, on here http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/342178-fs-meanwell-ldd-drivers-1000h700h700l/

 

Hope you get your light up soon, I want to some bridgelux 950s in action!

[NirvanaandTool]

It will be a little bit before we see test runs of the cluster. Busy poly'ing my canopy right now. First coat is down. Second coat goes on tomorrow.

[Reefmaster1996]

Same, I still have things to buy for my light, and haven't gotten around to it.

[NirvanaandTool]

Ditto. I still haven't gotten any limes yet or the LDDs/boards for them. Maybe later this week

 

I managed to finish the second coat of poly on the canopy but the front looks all messed up. Hazy streak marks. I think the stain was messed up before I put poly down and I didn't correct it enough and the poly shine just accentuates it. And there's other spots that I sanded a little too much in between coats of poly so those spots look uneven too.

Good news is the rest of the canopy looks great lol. Bad news is the front is going to need sanding and then re-staining and re-polying before it goes inside.

[NirvanaandTool]

Awwwww yesssssssssss

 

 

Got the easy wiring done too. Tonight I'll get the soldered stuff.

 

 

EDIT:

So much for soldering last night. Didn't happen. Not going to happen tonight either but hopefully Friday I'll find the time to get it done in along with a much needed WC on the 40B.

[NirvanaandTool]

4 Lux Rebel ES Limes ordered! Along with a 2-up board from Coralux who is back in action apparently. Got a LDD700H coming in from Coralux for the limes to start with (they were out of 1000s). If I want to bump it to 1000, I'll order one of those.

 

Should be the final pieces of the LED puzzle. I hope... If not, I've got an extra LDD spot for the next color craze.

[NirvanaandTool]

Not my cleanest work but one cluster is done including limes. Managed to squeeze the limes in at the edges in between the cyans and HVs. It's a little tight but it was the only way to make sure the lime got the most HS under it without being too far out.

Soldering could be a little cleaner but it works. Going to test the continuity with the multi-meter and make sure everything checks out before firing it on.

 

 

Next up, starting to solder up the other cluster, hopefully tonight. Maybe I can have a test firing of this death ray by the weekend!

 

Edit.

Really not happy with the cyan/lime layout at the edges of the cluster. Going to try to rework it today and try to squeeze them together, side by side. May have to move the HVs on the sides of them but it might mean I can push that far edge HV in a little bit more. I'll mess with it tonight.

[Reefmaster1996]

I'm right behind you, just finished thermal glueing my LEDs down, will wire this weekend and test fire baby

[NirvanaandTool]

Nice! Almost there! I'll check out your thread as soon as I finish this post.

 

I didn't make as much progress as I wanted last night (let's be serious, I wanted to finish up both clusters last night) but I got the first re-worked layout wise, re-did the other cluster and tinned all the non-solderless LEDs. Hopefully tonight I can get around to getting the last wires all soldered on.

 

Much better.... Wiring around the cyans/limes is a little bit of a nightmare but I can work around it.

 

[NirvanaandTool]

It's ALIVE! Kinda...

 

Tested some of the LEDs this weekend. I had to re-solder the Royal Blues cause I wasn't getting a good connection - solder wasn't sticking to the pad. Had to use extra flux and turn the iron up real high but finally got a good solder point. Redid both heatsinks' royals. Haven't tested them yet.

Here's the ones I did get : (I only was testing 1-2 channels at a time so no blending pics) -- this is all dimmed to about 20-40% power.

Loving the Bluefish controller for this testing. Free Mode and then using the sliders for dimming on the channels is awesome. I cant wait to get this on a tank and REALLY start to play around with it.

Cool Blue:

Lime and Cyan:

5 Hyper Violet and 1 True Violet:

Neutral White:

Probably will test the rest tonight. Maybe if I'm feeling energetic, I'll test a whole cluster together and really blind myself.

[NirvanaandTool]

I've decided that Flux is freaking magical. Did more work at my 'workstation' last night and guess what, the Lux M Royals work

This is at 5% each.

Got Blue?

So at what percentage to I end up blinding my fish?

I didn't dare turn the M's up higher than 15%. They are ungodly bright.

Now to assemble the guts in the computer case and get everything into the canopy and wired up.

[NirvanaandTool]

If there's anyone still following/interested:

 

What's this ordinary home theater PC case have to do with anything reef related Ralph?

 

 

And viola! All the LED guts crammed into one stylish little case.

 

 

That surprisingly took more time than I thought. Had to hack up the cage to mount the LDD boards (& be able to access the connections on them) and had to custom make mounting straps out of plastic pipe hanger straps for the PS.

Planning on using the little PC power supply to power my fans (2 120s for main canopy venting, 2 92mms on the Maker's heatsinks, 1 80mm fan inside the case). I wanted to put the Bluefish controller inside the case but I figure on the back is more accessible if I have to re-Blink-up (+ I wasn't sure how the wifi reception would be inside a metal case).

Next up mounting the heatsinks in the canopy.

[jedimasterben]

LOL

[NirvanaandTool]

Ingenious, I know.

 

Actually I got the idea from a guy on my local reef club forum who used a Coolermaster case in a similar fashion.