Automated Aquarium Hood

[bassman09]

From the 1st day of setting up my aquarium I toyed with the idea of having a automated way to lift the hood straight up off my tank with the push of a button. This would allow me to use my large tongs, scrapers, etc. without having to take my heavy oak hood off everytime or struggle to work around my hot MH lights.

Well after a lot of planning I finally came up with a system. It's very similar to the systems used to raise and lower flat panel televisions and it works awesome!!

Sorry about the video quality, I used my digital camera.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9edO7RyURQ

[Tigger240]

its alive!!

[orb]

that's neat!!! any pics of the mechanism that does the work? or a linK?

[bassman09]

No pics at this point. I am going to take some in the next few days though.

It's a linear actuator that does the lifting. I just made a aluminum frame, attached it to drawer slides and put the actuator in the center pushing off the floor.

[daytriper]

I want that, I need that! But my wife dose not share this point of view.

[orb]

did you put the slides on the wall or make a brace?

[bassman09]

I mounted the slides to 2" x 2" angle iron which is attached to the back of my tank stand.

Because the back of my tank stand is just a 1/4" panel I had to built some legs with feet if you will to attach the angle iron to on the inside of my cabinet, therefore sandwiching the back panel between two pieces of angle iron. This thing could support several hundred pounds without even thinking about it. I would rather over build it then worry about it tipping over.