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08/08/2010, 11:20 AM | #101 | |
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Quote:
That is hilarious about the cats! we picked ours up a little over a year ago at the humane society in Tri-Cities, WA. I suppose they could be related. Haha, I was wondering if someone was going to see that! Acer just had a deal, $119 for there 20" LCD, and I had to pick one up for my wife. Before this she had been using a ~15 year old sony LCD my family had picked up when it was brand new. Yep, 15 years old, one of the first widescreen lcds ever...
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^ Click on my username and 'Visit Taqpol's Home Page!" to view my 220 gallon custom Miracles tank! -Alex |
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08/08/2010, 06:31 PM | #102 |
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this is awesome. congrats on getting married. if you ever go back to bora bora, can you knock some of those clams off and send them to me? haha.
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08/08/2010, 10:17 PM | #103 |
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congrats on marriage and tank
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08/09/2010, 08:25 AM | #104 | |
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Quote:
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^ Click on my username and 'Visit Taqpol's Home Page!" to view my 220 gallon custom Miracles tank! -Alex |
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08/09/2010, 08:34 AM | #105 |
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I really need to get my camera back. My wife's point and shoot has been great for documenting the build but it really has trouble with tank shots. That being said:
I got all my stuff back! Also, the three Carberryi anthias had stayed hidden the entire time since I added them to the tank on Friday. Now that my trio of chalk bass are back in there they are finally out and about! In this picture you can also see the Blonde naso (a new addition) and my old Chevron tang that made the trip across the country. My anemone tank is the only one with lights right now (my prototype LED pendant) so it has the onerous duty of holding all my corals until I can get the lights setup over my tank and the dimming feature figured out on the Arduino. Its quite full... My wife's Picasso clown pair that thankfully made the shipping. Lastly, awhile ago I submitted a photo to a certain reef website I can't name here's photo contest where the grand prize was a fancy commercial LED fixture. Turns out my picture did not make it into the top ten, but it did make it into the first seventeen that the judges narrowed it down too! Facebook link.
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^ Click on my username and 'Visit Taqpol's Home Page!" to view my 220 gallon custom Miracles tank! -Alex |
08/09/2010, 08:48 AM | #106 |
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Looks like he's stuck in the Sand if you look at it... You should help that little guy...
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90G- Powered By Tek T-5 8 bulb 1X MP10wES,1 MP40wes, Waveline DC4000, Octopus Skimmer NW150, Apex lite, Eshopps RS200 sump 80G Frag system- Powered by 2X MH Pendants with 250W 20K Radiums, DIY S |
08/09/2010, 06:52 PM | #107 |
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Nice tank the chevron tang looks good. What is the name of the birdnest at the anemone tank?
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08/09/2010, 09:26 PM | #108 |
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clowns
those picasso clowns are gorrrrrgeous!!!!!!
May I ask where you got them from and approx how much? Thanks kindly, Tim
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"My God Reefs are Gorgeous!" Current Tank Info: 160 gallon reef |
08/09/2010, 10:35 PM | #109 | |||
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Quote:
Quote:
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^ Click on my username and 'Visit Taqpol's Home Page!" to view my 220 gallon custom Miracles tank! -Alex |
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08/10/2010, 05:50 AM | #110 |
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congrats on getting the fish and corals back.
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-Chris- You don't win friends with salad. "Look! They're trying to learn for free!" ... "Use your phony guns as clubs!" Current Tank Info: rectangluar? wet? |
08/10/2010, 05:55 AM | #111 |
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nice win!!!!!
Wow! you won the clownfish!!!! Incredibly good score!!!!!!!!!
they are gorgeous and would be easily worth 200 a pair or more for sure..... very nice. Tim
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"My God Reefs are Gorgeous!" Current Tank Info: 160 gallon reef |
08/10/2010, 11:49 AM | #112 |
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Welcome to the area Beautiful build!
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08/14/2010, 09:18 AM | #113 |
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Alex,
Whats the status on your LED build for the DT? Are you still planning on using the Apex to control the LED intensity? I assume you will be able to use the Apex as a dimmer? Nice update alex, Looking forward to the progress! Rob |
08/14/2010, 12:05 PM | #114 |
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are you going to skin the stand so you can keep the inside messy but have it look nice outside? looks great!
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08/15/2010, 09:42 PM | #115 |
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Sorry it's taken so long to get over here. Really excited to see what's going on with the new tank but the pics are unavailable. And you know how much I like pics!!!
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-Brett 180g Marineland Starfire In-Wall 278 gallon system |
08/16/2010, 08:40 AM | #116 | |||
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Thank you! Any good LFS's you would recommend?
Quote:
I might use my APEX to dim the lights over the cube tank since they use Meanwell's (even though they are "p" type), but the main tank uses DIY driver boards thanks to DWZM and i am going to be dimming them individually with a 5v PWM signal from an Arduino. I promise there will be much more details on this once I finally get the light hung over the tank. Quote:
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^ Click on my username and 'Visit Taqpol's Home Page!" to view my 220 gallon custom Miracles tank! -Alex |
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08/16/2010, 12:37 PM | #117 |
Me too!
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: East Whittier, CA
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Looking great and congrats on your wedding.
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Mario.... SCMAS 140G rimless bare bottom mostly SPS |
08/16/2010, 02:04 PM | #118 |
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congratulations for the wedding and the tank is looking awesome
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zeopora Current Tank Info: custom made 200g acrylic zeovit sps aquarium |
08/17/2010, 08:35 PM | #119 |
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Just went through the build and it looks awesome Alex! Congrats on getting married and what a beautiful spot for your honeymoon. You're making me want to get some more fish though...
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-Brett 180g Marineland Starfire In-Wall 278 gallon system |
08/17/2010, 09:03 PM | #120 | ||
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Quote:
Quote:
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^ Click on my username and 'Visit Taqpol's Home Page!" to view my 220 gallon custom Miracles tank! -Alex |
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08/18/2010, 11:15 PM | #121 |
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Lighting Update
I still have a little more work to do and some testing, but I hope to get it hung over the tank tomorrow. (Sorry for the mess in these pictures...) The frame is made entirely out of 2x4's and 2x6's joined together with glue and pocket hole screws. The part on the back is going to screw directly into the five wall studs behind and twelve inches above the tank. The piano hinges allow me to flip the front part up and against the wall in case I really need to get into the tank to do some maintenance. The great part about this design is when I finally get around to building a canopy for my tank (more like the shell of a canopy) it will slide onto the tank and over the light fixture, completely covering it from view. All five heatsinks are mounted to universal omni-directional speaker mounts I found at a local radio shack. This will allow me to rotate or angle the LED fixtures independently and at any angle I choose, so that I can really play with the directionality of light given to us by LEDs. I know for a fact I will be angling the two exterior fixtures towards the center of the tank to maximize their coverage. Coincidentally, two 2x6's plus the length of the speaker mount was the exact distance from my wall that i needed to center the fixtures over the tank. 2" stainless steel machine screws coupled with nylon locking nuts inserted through holes drilled in the fins hold the fixtures to the speaker mounts. I did all these holes freehand (no drill press...) so please excuse the catty wompus screw in this picture. The other fixtures are much better. Meanwell SP-320-24 with built in PFC protection. Hole drilled though the back 2x6 so that the power supply power cords can drop straight through to the dedicated 20A circuit underneath my main tank. Barrier strips allow me to connect the multiple 24v supplies and Grounds from all ten drivers to a single wire going back to the power supply. I have two strips, one for the blues and one for the whites, divided evenly between 24v from the two different power supplies and the grounds for the individual power supplies. DIY drivers were located on the mobile 2x6 directly in front of their respective LED fixtures. Since I was lucky enough to have access to my father's CNC machine for pre drilling and tapping, I used Arctic Silver thermal paste and screws instead of thermal epoxy this time around. Those are #4-40 stainless steel 1/4" screws with a hex top and nylon washers holding the stars to the pre polished heatsinks. A finished fixture.
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^ Click on my username and 'Visit Taqpol's Home Page!" to view my 220 gallon custom Miracles tank! -Alex |
08/18/2010, 11:18 PM | #122 |
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Your Dad has a CNC machine? Now I'm freakin' jealous! Awesome job on the fixture Alex. Looks great.
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-Brett 180g Marineland Starfire In-Wall 278 gallon system |
08/18/2010, 11:28 PM | #123 |
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The 5v source for the CAT4101 driver as well as all ten 5v PWM signals are controlled by a Seeeduino Mega.
For simplicities sake I am only going to control the blues and the whites individually for awhile, but the overarching goal is to control all ten channels sperately and have a sunrise/sunset the proceedes east to west across my tank. Here is the wiring harness i constructed using a 12 pin molex connector to keep all the various PWM cables straight. Previously i just used the 5v out on the Arduino plugged into the 5v and PWM ports to do all my testing, but now i had to actually figure out how to program the Arduino and use the PWM signals. Good thing the programming of this beast is extremely well documented. Here is the code I uploaded to the Arduino that is a simple "All lights on full blast": Code:
int led1Pin = 2; int led2Pin = 3; int led3Pin = 4; int led4Pin = 5; int led5Pin = 6; int led6Pin = 8; int led7Pin = 9; int led8Pin = 10; int led9Pin = 11; int led10Pin = 12; void setup(){} void loop(){ analogWrite(led1Pin, 255); analogWrite(led2Pin, 255); analogWrite(led3Pin, 255); analogWrite(led4Pin, 255); analogWrite(led5Pin, 255); analogWrite(led6Pin, 255); analogWrite(led7Pin, 255); analogWrite(led8Pin, 255); analogWrite(led9Pin, 255); analogWrite(led10Pin, 255); } Can you see the single Neutral White in this set of twelve LEDs? Probably not with this point and shoot camera, but once I get my SLR back I'll try and take a few more true color picture comparisons for everyone. Now all I need to do is finish wiring the last four fixtures, mount this beast to my wall, and hope everything still works! For more details on whats going on behind the scene, go ahead and check out my DIY LED thread.
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08/18/2010, 11:44 PM | #124 | |
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08/19/2010, 06:56 AM | #125 |
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sick build!
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