Arduino powered diy sea sweep! Oscillating wavemaker diy!

JustSomeGuy · Jan 30, 2018

Very nice design. Do you think the weight of the pump would wear out the servo a little premature? I was thinking if that would become a issue you could hang something directly above the pump separate from the servo arm to hold the wire directly above the pump. If done right this would help support the weight of the pump and also keep it free moving. A simple bracket could easily be made with some of the acrylic scraps. Lastly Have you tested using a apex to control the unit with the 0-10v output?

Jdavison911 · Jan 30, 2018

Following. Don’t know a thing about coding but what the heck.

mstockmaster · Jan 30, 2018

JustSomeGuy said:
Very nice design. Do you think the weight of the pump would wear out the servo a little premature? I was thinking if that would become a issue you could hang something directly above the pump separate from the servo arm to hold the wire directly above the pump. If done right this would help support the weight of the pump and also keep it free moving. A simple bracket could easily be made with some of the acrylic scraps. Lastly Have you tested using a apex to control the unit with the 0-10v output?

Yes there's definitely a possibility that this will prematurely wear a servo, but I think it will be the radial forces placed on the bearings in the service that will wear it prematurely, not the axial forces from the weight. But the type of servo I'm using is meant for robotics arms which place a large amount of torque on the assembly. I feel that the servo will wear from constant use before it wears from the torque being placed on it by the powerhead. The servo I'm using is pictured.

Regarding Apex, I don't use Apex or any controller. I'm too cheap for that. It would be possible that an Apex 0-10v could be fed into the Arduino and you could control it from there to some degree. I know that you can control the pump itself (jebao in this case) with an Apex if you get a voltage divider. Jebao runs on 0-5 volts. Unfortunately, servos run on pulse width modulation, not on a voltage variable. So unless the Apex can be programmed for that it wouldn't be possible.

Vivid Creative Aquatics · Jan 30, 2018

Really cool idea. I can imagine lots of ways this could be useful. For instance, you could program it too run through a cycle to point at specific corals throughout the day, give each one a periodic blast.

Nicely done!

wattson · Jan 30, 2018

mstockmaster said:
The basic idea has been done and has been around for a while.
https://premiumaquatics.com/products/deluxe-sea-sweep.html
But I haven't seen anyone use a servo controlled version before.

curious why a company like sea swirl wouldnt try to mass produce a gadget that would handle various wave makers at a price point they could sell many of them..they have the motorized designs for it already and all they would need is a flat piece of acylic to attach to the motor and the wave maker would attach to the bottom of the acrylic with its own magnets

mstockmaster · Jan 30, 2018

wattson said:
curious why a company like sea swirl wouldnt try to mass produce a gadget that would handle various wave makers at a price point they could sell many of them..they have the motorized designs for it already and all they would need is a flat piece of acylic to attach to the motor and the wave maker would attach to the bottom of the acrylic with its own magnets

But it hides the wires!

hollback · Jan 30, 2018

wattson said:
curious why a company like sea swirl wouldnt try to mass produce a gadget that would handle various wave makers at a price point they could sell many of them..they have the motorized designs for it already and all they would need is a flat piece of acylic to attach to the motor and the wave maker would attach to the bottom of the acrylic with its own magnets

I think the biggest issue is with controllable pump strengths. Small pumps would be fine but if you pulse a very strong Tunze or Jebao, like a wave motion, it will deliver a beating to the device.

mstockmaster · Jan 30, 2018

hollback said:
I think the biggest issue is with controllable pump strengths. Small pumps would be fine but if you pulse a very strong Tunze or Jebao, like a wave motion, it will deliver a beating to the device.

I agree, when I put the pp8 on pulse mode at full power it definitely deflects the mount a few degrees. I'm not sure where the point of deflection is though,it might be my attachment point to my canopy. Either way this definitely puts some strains on the assembly. I'm only running this in modes that don't pulse.

wattson · Jan 30, 2018

wouldnt even worry about the pulsing effect of the wave maker just as long as you get the wave maker oscillating would be such a good effect on corals verses a stationary wave maker even on pulse setting.
I dont think your bread butter manufacturers really want an item like this oscillator on the market soley because they would sell far less wave makers in volume hence why theres not one on the market now

hollback · Jan 31, 2018

wattson said:
I dont think your bread butter manufacturers really want an item like this oscillator on the market soley because they would sell far less wave makers in volume hence why theres not one on the market now

This is the answer I received back in 2011 when I showed Roger from Tunze my design.

wattson · Jan 31, 2018

maybe this is the best answer to have,,somebody will make one and do VERY well at it and turn into bigger things,,big things come from small beginnings..

Holdbar7 · Jan 31, 2018

This is awesome. Thanks!

mstockmaster · Feb 3, 2018

Good morning,

Here's the breadboard fritzing diagrams. Please lay everything out on a table and test... do not install into your tank until everything is working correctly. Also please remember, although you are working with low voltages you are still working with electricity, please be mindful that short circuits can still cause issues up to and including fires (although this is unlikely I still have to say this). Also, please be aware we are also working near water. Please enclose your project in a box to protect from splashing. Breadboards also are only really suitable for prototyping and are quite fragile, any sort of jostling can dislodge wires, cause wires to short against each other, etc. Please be mindful of this, for a more permanent solution please look into using an arduino shield that you can solder to.

The parts I used outside of the ones linked previously are as follows.

LED: 3- 5MM standard LED
Resistors: 220 OHM for all connections
Switches: SPDT mini toggle switches
Potentiometer: 10K Ohm Linear potentiometer

Please, if you have any questions don't hesitate to ask.

William Norman · Feb 3, 2018

mstockmaster said:
Good morning,

Here's the breadboard fritzing diagrams. Please lay everything out on a table and test... do not install into your tank until everything is working correctly. Also please remember, although you are working with low voltages you are still working with electricity, please be mindful that short circuits can still cause issues up to and including fires (although this is unlikely I still have to say this). Also, please be aware we are also working near water. Please enclose your project in a box to protect from splashing. Breadboards also are only really suitable for prototyping and are quite fragile, any sort of jostling can dislodge wires, cause wires to short against each other, etc. Please be mindful of this, for a more permanent solution please look into using an arduino shield that you can solder to.

The parts I used outside of the ones linked previously are as follows.

LED: 3- 5MM standard LED
Resistors: 220 OHM for all connections
Switches: SPDT mini toggle switches
Potentiometer: 10K Ohm Linear potentiometer

Please, if you have any questions don't hesitate to ask.

Mstockmaster. I think this is fantastic. Do you have any suggested places to start learning about the wiring and the uno ? I watched few videos on the uno and it appears to be easy to pick up. It has been awhile since I was in the programming world. I did do some early Java , so I can at least read it.

mstockmaster · Feb 3, 2018

William Norman said:
Mstockmaster. I think this is fantastic. Do you have any suggested places to start learning about the wiring and the uno ? I watched few videos on the uno and it appears to be easy to pick up. It has been awhile since I was in the programming world. I did do some early Java , so I can at least read it.

https://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/BuiltInExamples

Read through these examples. All of my programs are based around sweep and knob, along with simply lighting an LED and a bit of logic to switch between the programs.

Honestly I didn't really know anything about Arduino either before starting this.