Kevin and Emme`s Biocube of High Powered Awesome Build (LEDs and Typhon Controller)

[ScubaSteve]

So, several months out now, how’s the tank doing?

Awesome! Just, totally awesome.

I’ve opted to go SPS in this tank with a few high end palys and lobos. I was also given a super awesome clam by a buddy (Thank Jon!). All are doing really well. In fact, the SPS in this tank probably looking better than my big tank! I moved a few pieces from the big tank into the biocube and it’s incredible! I had a bonsai colony that all but shut down and was starting to look pretty sad (wasn’t getting enough light). Give it a front row, center spot under the LEDs and it’s going bananas! A friend of mine snapped this pic a few weeks back just before the lights went out. This was basically under just the TV LEDs with a touch of the RBs (and a bit of orange glow from the lights in the living room):



Pretty snazzy, no?

I also got a brown frag from my clam donor when he was shutting down his tank. I knew it was a milli or something similar but it was small, brown and hanging on for dear life. I gave it a prime spot in the tank and left it for two week (I actually forgot I put it in there because I was so busy with work). I checked on it randomly one morning and what do I see? A freakin’ Red Planet with crazy electric green and mind blowing reds! What the heck? Not only has the thing coloured up super nice, it’s growing like a freaking weed! It’s encrusted and putting out new branches faster than I can count. I also put a tiny A. tenuis branch in there that suddenly exploded into a bushy colony the size of a racquet ball. Nice!

Bare in mind, the only filtration this tank has is a piece of filter floss and it gets water changes from the water I pull out of my big tank (when I remember). Nothing else. By having tons of light and limiting the amount I feed the fish in the tank, all the SPS look like champs! To be honest, I don’t even know what the parameters are in the tank. This is the lowest maintenance tank I’ve ever had and it’s getting better results from my carbon-dosed, GFO/skimmer/kalk top off SPS tank that gets a ton of love. Go figure, huh?

I will try to get more pics up when I get my friend to come back with his camera. The LEDs mess with my camera too much to get a picture of anything other than blue. I promise they’ll come soon!

[daplatapus]

Lookin' awesome dude! Haha, I love hat clown hiding in the corner under the shadow of that pump. He too is probably saying, Holy ****, my eyes! JK

I believe you can run the OCW LED's individually if you really wanted to. Similar to the Cree 3-up's.

Those Typhon button extenders look really good too, well done.

[mike31154]

Great stuff. Those clear polycarbonate enclosures are very nice indeed, but looking at your photos, specifically the one below, I have a concern/caution you may wish to look into further.



I'm thinking this enclosure is almost if not completely air tight & you've got a power supply sitting below a bunch of electronic components in there! The power supply chassis is full of holes for a good reason, heat dissipation. I would recommend you mount the power supply externally or install a fan &/or drill a lot of holes into that nice enclosure. Only holes I see are the ones for your display adjustment pots & I really don't think that's going to cut it for venting heat. I don't know what size the power supply is, but I have two similar jobs running my DIY LED set up & they get quite warm. I could be mistaken & you may be fine, but my guess is you'll end up with cooked components or a fire if you don't make some mods to this set up.

Here are a couple of photos of what I ended up with, first iteration with a single power supply & 2nd is with current set up using two power supplies. Certainly not pretty, but tucked away out of sight in the stand under the tank & well ventilated.

[ScubaSteve]

Originally Posted by mike31154

Great stuff. Those clear polycarbonate enclosures are very nice indeed, but looking at your photos, specifically the one below, I have a concern/caution you may wish to look into further.

Oh, sweet! I'm glad you brought this up! I totally forgot to get into this but I actually spent a ton of time on this fact and wanted to talk about it.

First things first, the polycarbonate enclosure is actually a see-thru washdown enclosure that has a gasket that allows service in wet conditions. I won't call it waterproof but it's seriously water resistant. We actually used the same enclosure to make a payload box for my friends ROV project and it didn't leak (I was actually really surprised by that). Where the wires come into the enclosure I use waterproof strain relief.



Again, I wouldn't be sticking this thing into my tank but it'll handle some major spills. I also use this sealing wax that I get from work on the screws, screen and DIN connector to make them water resistant (I can't remember the name of the stuff right now, I'll have to look again when I remember). So the thing is really water tight. Also, there is 3 ft of cable from the box to the cube and I have the controller mounted in a spot away from the tank. If I'm getting significant amounts of tank water on the controller, the electronics are going to be the least of my worries.

So, water: not an issue.

Heat: Very good point.

I really wasn't wanting to drill vent holes into my nice waterproof enclosure but was prepared to do it if necessary (I actually designed a super cool bubble pattern that I was going to mill into the enclosure and then laser etch on top of). But when I was picking my electronics (particularly the power supply) I looked for parts that were rated for service in enclosed spaces and had thermal protection. Once the electronics were together I tweaked the power supply output to minimize the amount of power that needed to be sunk, thus keeping the heat down. Also, being the engineering nerd I am, I did some quick back-of-the-napkin calculations to see what the temperature rise would be and I was well in the acceptable working range. Because I had thermal protection I felt confident enough to just let it run for a few days completely enclosed to see what would happen. Luckily, I had a few days I needed to stay at home to work on some designs when this project was going online, so I was around to babysit. I tossed a temperature datalogger into the enclosure, buttoned it up and set the thing to full power (on a typical daily cycle). The temperature only went up to 30C in the box and on the outside the enclosure feels warm (as in higher than ambient) but not hot. In fact it runs much cooler than the controller for my MP10. We're pushing 5 months now and the temperature of the enclosure hasn't been an issue (and my house gets REALLY hot in the winter because we are on the top floor and no control over our heating).

Some other notes about thermal management and electronics: With the way I have the driver board mounted, there is free space around the whole board to allow for convective cooling, especially if I end up cutting vent holes into the enclosure. The power supply has vent holes in it for conductive cooling but also have a solid slug that is used for mounting as well as conducting heat to a chassis. I mounted this slug in direct contact with the side of the enclosure to help dissipate heat (won't dissipate a ton of heat due to conducting through plastic but it's butter than nothing). This is the warmest spot on the enclosure. Also, I put a 1/16" thick silicone sheet on top of the power supply underneath the drivers to prevent the driver PCB shorting to the power supply chassis. The lid is plastic after all and if someone pressed hard enough it could conceivably make contact with the power supply and short. Play it safe!

**Disclaimer: I would encourage others to err on the side of keeping all of the electronics cool and ventilated unless you are familiar with your components. I build solar research set ups that work in full wet conditions, so I've built a number of power supplies into these washdown enclosures and am quite familiar with their design and thermal behaviour. Again: Play it safe!

[ScubaSteve]

Originally Posted by daplatapus

Lookin' awesome dude! Haha, I love hat clown hiding in the corner under the shadow of that pump. He too is probably saying, Holy ****, my eyes! JK

I believe you can run the OCW LED's individually if you really wanted to. Similar to the Cree 3-up's.

Those Typhon button extenders look really good too, well done.

Ya, when I first put the LEDs in the clown was pretty confused. I had the hood off with no light for a few days for the build and then all of a sudden BAM! he's got a supernova as a tankmate. After 5 months he's good with it. It sure makes him look like a million bucks!

I probably could reconfigure the OCW to control the colours individually but alas I lack and extra driver. I'll keep this in mind though when I start the build for the big tank.

[daplatapus]

I've got some spare LDD's still if you need them.