are you following a plan or just designing stuff on the fly?
are you following a plan or just designing stuff on the fly?
Zoran
There is no delight in owning anything unshared
"We believe .....that the person who says that "nothing comes for free"
knows absolutely nothing about the power and strength of human kindness"
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Thank you! Pleasure to meet your acquaintance, vpkoi.
Originally we wanted to buy a KC30 and inquired about purchasing one.
After doing some research and not getting as much information as we may have wanted to we decided to build our own.
So pretty much we went on the fly
Zoran
There is no delight in owning anything unshared
"We believe .....that the person who says that "nothing comes for free"
knows absolutely nothing about the power and strength of human kindness"
< My album
Zoran
There is no delight in owning anything unshared
"We believe .....that the person who says that "nothing comes for free"
knows absolutely nothing about the power and strength of human kindness"
< My album
Let's talk about the toilet flanges today...the ones we used as bearings.
Since we are not working with parallel surfaces the toilet flanges will be misaligned.
To align them we put the barrel with the toilet flanges in a vertical position and we slide a 4" pipe from the top.
We then heated up that side and waited for the plastic to soften before we moved the pipe to align it with the bottom flange.
After this cools off we flip the barrel and do the same thing on the other side.
Once the toilet flanges are aligned the barrel should spin on a 4" pipe nice and easy.
Last edited by Zoki51; 05-24-2013 at 11:18 PM.
Zoran
There is no delight in owning anything unshared
"We believe .....that the person who says that "nothing comes for free"
knows absolutely nothing about the power and strength of human kindness"
< My album
We are officially in real time
Today we worked on mounting the spray bar.
And it's mounted as you can see in the pics
Next set of pics are regarding the seal on the pipe and toilet flanges on the 55 gal barrel.
We sealed the toilet flanges with PL roof sealant to the barrel and the Fernco coupling is sealing the pipe and the flange.
The last pic is the part number for the Fernco coupling which has a 4 1/2" opening on one side and 5" opening on the other side.
The Fernco coupling in the 30 gal barrel is sealing the pipe and the tee so we don't lose water going to the drain.
This Fernco coupling is a regular 4" which we warmed up and forced over the 4" tee.
The pipe is not glued to the tee on this side and that is the reason for the coupling.
If we have to work on the 30 gal barrel we can take it out very easily.
Zoran
There is no delight in owning anything unshared
"We believe .....that the person who says that "nothing comes for free"
knows absolutely nothing about the power and strength of human kindness"
< My album
We also attached the acting pond barrel which is 55 gals to the RDF unit shown in the third pic in the above post.
We did this with a 4" uniseal.
Last edited by Zoki51; 05-24-2013 at 01:54 AM.
Zoran
There is no delight in owning anything unshared
"We believe .....that the person who says that "nothing comes for free"
knows absolutely nothing about the power and strength of human kindness"
< My album
It's great Zoran truly is. You and Gordana have just given us yet another reason to come meet you guys. Love it!
Austin
Koi-keeping is a hobby that generates obsession.
BWK 5 gallon bucket challenge champion!
Zoran
There is no delight in owning anything unshared
"We believe .....that the person who says that "nothing comes for free"
knows absolutely nothing about the power and strength of human kindness"
< My album
Hi, Steve.
Today we had our first set back.
We filled the unit with water and "Houston" there was a leak
We ran to HD and got 4" Fernco couplings and replaced the ones we originally had as we couldn’t tighten them enough to stop the leak.
We still have yet to see if this will solve our leaking problem or if there is an underlying issue.
We had to drain the barrel a couple of times which landed us in trouble with the neighbor but anything in the name of science is what I said to the wife
So here comes my daughter who kindly (not really) points out that there is a lot of water everywhere and I'm determined to electrocute myself.
Anyway all in all in was a wasted day.
Zoran
There is no delight in owning anything unshared
"We believe .....that the person who says that "nothing comes for free"
knows absolutely nothing about the power and strength of human kindness"
< My album
You can try running a bead of PL roof and flashing sealant, it should seal the fernco. If you need to remove it, use a hose removal tool, basically a pointy screw driver bent like a hook that allows you to get between the fernco and pipe.
I've been giving it a lot of thought of building one of these. I can't seem to figure out the tank, everything else seems pretty easy. I'm looking forward to see what you use as a controller. If I build one, I'll be using a 20 dollar arduino, w/ some solid state relays. It looks like you have some sort of controller already.
Good job so far
Last edited by Charlie Brown; 05-24-2013 at 11:40 PM.
Hi, Charlie.
Thank you.
We ended up buying the new Fernco couplings and taking everything apart so tomorrow we will be putting it all back together since part of the problem was the PL which was applied heavily and unevenly under the Fernco causing there to be no seal.
The PL was already dry creating a bigger problem. The dried PL made an impression in the rubber of the coupling when we tried to tighten it too much.
It will eventually go back but right now the rubber is embossed.
Hence the reason we went with the 4" plastic to plastic Fernco couplings.
We looked into the arduino before for some other project and since the controller didn't cost me anything I went this way.
Zoran
There is no delight in owning anything unshared
"We believe .....that the person who says that "nothing comes for free"
knows absolutely nothing about the power and strength of human kindness"
< My album
Hi, Bob.
Thanks for the vote of confidence.
The box was harvested from an old machine.
I have another one but it is wired for 220V and won't help me in this situation.
I have to install a contactor for the jet pump because the relays are rated maximum 5A.
Good thing about the wiring is that all the contacts are wired on the PLC even though they are not used.
This way I can add anything I want.
Zoran
There is no delight in owning anything unshared
"We believe .....that the person who says that "nothing comes for free"
knows absolutely nothing about the power and strength of human kindness"
< My album
Yesterday was a lousy day here in the Chicago area...rubbish I tell you!
It was cold and rainy and we didn't do diddly squat!
This morning I was going over the pics and noticed that we missed a few of spots when applying PL on the inside of the toilet flanges.
Originally we drilled and tapped 6 holes but put 3 screws.
So we applied PL this morning and while it was still wet we filled up the barrel and it was holding water with no problems.
About 15 mins later...there was a stream of water coming through one of the holes.
So once again we drain the darn thing.
We reapplied the PL and let it dry this time.
Next time we take the unit apart we will apply more PL on the inside.
The rest of the afternoon we took the day off and enjoyed it with a nice fire by the pond.
Zoran
There is no delight in owning anything unshared
"We believe .....that the person who says that "nothing comes for free"
knows absolutely nothing about the power and strength of human kindness"
< My album
We made a support brace for the drive motor and mounting bracket for the sensor.
Temporarily we are not using a proximity switch but rather a photo sensor.
We plumbed everything, filled it up with water and let it stay for three days to see if any leaks / problems came up.
Everything is fine!
Water was cold and the humidity here in Chicago was between 70-80% so you will notice water on the floor from condensation from the side of the barrels.
The jet pump is not wired, that's on the list for next week.
Zoran
There is no delight in owning anything unshared
"We believe .....that the person who says that "nothing comes for free"
knows absolutely nothing about the power and strength of human kindness"
< My album
We are using a 5500 gal pump and as you can see in the first two pics the pump is off.
The arrow is pointing to the installation level at rest in the second pic.
The last three pics are showing the pump in action.
Zoran
There is no delight in owning anything unshared
"We believe .....that the person who says that "nothing comes for free"
knows absolutely nothing about the power and strength of human kindness"
< My album
My helper or should I say daughter and I made a couple of videos of the RDF as it was running.
In the first video you'll notice all the components...acting pond and bio filter, the actual RDF itself as well as the 5500 gal and jet pumps.
In the second video we blocked the intake showing how the RDF operates when the filter becomes clogged.
Zoran
There is no delight in owning anything unshared
"We believe .....that the person who says that "nothing comes for free"
knows absolutely nothing about the power and strength of human kindness"
< My album