Successfully hooked Eheim feeder up to Apex

[Djbetterly]

After several hours of work, and several trips to radio shack, I have successfully hooked my eheim into my apex controller. So far it seems to work great. If anyone wants any info feel free to message me.

 

[rkaragozler]

why not post here so we can all share the wealth, I would be interested.

 

[Djbetterly]

Will do, look for it later tonight.

 

[rkaragozler]

great can't wait

 

[guarda]

That's pretty cool. Tagging along.

 

[thirty5]

Following this...

 

[Djbetterly]

Ugh, just typed the whole thing up and the forum gave me an error on posting and erased everything. Heading to dinner with GF now, will retype when I return.

 

[fifty50]

In.

 

[Djbetterly]

ok, so for the most part this thing is working, but I want to make a some changes to refine it a bit. The timing is off by about a half a second and I can't program the controller down to that small of a unit of time. Stay tuned!

UPDATE: Issue resolved, typing up guide now.

 

[Djbetterly]

Ok, I attached a PDF of what and how I mod'd my eheim feeder. This is the first "how-to" I've written so please feel free to ask me any questions if you find something unclear. Good luck!

 

[thirty5]

Ok, I attached a PDF of what and how I mod'd my eheim feeder. This is the first "how-to" I've written so please feel free to ask me any questions if you find something unclear. Good luck!

Interesting. Did you think about just using the power supply to actually power the unit, so no batteries are needed at all??

 

[Tonyscoots84]

Nice write up

 

[Djbetterly]

That was my initial intention. The problem however is that the timing needs to be very precise and the controller is not precise enough. What ended up happening was that after about 8-10 times of turning on and off the feeder rotation was so out of sync that you might end up with the feeder end of the hopper being stuck in the feed position so it would just be dropping food into the tank until the feeder rotated again. You could in theory attach an additional power supply that hooks up to the battery contacts so you wouldn't have to use batteries. Does this make sense? I've had too much coffee and feel like I'm mumbling.

 

[Josh]

This is GREAT. I was just wondering the other day why no one had set something like this up.

What would be fantastic is if you could design one that is strictly controlled through the battery compartment. Meaning you just pop in some fake/empty batteries and there are connectors going from the batteries to a 110v plug.

 

[Djbetterly]

I'm working on that actually. I always feel as though everything with these tanks is a work in progress, so I'll keep you posted on the progress.

 

[Djbetterly]

So here's the deal, due to a limitation with the design of the eheim, in order to completely power the unit off of AC power there will need to be two power plugs. I ordered some materials this morning for a new power supply build and will post pics next week. It's not ideal to have two power plugs, but with out the option of a simple relay in the apex, this seems to be the only option. I went through some things with an electrical engineer last night and this seems to be the easiest. Stay tuned, I'll keep you posted.

 

[Djbetterly]

Going to make some adjustments to this guide as soon as some new parts arrive. Stay tuned for an update.

 

[reefoman]

Can you believe or not I was thinking about this DIY probably over 100 times but never had time to start...
Thanks !!!

 

[Djbetterly]

Be patient, I'm enjoying it, but I'd rather screw up my own feeder than screw up a whole bunch of peoples feeders if there is a problem with my mod. Its all a learning process.

 

[Djbetterly]

I have some new parts coming this week. Should have something to show by end of the week. There are a few things I'm not happy about with the current design.