diy wave maker

[Anonymous]

Any one know where to find plans or ever made a wave maker? I saw plans once at the ugliest skimmer site, but all the links are now down. Can anyone point me in the right direction or build me one?
TIA 8)

 

[rabagley]

There are lots of categories of "wave makers". One of the more common DIY versions is the dump bucket or "surge device".

Do a search for "diy surge device" "Carlson surge device", "flapper surge device" and "Borneman surge device" to see bunches of threads where various designs are discussed and debated.

Having never built one myself, I can't help much more than that.

Regards,
Ross

 

[Rikko]

There are 3 methods of wave production that I'm familiar with..

1) Surge devices. You've got your Carlson Surge Device, Borneman Flush Device, and a Reverse Carlson Surge Device. Let me know if that's what you're working on and I can probably lend you a hand.

2) Oscillating pump. These include oscillating nozzle powerheads like the crappy Zoo Med PowerSweep, SCWDs, and some DIY output rotators that look awesome and have links I can't find at the moment.

3) Wave timer. About as simple as it sounds. Get a timer that cycles on a short duration and plug in several powerheads.. Some will turn on, others off on a cycle.

 

[Anonymous]

I think he's asking about building his own circuit that turns pumps on and off at intervals (???).

They can be made if you talk to someone who really knows electronics. A friend of mine built one for me a while back with all these little circuit boards and such from Radio Shack. Pretty simple from what I remember but I wouldn't have a clue how to do it.

 

[Fatal Morgana]

Most are IC-555 based timer. I think John Rice and other has a version of the circuit on their web site.

 

[Anonymous]

I was thinking along the lines of the flush device. But was hoping that I could find one that sat on the back of the tank or underneath it some how. I guess I'll have to keep looking. I saw some installed on tanks at Inland Aquatics, they did look interesting. Maybe it's overkill for a 29, but how knows.
Now to get with some reading.

 

[holry7778]

The flush devices work on gravity from what have seen and understand. So the thing would have to be at least abovethe water line of the show tank

 

[Anonymous]

I downloaded plans for a powerhead controler type wave maker. When I get back to NYC in a couple of weeks, I'll look up the web address from the site.

B

 

[Rikko]

If you want a surgelike device then there's really only 2 ways to operate it: gravity or a pump.
If you use gravity, you still use a pump to fill it but gravity initiates the draining cycle in some way. This is the classic Carlson surge et al. Only problem here is that the surge tank needs to be completely above the display water surface.

If you want it beside or below the tank, you could copy what we've got under our shower stall in the laundry room.
Basically, water drains into it via a siphon (or through the drain screen, in our case) into a reservoir ("surge tank") and when it reaches the max water level, a float switch gets raised enough to kick in the pump inside which quickly pumps the water off (in our case to the drain pipe that's about a foot higher than the shower).. Once the float switch drops the pump is silent again. By manipulating the rate of water entering and the power of the pump emptying it you can have ultimate control over the surge... But you need to safeguard against a power failure. Probably the easiest thing to do would be to seal the surge tank and run some airline to a point above the display tank to leave it unpressurized. That way if the power fails (or the float switch dies, or the pump dies), the siphon can fill up your surge tank but won't overflow onto the floor.