Saturday, March 21, 2009

Aquarium wave maker

Here's a really simple project that turns an aquarium pump on and off at a specific rate. This is supposed to simulate ocean currents which periodically vary instead of blowing constantly like a mechanical pump does.

The project is built within an electrical box and uses a 558 quad-timer chip as the timing device. I used a monster capacitor and resistor to get time values of 1 to 6 minutes (variable with a pot). The on and off times are independently variable. I used another part of the 558 chip to flash an obnoxiously bright LED. There is also an override switch. The output of the 558 chip drives a transistor, which triggers a solid-state relay. The relay controls power to the outlets.

I added some plans here: http://benkrasnow.blogspot.com/2009/03/diy-wave-maker-plans.html

3 comments:

  1. Very excellent DIY project, do share some simple plans with us sometime.

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  2. Sure, I'll post a schematic or a detailed block diagram pretty soon. I'm glad and surprised that anyone is reading my blog at all. How did you find me? Google?

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  3. Wow Ben I really enjoy your creativeness for DIY. I saw everything you posted for aquarium uses and i must say very nice!

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