DIY Wavemaker (<$25!)

johntan

Non-member
I took on a new DIY today to get some nice wave action without breaking the bank. This is a nice segway from my diy controller I run, much simpler though if anyone is interested!

What you will need:
1 x OMRON Solid State Relay (5-24 volts DC / 24-240 volts AC @ 25amps) ebay, $6.99
1 x 10uF 16 volt DC capacitor
1 x 500k potentiometer
1 x 1k 1/2 watt resistor
1 x 555 ic timer
1 x DC power supply, 5 - 15 volts DC

various wires
various resistors are good too, you can use them to really dial in different frequencies.
ie. I found my tank formed a nice set of waves around a 3/4 second cycle. I was able to nail this down with an extra 100k resistor and a smaller 10k potentiometer

Wiring is as follows, increasing the resistance between pins 7 & 6 will slow down the blinking, I'll try to post a video of it in action soon, enjoy!

Screen Shot 2012-07-11 at 8.50.50 PM.png
Screen Shot 2012-07-11 at 8.50.58 PM.png
 
Everything but the relay was from the local radio shack. The relay is upwards of $30 if you get it in the US, $6.99 free shipping from hongkong on ebay though.
 
Any of them, I went between the hanover and marshfield ones depending on where I was working, but the resistors/capacitor/555 timer and pot are part of their standard drawers full of bits
 
This looks excellent! Now I'm wondering if the POT could be replaced with say an ALC module on an RK and control the freq to control and or interrupt wave freq throughout the day for random motion and current...
 
Looks great! American ingenuity at its best. I have no idea what I am looking at though, so I forwarded this to my son the rising electrical engineer.

He does not know it yet, but I have plans for him when I pull the trigger on my project. Payback for all the college I am paying for.
 
That I don't know, the frequency with a 555 timer is pretty much based on resistance. I don't have a RK but if it works anything like my arduino controller it would be pwm based, which is great, but dimming AC power is something I looked into and it seems complicated/dangerous haha.
 
Here's a quick clip of a nice little ~1/4 crest. Going across my 29gal so 30" long, powered by 1 mj900

[video=youtube;Xk37skebRIA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xk37skebRIA&feature=plcp[/video]
 
Update, been running since 7/10/2012 same maxi-jet, same circuit!
[video=youtube;eR6PB_eIQ8w]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eR6PB_eIQ8w&feature=youtu.be[/video]
 
Looks great, what is the pulsing frequency?
Thanks
 
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