rotating lights???

[reefwars]

hey all its me again lol well yesterday as i was explaining my light ring that my pendants will go on for my new tank someone mentioned that it would be cool to have a small motor that would keep my lights circulating around my tank so i figured id ask if anyone seen it or if anyone can see any problems. i guess all the bulbs would have to be the same k and possibly same watts??

[steve fedyk]

The cables would have be a a swivel to stop them from wineding up and a good coating of sealler.
Getting a motor that is slow enough to pull them.
There was a guy on here with a light move set up that turned them like you want them too.

[Skimmerking]

CHIN LEE had that on his huge Cube.

[reefwars]

it was another canreefer who mentioned it to me... said he seen one as well, as for the motor im not even sure as like you said it would need to spin pretty slow i would imagine :)

[reefwars]

CHIN LEE had that on his huge Cube.


ahh sweet so there is hope lol was thinking i was maybe losing it now :):)
ill have to find his thread if he has one would be a cool thing to have set up right if one was to take the time to do it:)

any ideas on how his worked??

[Magma]

have to think to about power consumption the motor to rotate the lights is going to draw a lot more wattage than just the lights and it will take need swivel so the wires dont twist togeather and wear down the insulation resulting in a bright light and a big bang.

Not saying it cant be done but the cost might start going up rather fast.

[The Codfather]

http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=29398

[reefwars]

thank you bob:) now that is cool a suncircle kinda makes sense and its exactly as i was thinking and my new tank is almost those dimesions minus some of the height:)

[reefwars]

have to think to about power consumption the motor to rotate the lights is going to draw a lot more wattage than just the lights and it will take need swivel so the wires dont twist togeather and wear down the insulation resulting in a bright light and a big bang.

Not saying it cant be done but the cost might start going up rather fast.


not to worried about power consumption ive shut down three tanks with a fourth about to be shut down just to do this one lol:)

[lastlight]

Don't those slow stepper motors use very little power? Maybe I'm thinking of something else.

[Magma]

not to worried about power consumption ive shut down three tanks with a fourth about to be shut down just to do this one lol:)

well then you got lots of extra power. If you need help wiring it let me know I can walk you through it (gotta love being an electrician)

Don't those slow stepper motors use very little power? Maybe I'm thinking of something else.
depends on the motor really, some are strong output some not so much.

[mike31154]

Aren't there horizontal light movers available (also spawned by the hydroponics industry)? These would work better on a rectangular tank and you would actually save money by only using a single halide and having the device move the light back & forth over your system. That rotary thing looks scary and ill suited to even a cube. Good for a cylindrical tank maybe.

[reefwars]

Aren't there horizontal light movers available (also spawned by the hydroponics industry)? These would work better on a rectangular tank and you would actually save money by only using a single halide and having the device move the light back & forth over your system. That rotary thing looks scary and ill suited to even a cube. Good for a cylindrical tank maybe.


my tank is a cube its 48" x 48" only my height isnt as extreme as chin lee's mines 20" .im not set on it yet i have made the decision that im going to use a circle ring to mount 4 pendants its just someone mentioned that i should go rotating and i was like " really" "they do that??" lol so i was curious and now that ive seen someone with that im even more curious haha what have i got myself into now lol:)

im guessing the problem lies in that i have 16 sq/ft that needs to be lit up without using fixtures on legs or having lights covering up the whole top so if i can make a sleek giant "metal washer" i can bolt four pendants onto them just offset slightly from the middle......and thats where rotation got brought up lol:):)

[mike31154]

Well then your giant metal washer idea with four pendants sounds good. Not much need to rotate something like that I reckon. Would make things overly complex for no real benefit or reason.