So I've had a LM3 sitting around for a few weeks now and have been going snowboarding a lot. I really needed to get this tank automated more. I didn't just want to throw it on the workbench and have stuff everywhere because I need to get things more organized so I can work better/safer/cleaner/faster. So I decided to make a holder/shelf for the pumps. I planned to make it out of wood scraps but after I started I was talking with my partner about making custom holding tanks for our inverts in our new spot.
I've only made overflows with black acrylic so I have never seen my seams so I decided to make this out of acrylic scraps and start figuring out weld techniques. Here are some pictures of the process. A lot of the acrylic was from old baffles that I cleaned up with vinegar later. I messed up on drilling the pump holes the first time around. You can see my first seam looks terrible but they got better as I went along. I imagine it's more difficult to get these looking good on smaller, lighter projects. I also didn't bother with routing the edges over or polishing anything here. Open to suggestions!
Configuration thoughts. Note that I took apart all 3 pumps and inverted the motors on each so they would face downward. I don't know if this will work or not honestly but I don't see why not nor do I see why they aren't like this by default.
I messed up on this piece. The bit drifted a bit.
Decided to make it taller and this one worked out.
My first seam was terrible. Spidered and air bubbles everywhere. With this being so small clamps seem to be the only solution vs. a large sump piece and it's weight on the weld.
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Coming together. The seams got cleaner with clamps. A few measurement mistakes here and using what I had laying around. I cut holes for the controls up front.
The shelf for the rack.
Placing this out of the way between the rock tank and the sump.
Counter sunk and mounted to the shelf. Seam on the bottom was my first and the vertical one was probably my 3rd.
Perfect fit!
Everything is in place. I don't get why the LM3 uses guest connections on 1 side and zips on the other. Maybe to accept different input diameters?
Controls are easy to get to and I filed out a notch for the power.
Dosing will go from daily to weekly I'm guessing. We'll see. The tank is a
KH draw over CAL. I got some small Rubbermaid containers and modded the tops.
Holes for hoses and vents to stop occlusion.
Ready to go! I'm only dosing 8ml of vodka a day at the moment so I went with a smaller container for some stupid reason. I should have gotten the same size just to keep it neat.
Linear Mode
