Today it was finally time… All the puzzle pieces for the WaterWorks could be put together! After testing the WaterWorks for leaks, it was time to mount the board under the paludarium, hook things up and test… For the very first time actual water inside the paludarium!
Mounting the WaterWorks
The waterworks were build on a separate board, outside of the paludariums cabinet. All parts that need to be under the paludarium that handle water are mounted here. The WaterWorks look like this:
Today I mounted this board in the cabinet under the paludarium. I used four 6mm bolts so that I can place and remove the board when I want to:
Finally I had to took up the external filter as well. This 1500 liters per hour monster is quite big, but fits easily inside the cabinet:
Final preps
As I did not know what might leak, I mounted the pump that will circulate the water for the land part temporarily inside the aquatic part of the paludarium. With a hose connected, I can quickly drain the aquatic part in case of a disaster:
Almost ready to fill the paludarium. Just some small final tuning…
Inserting the first sensor into the WaterWorks: the Sewer Sensor
The sewer sensor is a sensor that sits in the drain outside of the paludarium. I will use this sensor to measure if water is flowing into the sewer or not. That way I can determine if the paludarium is completely filled: when it is, excess water will the dumped into the sewer.
This sensor is not a very sophisticated sensor: It just measures if water is flowing past or not. I use two 2,5mm stainless steel screws inside the sewer pipe:
On the outside I connect these screws up with a thin 2 wire cable:
After this is mounted, I build the rest of the sewer pipe so that the paludarium can dump its excess water. No more excuses: Time to fill ‘er up!
Opening the magnetic valve to fill the paludarium
Everything was set up. Everything checked and double-checked. There was no excuse: Fill ‘er up! In order to start filling the paludarium, I needed to power one of the magnetic valves. For now I do this manually, as I am still developing the controller under the paludarium that should handle all this:
I temporarily placed a hose on the outlet inside the paludarium to make sure I don’t get all the water in my face:
Take a deep breath… And power the valve. After some hissing the water start to flow into the aquatic part:
First I check for any leaks in the paludarium itself, and the feed-through in the bottom that leads to the external filter. Nothing leaks, wow! After filling the paludarium to around 15cm, I close the valve. The feed-through in the bottom is already fully submerged, and I can hear the external filter filling up. Things go well so far.
Next test is to pump some of the water from the aquatic part into the land part. In this part there is a huge 40mm feed-through leading to the sewer. I flood its sealants and again… No leaks. Yeah!
Turning on the large external filter is the final thing to test. After some hissing and buzzing that works as well. Mission accomplished! YEEEEH!
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