Ecotech Radion's Ordered ( for RSM 250)

Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Member
Got a good price on the Radion's so ordered two of them and should be collecting soon if all goes well.

If anyone's interested I'll take a few pix while installing them, and post here. Might need some help posting them though as these will be the first pictures posted here.

I'll be installing them into the stock hood. If anyone's done this on the 250 before I wouln't mind some pointers if you have them. I'm particularly keen on finding out how you've accomodated the USB connectivity once installed.

Thanks


Chris
 
tnwillia

tnwillia

Well-Known Member
I think your going to be the first in the 250 hood. Looking for lots of pictures! Good luck!
 
tnwillia

tnwillia

Well-Known Member
Hey Dan, That's the same thing they told me. I'd think the only way it can be done is to keep the original splash cover to protect the lights. Guess we'll see, Good luck Chris!
 
zenzence

zenzence

Member
Just my two cents but micromax and myself have installed radions in our 130 and they work exceptionally well. Micromax even took a par meter to his tank and at 50% was getting solid 330 at 6 inches and 180 at the bottom if memory serves. He does not run his RSM lens with his fixture and hasn't had problems. I left my lens on and run stock RSM fans and have no issues.
 
tnwillia

tnwillia

Well-Known Member
I'm glad it's working out for you! Are you getting a lot of salt creep seen in & out of the Radion fan? Mine picked up a lot at 12" off the water. I really do hope this works out for all!
 
zenzence

zenzence

Member
No not with rsm lens on I took it off other day to look at the light to check for that salt creep and or water. Radion was spotless and dry and also surprisingly cool. My RSM fans turn on when the radion does and stay on one hour after it turns off.
 
tnwillia

tnwillia

Well-Known Member
Great news! Personally I think anyone going this way needs to keep the rsm splash shield on. Have fun with them!
 
Tokalosh

Tokalosh

Well-Known Member
Just taging along as I'm looking at LED's as well.

Good Luck and looking forward to the pic's.

Tok
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Member
Arrived back from Dubai a couple of hours ago after a trip to see the Eagles live. Was pretty wierd hearing them sing "On a dark desert highway", next to; a dark desert highway...

A friend of mine had bought the ecotechs for me prior to my arrival and kindly delivered them to the hotel we were at. The original boxes are pretty strong, about the size of a pizza box. It comes with cardboard compartments holding the power supply, the LED lights (which have a power lead coming out of them and a mini usb socket sealed by a rubber plug) and a reasonable length USB lead. The power supply has an external input for standby 12V input power. a 36V DC output with a 110V/220V selectable AC input. Mine are preselected at 220V AC and the box stamped UK. They're supplied with standard UK kettle cords for power.

The boxes were a little large for the rucksack I took as hand-luggage so the lights were unpacked and carefully wrapped in my clothing for the journey back. The most unnerving consideration being security at the airport asking me to unpack all of my weekend's clothing to inspect the unusual Xray image. Although being backed up and down a few times on the conveyer they let it go.

I've just unpacked the rucksack and inspected the lights and power supplies (pretty bulky seperate units). Its all looking good. A couple of photos have been taken and its now bed-time. As my weekend's now finished (Thurs/Fri is the weekend in Oman) I'll probably be sizing everything over the next few evenings up before taking the plunge.

On a side note, the friend of mine who bought the units for me has an impressive tank that's about 6.5ft by about 3.5ft at the base (I'm guessing 4ft in height) and he has 3 ecotechs on his tank. He bought a fourth along with mine and got some discount for me into the bargain. The lights are fitted in his tank's hood, although about 6-8 inches above the waterline. The lights in his tank aren't as bright as his previous Halogens, or as bright as the T5's on the RSM250. the corals however are glowing under the tank during daylight and the coraline algae has taken over his tank compared to the last time I saw it. He tells me that his corals are blooming with the three units and he's fitting the fourth to overcome some shadowing.

Until later


Chris
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Member
Update:

Problem with any new toy is you've just gotta get it out of the box...

I'm concerned that in the haste to get it all working I'll rush the hood and do a poor job of it, soooo:

My wife kindly suggested that I dismantle her clothes horse and use some of the metal rods and a metal tray to get the lights over the tank while I take my time to plan the hood properly. Good advice..

I've mounted the lights at more or less the correct height over the tank with the above; and more than a few cable ties. The lights are about 3-4 inches above the water level. I may need to drop the water level by an inch as it is pretty high. The coverage over the entire tank is more than sufficient, with absolutely no shadowing/darkened-areas. I'm happy with this and have no concerns raised by Ecotech themselves in this regard.

It's taken forever to figure how to group the two lights and program them to operate as one (you can delay them apart to simulate sunrise/sunset over the tank). I could find no clear instruction on how to do this and the operation of the lights seemed pretty random from the PC until I'd figured it out.

Once configured they're a blast to play with. My clown fish got to experience saturday night fever and a lightning display all in one night.

I'm still busy getting the settings right and will leave the hood for a night or two until dismantling it with the knowledge that I have time on my hands to get it right.

Until later


Chris
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Member
Thanks Tom. Did find this and couldn't get it to work logically (possibly through read error, admittedly..).

Created group "RSM" and included lamp "Left" and then tried to find and create "Right" (for inclusion in the group. This seemed to find the right lamp, still named "Left" still in group "RSM"?. Then, when operating the lights and trying "identify", all sorts of weird combinations arose including both flashing on "identify" or either one of them, randomly. I eventually created two groups, each with one of the lights. When this worked I created a third group and dragged both "Left" and "Right" into the new group and deleted the older two groups. This worked OK.

I didn't find the support group but then didn't look for this. Gotta admit I'm an impatient bugger and had about 2 hours last night to get the whole thing set up so wasn't keen to spend a lot of time reading (which in hindsight may have made it a little quicker). Besides, reading the manual is an admission that you couldn't figure it out own your own, right? :smack:
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Member
I've been at it again tonight and have started to strip the hood. I am taking pictures at each step of the way to document the process (if its a success). As yet I've still not read up on how to place pictures onto the forum and figuring this out would probably take time out from the project. Sorry if it seems a little selfish but I'd rather finish it up and post the pictures all in one go with a description of the steps I've taken. I'm expecting it to take me a week or so to do it properly; if I have all the tools and materials at hand.

I do have a dropbox account and if I get some time over the next day or two I'll drop a few pictures into a folder and pop the link here.

Progress to date, in short:

Powered and tested the Radions
Took the hood off
Mounted the Radion's onto a couple of poles resting on the tank.
Set these up last night and got it up an running (OK, so I played with it a bit ;-p ).

Over 2 hours tonight I've:
- Removed the T5's from the hood.
- Removed the clear plastic cover from the hood.
- Removed 16 plastic screw covers (small screwdrivers best here)
- Undone the screws
- Seperated the hood.
- Undone the 15 screws holding the reflector and swiveled this to review the Blue LED mounts.

Tomorrow I'll probably figure how to remove the Blue LED's and begin stripping the T5 electrics before figuring how to mount the Radions.
I may drill the lid and mount the Radions directly to the lid. This may require a few additional holes in the lid for the manual radion controls. I've not figured this bit out yet but am keen to take my time and get it right. I have lighting on the tank, albeit temporary and this buys me time not to rush into it.

Hope this helps. Will post pix as soon as possible

As an aside; the chiller's not come on since removing the hood, but then the skimmer's not back on yet either.

Chris
 
tnwillia

tnwillia

Well-Known Member
Hey Chris, totaly understand. The software has been a bit buggy and they are fixing it as found. If you haven't, you may want to report it in the Ecotech support forum area when you have time. Ecotech does respond to everything although some are canned messages, they do take their tech support seriously. Have fun with the conversion!
 
oakleyx

oakleyx

Active Member
Chris Taylor said:
I've been at it again tonight and have started to strip the hood. I am taking pictures at each step of the way to document the process (if its a success). As yet I've still not read up on how to place pictures onto the forum and figuring this out would probably take time out from the project. Sorry if it seems a little selfish but I'd rather finish it up and post the pictures all in one go with a description of the steps I've taken. I'm expecting it to take me a week or so to do it properly; if I have all the tools and materials at hand.

I do have a dropbox account and if I get some time over the next day or two I'll drop a few pictures into a folder and pop the link here.

Progress to date, in short:

Powered and tested the Radions
Took the hood off
Mounted the Radion's onto a couple of poles resting on the tank.
Set these up last night and got it up an running (OK, so I played with it a bit ;-p ).

Over 2 hours tonight I've:
- Removed the T5's from the hood.
- Removed the clear plastic cover from the hood.
- Removed 16 plastic screw covers (small screwdrivers best here)
- Undone the screws
- Seperated the hood.
- Undone the 15 screws holding the reflector and swiveled this to review the Blue LED mounts.

Tomorrow I'll probably figure how to remove the Blue LED's and begin stripping the T5 electrics before figuring how to mount the Radions.
I may drill the lid and mount the Radions directly to the lid. This may require a few additional holes in the lid for the manual radion controls. I've not figured this bit out yet but am keen to take my time and get it right. I have lighting on the tank, albeit temporary and this buys me time not to rush into it.

Hope this helps. Will post pix as soon as possible

As an aside; the chiller's not come on since removing the hood, but then the skimmer's not back on yet either.

Chris
Click to expand...

Hey can you use industrial strength velcro to attach the radions to the hood?

That way you can easily remove them to reprogram. Just a thought?
 
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