Electric Canopy build

[Ohiostreetz]

For my newest tank addition I thought it would be fun to motorize the canopy for easy maintenance and frag placement. So here is my journey. My main concern was the brackets from the motorized legs holding the weight of the large canopy and I thought of a million ways to extend them without adding more weight. I thought aluminum but was hard to find what I needed. Then I thought steel but rust and weight played into that a lot. Then I went back to trusty old wood. I lagged the 2x6 to the steel supports of the motorized legs and it worked great.

here is a video of the canopy in action

 

[IamLeE]

Beautiful stand and mounting idea!

 

[flourishofmediocrity]

It just occurred to me when watching your video that if the feet spacing works, and you can somehow mount the feet thru the back of the back of the stand, then anyone could use a motorized adjustable standing desk to DIY a hood like this.

 

[motzCOreefer]

Very nice. I will be doing a single post lift soon for my tank.

 

[Weasel1960]

For my newest tank addition I thought it would be fun to motorize the canopy for easy maintenance and frag placement. So here is my journey. My main concern was the brackets from the motorized legs holding the weight of the large canopy and I thought of a million ways to extend them without adding more weight. I thought aluminum but was hard to find what I needed. Then I thought steel but rust and weight played into that a lot. Then I went back to trusty old wood. I lagged the 2x6 to the steel supports of the motorized legs and it worked great.

here is a video of the canopy in action

That is totally awesome and appears to be the perfect solution to my up coming build. I will have a 6 foot tank adjacent to an open staircase. I have been searching through the DIY forums and everything seemed clunky or unstable for that length.

Any chance you could share either here or in a DIY thread what you used for materials and how you put it together?

 

[Dukereefnz]

Agree - what an excellent build, what are the motorised legs?

 

[KWT]

That looks great, nicely done

 

[Arthur_Dent]

Nice build!

 

[Dukereefnz]

https://www.alibaba.com/product-det...-desk-legs-furniture-lifting_60518150479.html
The leg extenders look to be for desk furniture, very cool but it looks like you have added a section of steel?
Works so well, very impressed and think this is a perfect solution...

more info please.!

 

[motzCOreefer]

The leg extenders are just linear actuators with a sliding mechanism surrounded by some kind of cover. I ordered one of these and am in the process of building a cover and stand out of wood. https://www.firgelliauto.com/products/tubular-linear-actuator

I will create a build thread whenever I finish my project (maybe in a month or two).