ORCA Set Up

[Jamie814]

The shaft shouldn’t be $500. It’s held on with screws and a replaceable part

The tube is about $75,

Carbon telescopic tube 2pcs with U-clamp

I thought of this as well, there are a couple of issues though one being the U-clamp inside the tube, (not sure if there is enough room for the cable as well as the clamp) and two, I don't see any way that you would be able to route the cable out the top of the Orca because it is a sealed box. You would need to drill 2 holes on the tube one near the stream pump and one near the top of the tube to route the cable back out of.....

 

[Jamie814]

Btw BRS has these on pre-order currently

SWA does as well, I have 6 of the ORCA black arriving next week...hopefully

 

[rtparty]

Ope they were even on sale for 30 seconds!

Yeah it was a bad graphic putting them on the Tunze sale. I confirmed before ordering

 

[minus9]

That’s not quite ready yet. You can transfer them over and see their status but can’t control them

Good to know, thanks! Can't wait for all of the new stuff to roll out next year. Happy New Year!

 

[spsick]

Ryan or Roger could one of you gents tell me the diameter of the carbon tube (the larger part)?

 

[rtparty]

Ryan or Roger could one of you gents tell me the diameter of the carbon tube (the larger part)?

I’ll measure when home if Roger doesn’t get it first

 

[rtparty]

Ryan or Roger could one of you gents tell me the diameter of the carbon tube (the larger part)?

Surprisingly, I don’t have digital calipers but the measuring tape puts it around 15/16” wide. So call it 1” to make life easy

 

[spsick]

Surprisingly, I don’t have digital calipers but the measuring tape puts it around 15/16” wide. So call it 1” to make life easy

Thank you! I have 1-1/4” holes so maybe there’s a chance!

 

[rtparty]

Thank you! I have 1-1/4” holes so maybe there’s a chance!

The cable is 1/8”.

I am working with Top Lids to make me a new lid and insert to go around the Orca better so there are no gaps

 

[rvitko]

Early on I asked about the cable running through the shaft, their is a technical reason this is not done and is not possible, their is a digital encoder in the shaft to read the position of the shaft in rotation and it is not possible to run it through without disrupting this system. Additionally, long term we want to enable a full 360 rotation but we need a cable control system to do this and through the center it cannot come through the housing at the top as that is packed full, the stepper motor and electronics really leave no room, and the only way to do this is outside with a cable control swivel, if it came through the shaft and out the side it would damage the cable.

 

[Acro76]

My Orcas are coming tomorrow, its like Christmas all over again!

 

[Jamie814]

@rvitko
Do you know if you can program the pump to run at for example 100% intensity when pointing across the longest part of the tank then ramp down to say 20% intensity at the short side of the tank by just setting two points at each end of the desired sweep angle? or do you have to set each intensity % separate at each degree of angle you want it set at?

 

[rvitko]

On set up, you set a center point to calibrate it, you literally reach into the tank and turn it to point straight forward, you do the same for your start and stop point and then you set a baseline speed. Then, you can click the ORCA oscilation screen and set pauses, sectors and flow, pauses are stop points to blast for a duration, sectors is from angle x to y the rate of oscillation, flow is the pump flow rate at x to y and you can set 6 of each, additionally you can override these with time control where for hours of the day it pulses the pump or pauses, etc, and you can set the overall rate of oscillation and a ramp up between the speeds in each sector, so yes, you can definitely do this, the simple way would be a baseline of 100% to start, then set the flow for the angles that point at the glass to 20% and you can use sectors to speed up or slow down how fast it oscillates through these points.

 

[ReefED!]

These things are worth every penny. I’ve had mine running a few weeks now and haven’t even skimmed the surface of what it can do.

Roger is not joking when he says we were getting real time fixes when bugs and translation issues popped up. I would find something random, tell Roger, Roger tells Tobias, and it was fixed within hours or was already fixed and I needed to update

I’ll have another write up on early thoughts and impressions but will just say the quality behind this thing blew my mind. Absolutely dead silent.

Ryan can you sell us on the concept?

As far as I can tell it's an oscillator - like a cheap desktop fan - that you attach to a powerhead so you can have flow going all over the place?

My only issue with it is that it's.....an eyesore and bulky...or at least it seems to be.

Would be a great SR topic for you guys to talk about.

 

[rvitko]

It has to use a Tunze HUB edition pump, every element, flow rate at specific angles, how fast it moves, etc are all controllable. In general the sets 6105.501 and 6075.501 are the best value and 0501 only exists to upgrade existing pumps, it will not work at all with any other pump. The ORCA has one power supply and it powers the pump and head unit everything is interconnected and works together. It is using a very high grade stepper motor and is dead silent.

 

[rtparty]

Ryan can you sell us on the concept?

As far as I can tell it's an oscillator - like a cheap desktop fan - that you attach to a powerhead so you can have flow going all over the place?

My only issue with it is that it's.....an eyesore and bulky...or at least it seems to be.

Would be a great SR topic for you guys to talk about.

It’s like 20 powerheads in one because of that oscillation. You can hit all sorts of angles a fixed powerhead can’t.

With two of them you can even setup multiple gyre currents in your tank if you set them up in the corners like I am. It will alleviate a lot of dead spots. With one in the center of the back wall, or close to, you could create gyres as well.

I don’t find it bulky on the back of my tank. An auto feeder is worse. It keeps the pump off the glass and makes cleaning the glass far easier

It certainly won’t be for everyone though.

 

[rvitko]

If anyone wanted more details on the product and how it works, you might be interested to see how it is made,

 

[minus9]

I love Felix, he has the right energy and it shows. I love watching the German videos, even though I hate things that are dubbed, it's still fun to watch.

 

[rvitko]

YouTube AI voiceovers are terrible

 

[ReefED!]

It’s like 20 powerheads in one because of that oscillation. You can hit all sorts of angles a fixed powerhead can’t.

With two of them you can even setup multiple gyre currents in your tank if you set them up in the corners like I am. It will alleviate a lot of dead spots. With one in the center of the back wall, or close to, you could create gyres as well.

I don’t find it bulky on the back of my tank. An auto feeder is worse. It keeps the pump off the glass and makes cleaning the glass far easier

It certainly won’t be for everyone though.

For some reason I originally thought the whole thing was in the water, instead of the bulky piece sitting on your tank rim

Not only that, it seems like the oscillation will eliminate one of the biggest issues I see with powerheads - which is blasting corals with too much flow in one spot - I've seen even acros get weird deformities and be unhappy from that.

I went from 2/10 interest in this to 9/10

I ordered that 6075 you recommended in another thread and am looking forward to seeing how that soft flow could be used oscillating all over the tank

Might even replace the gyres completely - or just augment them so that I can run them low and not care when they drop in output after 3 weeks

edit: dangit I just realize I'll have to get another lid!