Over-designed salt water exchange system
- Thread starter rygh
- Start date
Kensington Reefer
Supporting Member
Hey Mark and Erin
maybe you come by here and "over" design some automation and monitoring
maybe you come by here and "over" design some automation and monitoring
rygh
Guest
That would be quite the project for your big sheds-of-tanks.
But I seem to remember teasing you about a PH meter that said 6 or so,
never having been calibrated. I bet it still hasn't.
rygh
Guest
Sounds fun! We can make a controller that keeps your tank pH at a solid 6. Just be sure to never calibrate that probe.
Nah, targeting a real PH of 6 seems like more fun. Muriatic acid on dosing pump....
Makes the fish all "tingly." What could be wrong with that.
Kensington Reefer
Supporting Member
C'mon
You guys know I don't test anything!
Visual remote monitoring
Automate and remote maintenance
You guys know I don't test anything!
Visual remote monitoring
Automate and remote maintenance
tygunn
Guest
Hey Muriatic acid on a dosing pump with a pH controller was how I cured the cement rocks I made years back. Lol. So there is merit to this.
rygh
Guest
Well, hit another snag.
I was using Grovestream to log data, since Xively(Pachube) went all corporate.
It seemed great. You send little TCP packets from the photon, and you can look at nice
graphs and a dashboard from the web.
The free version was 5 MB per month. Should be plenty.
Well ... that 5 MB includes the entire JSON packet you need to send, not just the 8 bytes I need to log.
And that packet is pretty big. Probably over 100 bytes.
Plus, that 5 MB includes looking at your logs on the web.
ARGH
The non free version is only 10 MB per month, so even paying does not help.
I was using Grovestream to log data, since Xively(Pachube) went all corporate.
It seemed great. You send little TCP packets from the photon, and you can look at nice
graphs and a dashboard from the web.
The free version was 5 MB per month. Should be plenty.
Well ... that 5 MB includes the entire JSON packet you need to send, not just the 8 bytes I need to log.
And that packet is pretty big. Probably over 100 bytes.
Plus, that 5 MB includes looking at your logs on the web.
ARGH
The non free version is only 10 MB per month, so even paying does not help.
naterock101
Guest
rygh
Guest
Hmm, interesting idea.@rygh why not just log the data using IFTTT and Particles webhook with it to a Google Spreadsheet? Then you can use a bunch of different services to export that data into a nice graph or write a simple script to do it for you
I already use IFTTT for sending emails.
And it would be nice to only send to particle, not to multiple clients in the cloud.
Especially since it hung last night also. That is yet another concern.
rygh
Guest
Well, testing is not going so great.
The Photon wifi disconnects quite a few times per day.
Not bad in itself, but it then the Photon mostly locks up dealing with it.
Not good if it is in the middle of refilling ATO.
Still in debug mode, so not actually connected to real tank yet, just buckets.
There are some workarounds, but nothing 100% yet.
And in doing so I am poking around in the libraries, and there are some obvious issues where it simply expects to be cloud connected.
I just don't know if I will trust this thing...
Perhaps time to go back to the clunky old Arduino.
My old DIY controller has been running solid for years now, despite being rather badly abused at times.
And my new relay boards still apply.
I would be annoyed, but to be honest, a big part of this was just to mess around with the new
technologies out there.
The Photon wifi disconnects quite a few times per day.
Not bad in itself, but it then the Photon mostly locks up dealing with it.
Not good if it is in the middle of refilling ATO.
Still in debug mode, so not actually connected to real tank yet, just buckets.
There are some workarounds, but nothing 100% yet.
And in doing so I am poking around in the libraries, and there are some obvious issues where it simply expects to be cloud connected.
I just don't know if I will trust this thing...
Perhaps time to go back to the clunky old Arduino.
My old DIY controller has been running solid for years now, despite being rather badly abused at times.
And my new relay boards still apply.
I would be annoyed, but to be honest, a big part of this was just to mess around with the new
technologies out there.
rygh
Guest
So finally some success!!
I separated the critical code onto a separate timer thread, which seemed to do the trick.
The photon runs a real RTOS, so the software timers are reliable, even
when the main thread is stuck waiting for the cloud.
Of course, multi-threaded sharing variables is always tricky, but pretty sure I covered
all the scary cases.
So far, no problems.
I am now carefully tuning the water in / water out to match.
Even with good peristaltic pumps, pressure differences affect the rate.
I separated the critical code onto a separate timer thread, which seemed to do the trick.
The photon runs a real RTOS, so the software timers are reliable, even
when the main thread is stuck waiting for the cloud.
Of course, multi-threaded sharing variables is always tricky, but pretty sure I covered
all the scary cases.
So far, no problems.
I am now carefully tuning the water in / water out to match.
Even with good peristaltic pumps, pressure differences affect the rate.
rygh
Guest
I am using the Liter Meter pumps. They have a version with simple 12VDC in.
Being using the regular Liter Meter 3 for years for dosing, with great luck so far.
Better than the BRS pumps I had before.
The Neptune pumps look really sweet, since they are stepper motor based, and you can technically count revolutions.
But I don't really know how I would interface to them.
It does not have to be that exact. I monitor salinity, so if it drifts, it will warn me and I can re-calibrate.
rygh
Guest
Had an interesting issue that Alkalinity cranked up quite a bit.
From the normal 7-8 to about 11, so not a big deal.
I use normal Instant Ocean, which tends to be a bit high in Alk.
My tank usually runs a bit low on Alk.
And I normally does quite a bit.
So the combination of the new larger water changes + still old dosing levels
caused the Alk increase.
Ehh.. At least is shows the water-exchange is doing something.
From the normal 7-8 to about 11, so not a big deal.
I use normal Instant Ocean, which tends to be a bit high in Alk.
My tank usually runs a bit low on Alk.
And I normally does quite a bit.
So the combination of the new larger water changes + still old dosing levels
caused the Alk increase.
Ehh.. At least is shows the water-exchange is doing something.