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Joys of DIY project
- Thread starter njtiger24 aquariums
- Start date
Those are on my radar. I been looking at the pH here and there and I keep coming back to this unit -https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00798612C/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_S_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=3R89SN55941FB&coliid=I1QNHNRQK01DLO. Its costly but seems to be the most reliable one on the market but again still early in the searching phase.
About salinty - I read up on that and not sure on the proper method yet.
Well looks like either my temp sensor is broken or my tank is cooking -
I already know that 32 and 185 are the 'temps' the sensor reads when it has no power and powering up. Now I have to say the way I wired this up isn't the best and I have moved the cable many times including being moved to my mom's house. Cable have been pulled and pushed. Also now my system is near my tank so its getting some saltkreep on it but this ran for a good year+.
I have some spare cables but they are in storage right now so I will have to go looking. I am thinking I am going to wire it up better, maybe go with rj11/rj45 connectors or phoenix blocks. Then put them in a project box or some type of box to protect the wires more.
I already know that 32 and 185 are the 'temps' the sensor reads when it has no power and powering up. Now I have to say the way I wired this up isn't the best and I have moved the cable many times including being moved to my mom's house. Cable have been pulled and pushed. Also now my system is near my tank so its getting some saltkreep on it but this ran for a good year+.
I have some spare cables but they are in storage right now so I will have to go looking. I am thinking I am going to wire it up better, maybe go with rj11/rj45 connectors or phoenix blocks. Then put them in a project box or some type of box to protect the wires more.
Here is a neat little device, I've used the spectrapure ATO for many years 12+ and not a single failure. For my new setup tank I use two float switches on the Apex, an ATO high water line which turns on the ATO, and another higher one which shuts off the every thing in the sump including the ATO. I moved my spectrapure over to the QT tank and have one for my top off holding tank.
It uses the water pressure built up on a rising tank to engage the ATO pump so not susceptible to erosion or crud build up. The one in the link below is a simple electrical outlet Turing on-off depending on the tank water level. Not too expensive either.
Power Head Liquid Level Controller - 115VAC - LLC-PH-115
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so I been working some more on my controller. This little part been bugging me for awhile but after talking with a buddy and many choice words I finally got it to go. The old version had a button and either you can turn the outlet on or off. I figure I would make a slider and give three options, off - auto (which is schedule) - on. It took awhile to get the look of the slider down and then about a week to figure out how to get the code to run because how the slider works. Just now I finished the code to turn the outlet on/off depending on the location of the slider. Next step is to make sure the schedule doesn't run when the button isn't on auto.
Wow, this build never ceases to amaze with all the tech involved, nice work james
thanks
Looking good James. My recommendations are to NOT give it eyesight or teach it how to sing, "Daisy Bell." 
ha funny you mentioned that. I been kicking around the idea of adding a webcam to the system. I'm keeping my idea of what I will do with the webcam under wraps until I have it working the way I want (so no one tries to add it to their system) lol
well today I decided I was going to get my temp sensor working again. This time I was going to do it correctly I hope. I went to storage and picked up my box of pi cables. I then went to Lowes and picked up some RJ11 and RJ45 jacks, a crimber, and some other odds and ends. I get home and get to work. I quickly discovered that the cables for the temp sensor is thicker than normal cat cable. Due to the thickness I am unable to get the jacks on. I will have to re-think this but for the mean time I wired it back up the old way but with all new cables. Its working again. I did take my jack housing unit and ran the cable in there to help protect from water and what not. I hope to work on some more code tonight as well but not sure yet.
Well I really need to get back onto working on this project. I just scored another Pi2 for free (my brother had a spare one) so time to look into adding other options
So this morning I woke up to a low temp alarm for my tank (alert displayed on my phone), my tank dipped from 77 to 71 over the course of 5 hours. As I was getting up I thought to myself - great my heater took a dump. I came out into the living room, where my tank is, and noticed my fuge wasn't running. I have a HOB fuge and my heater is in the fuge. Last night I was working on new code for my macro buttons and it must had messed up and left my fuge pump off all night. To make matter worst I also discovered my jaebos power heads never exited out of feed mode.
I got my fuge running again and the temp is slowly rising again. I have my power heads running again as well. My tank was not without circulation because of my in-tank filter (which right now has no filter in it) was still running so I did still have movement across the top of the tank. Hopefully everything will continue to run as they are now and later tonight I can work on that code some more.
I got my fuge running again and the temp is slowly rising again. I have my power heads running again as well. My tank was not without circulation because of my in-tank filter (which right now has no filter in it) was still running so I did still have movement across the top of the tank. Hopefully everything will continue to run as they are now and later tonight I can work on that code some more.
lucky you caught that, it could've been alot worse
Yes it could had. Still hoping the temp drop doesn't affect the corals. I believe because it was a slow drop and a slow rise I will be ok.
so I edit my code for my feeding macro button. I will then update all my macro buttons as well as my schedule now that I have this working the way I wanted.
Before I had it hard coded in a config file which equipment (outlets) to turn off and which had a 5min delay on them. I did this on my 54g tank due to the skimmer needed about 5min delay or it would overflow. Now that I am on my 36g and no longer have a skimmer I don't need the delay. I wanted to have it so the system could be updated on the fly.
So first I updated the code for my outlet section so that equipment assignment can be modified easily
I then edited the quick button setting area to easily assign/un-assign equipment to a macro.
I then created a new python script that reads the tables.
I also added so that I create a log at anytime a macro or even a program is ran.
Only thing left to do is rename the file so it runs when the macro button is clicked.
Once that is done I will work on the others.
Before I had it hard coded in a config file which equipment (outlets) to turn off and which had a 5min delay on them. I did this on my 54g tank due to the skimmer needed about 5min delay or it would overflow. Now that I am on my 36g and no longer have a skimmer I don't need the delay. I wanted to have it so the system could be updated on the fly.
So first I updated the code for my outlet section so that equipment assignment can be modified easily
I then edited the quick button setting area to easily assign/un-assign equipment to a macro.
I then created a new python script that reads the tables.
I also added so that I create a log at anytime a macro or even a program is ran.
Only thing left to do is rename the file so it runs when the macro button is clicked.
Once that is done I will work on the others.
So far I have updated the feed macro, maintenance macro, and all off macro. I have an idea for the lights button so I will work on that in a little. I been focusing on my schedule program. This program checks outlets every 1 min to make sure they are in the correct state (on or off). My first script didn't really work the way I wanted it to. It would not handle things over night (for example if I want equipment to be on from 9:00pm until 9:00am) and it didn't really allow for skipping days or only running on one day. I am in the middle of testing a new script that fixes all of those issues and my testing is going well. The only thing due to this script running every 1min I am not going to have this script be logged in the log table cause it would be just a waste of space. After I roll this script out I will get working on my idea for the lights macro.