Arduino controller

[eagle]

Hi,
I'm starting a diy controller run by an arduino micro controller. I'm starting with the ato/dosing side of it. I have purchased the parts and just waiting for em to come in. I found a pretty cool liquid level sensor that reads the height of a water column by hydrostatic pressure. From that input i can control dosing pumps for ato. I think this will be better than a high/low mechanical float switch. I ordered 12 volt dosing pumps for very cheap. After getting this step completed i plan to start building the monitoring portion. I will run it with another arduino. Probably a mega adk. I've found some nice bnc sensor shields that your standard probe will plug into. You can stack up to 6 shields so i will prolly run 2 X ph, 1X ORP, 2 X EC, and maybe salinity if i can find a probe. I want to use the mega adk for more input/outputs and it will interface with a droid tablet easier. Google has done some work to make it easier. I plan on interfacing to a neptune 8 outlet power bar for ac outlet control. If not then there are cheap solid state relay boards and u can make your own controllable outlets. I will use a wireless shield to put it online and maybe an xbee shield to communicate with the other arduinos. My final part of the controller will be a wavemaker/light and fan controller. I have looked for dc powerheads to control and for now my cheapest solution is 9 volt mini polario wavemakers. Everything i have found so far states they are dc. It should be fun to work on when i have spare time.

 

[rajkovich207]

I have just started the learning process and will be building my own controller down the road as well! I got the makershed kit and am very happy with it. Google aquarium sjeild. Its 120 and comes with ports for everything you need! Good luck and I look forward to following!

 

[eagle]

Glad to see someone else is doing this too. Ive been talking to the guy that makes the arduarium shields. Google practical maker. He recommended i use his single bnc shields. He will put extra tall headers on them so they can be stacked. And you can choose which input pins to use. He has been really helpful. He's also working on the etape liquid level sensor made by mileone. It looks sweet for this project. Good luck to you too and pm me if u need anything.

 

[landlord]

Working on some similar stuff using the Arduino. Relays have been kicking my butt lately.

 

[rajkovich207]

Ok maybe dumb question. The only reason I was looking at getting a wireless sheid is to controlled things from my. Android. But thinking about this now would this be easier to set up with an app on the adk? Also I was thinking about getting an iPhone, is the adk comparable with them? I'm sure ill have 1000 questions as I amvery new to this lol

 

[eagle]

The adk is new to me too. I will have a wireless shield too so i can have a web app. But from what I'm seeing the adk makes interfacing with a droid easier. To be honest, my brother is the coding genius of the family. Smartest guy i ever met. But he is looking at it. He told me to get the hardware and we would figure it out. So, Ive been scouring info and talking with people that are making the shields. I'm not a electronics breadboard type lol. I've built 20 pc's prolly but thats pretty easy. I actually got into arduino's with a heliostat/solar tracker project. To me its a matter of inputs and outputs. I have all the faith that my bro can figure out the code. I think hes pretty fluent in 5 different programming languages.

 

[rajkovich207]

Yea I'm still in the learning process, I picked up the getting started book and am on the last project, then ill move onto the cook book until I get comfortable with the programming. If you wouldn't mind let me know what you guys find out with the adk and arduarium!

 

[eagle]

I will for sure. Open source projects are the way to go. I love diy lol.

 

[eagle]

Here are some links and pics of what I'm looking at. Hope it is helpful info

Liquid level sensor
eTape Liquid Level Sensor

12 volt dosing pumps 15-20 dollars (ebay) and found em at adafruit

Motor shields (5 dollars on ebay with free shipping) can control up to 4 dc motors

Contact this guy about the probe shields. He has been very friendly and responded to all my emails. He is working on his own controller as well and
has code available for his project.

Arduino Shields | Practical Maker

 

[eagle]

Here's a link to a youtube video of the mileone liquid level sensor. I believe the 12" one was $35

eTape Liquid Level Sensor - YouTube

 

[dorky]

I have just started the learning process and will be building my own controller down the road as well! I got the makershed kit and am very happy with it. Google aquarium sjeild. Its 120 and comes with ports for everything you need! Good luck and I look forward to following!

can u post the link where u get the kit from? im interested in learning more bout it thanks

 

[eagle]

I haven't really seen a kit. I know Andrew Oke at Recent Articles | Practical Maker makes a lot of different shields for the arduino and aquariums. I tried to find the source of the shields and from all I've learned Andrew makes these shields and has them for sale at his site as well as other sites. He has one called the arduarium that has 2 bnc connectors for ph or orp. It is $119.00 It also has a port for a Conductivity probe. It has a real time clock installed onboard. He also makes individual bnc sensor shields that can be stacked to add more bnc probes. I have talked with him on multiple occasions and he's been really great with info.
I got my arduino in this week and the liquid level sensor. Me and my brother got it hooked up and working. We used a 530 ohm resistor for a voltage divider and the sensor worked as it should. I am back at work in Ohio for a few weeks now. My wife said the motor shields showed up today. I also am using a doublewide extender so I can add more shields without pin conflicts. Liquidware : DoubleWide ExtenderShield
It looks like I will be able to just solder the 530 ohm resistor onto the doublewide at the analog input I use for the milone sensor. It sounds more technical than it is really. I had ordered a voltage divider from robot geek and we tried using it. But the resistance of it at its lowest setting was too high. So we used the 530 ohm resistor that adafruit supplied with the sensor and it worked like a charm.
I'm hoping this will be all the soldering i have to do lol. I want to stay as plug and play as i can. But with the milone sensor you have to have a voltage divider circuit to convert the signal to a voltage so the arduino can read the values. The simplest way was to add a resistor.

 

[eagle]

Sorry, this is the link to Andrew's Shield Page. Arduino Shields | Practical Maker

 

[dorky]

Thanks for helpful links I've been getting so many info enough to expand the idea but not enough to start the project which is kinda frustrating for me

 

[eagle]

I started here. Arduino - HomePage The official arduino site. From there you can learn about what arduino is and how it all works. Then you can look into different sensors to connect to the arduino and different outputs such as motor controllers etc. The first step to it all is getting the actual arduino and hooking it up to your computer and tinkering with the different sample codes they supply etc. I know it can be daunting but there is a lot of info out there about it. There are a lot of youtube videos teaching about arduino's too.

 

[firefightered]

Hey Eagle welcome to R2R. I live just a few miles from you close to Cherokee Al. Let me know when you get ready for some SPS. I to am messing with an Arduino but the problem I have is: I AINT GOT A CLUE of what I'm doing when it comes to coding the darn thing. I have another guy near Nashville trying to get it working for me. I just want to control my LEDs and a few pumps. Anyway if this guy cannt figure it out do you think your brother would be willing to give me a hand? I also have a neighbor who sell all types of corals he has his own business in his house so you can save big on your live stock. PM me and I'll give you my number if your interested.

 

[firefightered]

oops I was thinking of a differant part of Miss. You are about 200 miles from me. Still interested though.

 

[eagle]

I will keep ya updated with our progress and what we are learning for sure. I will be looking for frags soon lol. Can't wait for that. Got a while to go yet. I'll see how this goes with controlling these pumps and sensors etc... I'm interested in the leds too someday. I'll ask him if he can take a look at it. From what I'm seeing with them it would all be handled through the pwm pins. Here is a link to Andrew's Macroduino code to run his controller. I'm sure you have to have the ultimate shield here. Arduino Shields | Practical Maker. Andrew has a lot of documentation there at his site too, as well as giving his code away for free. I will see how this goes with ours. I know my bro is gonna do his own thing so until we get there I have no idea what's gonna happen. All I know is he knows what he's doing lol. He looks at other people's code and grumbles about why did they do that, and that don't make any sense. So I'm sure he will do it the way he wants to. I am catching on with the electronics side of it but i don't know if i'll ever have the time or patience to write much code.

 

[dorky]

got a question is the arduino output is analog 1-10dv or PWM?

 

[eagle]

the outputs are 5 volt. Each arduino has pwm pins.

If you look at this UNO Pins 3,5,6,9,10,11 on the Digital Outputs are the PWM pins. They have the wave ign to show you which ar PWM. To control pump speed or led brightness etc via pulse width modulation these would be the pins you would use as ouptuts. Your analog inputs are at the bottom A0-A5. So on the UNO you have 6 analog inputs for sensors etc and 14 digital outputs, 6 of them provide PWM outputs. Hope that helps some.