Home Assistant Thread
- Thread starter firechild
- Start date
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How are you liking the dfrobot ph i was looking into that or the atlas scientificHello,
I've been using HA for four or five years for my home. Heating, lighting, music and weather were the first I installed, mainly to manage them from outside my house. But each is autonomous in case of HA failure. I use a lot of Enocean products for the home cause they don't require a power source to work (no battery, only piezzo).
All my aquarium equipments are in the basement. I use rainwater storage to fill my RO water tank (through 5 stage reverse osmosis system). And I like to see their levels.
Automation engineer in industries for 40 years, I've always been wary of electronic systems (dangerous machines are protected by redundant relay systems because µC and µP are too 'sensitive'). I made some pump oscillators about ten years ago, controlled by Arduino. And I thought it was a good idea to control water levels with the same card. This was not a good idea. Of course, despite the card's protected location, the salt ended up damaging it. I've replaced it twice in 10 years. The last time was the day before leaving for vacation. Brilliant !
Now, each HA update makes me tremble so that nothing gets broken. If you use it for long time, you understand what I mean.
So, in my new installation, everything (or almost everything) is controlled by relay automation systems, without microcontroller. Essential elements such as heating, lighting and pumps are controlled independently.
HA simply tells me the values (temperature, pH, redox, sensor levels) and sends me alerts on my phone in the event of a power outage, an empty or low tank level, or an abnormal interval between refills. Temperatures out of ordinary.
For now, I still have the calcium hydroxide feed and its agitator, controlled by Shelly Uni and HA, but I will transfer to the Esp, so that they are autonomous. I could control them by timers and, relay, but that’s less critical than the rest in case of failure.
For tank levels, I use these sensors for rainwater and RO tank.
They send values via Wi-Fi on Shelly Uni module (which disconnects from the network too often for my liking). One day, I'll probably replace them by an ESP equipped with an external antenna which works in my basement without any connection issues.
For tank return levels, I use sensors of this type directly connected to the relays (and a relay contact returns informations to HA).
In the basement near my technical tanks, I have a small screen with ESP to display the values, without opening my phone.
For pH and ORP measurements, I use DfRobot modules with isolation boards https://www.dfrobot.com/product-1621.html to avoid interference for each measurement.
Franck
Bubule
Community Member
Hi
I preferred interfaces with standard BNC connectors that DFrobot had. Atlas was not. It's easy for me to find probes with normal BNC connectors, unlike Atlas probes which originally have a mini-connector. Il like their analog signal isolator module which prevents electrical interference between sensors too.
I think their pH probe are too big, but as we have to change it after few years, I'll replace it by our standard. Happy with it (and ORP).
I preferred interfaces with standard BNC connectors that DFrobot had. Atlas was not. It's easy for me to find probes with normal BNC connectors, unlike Atlas probes which originally have a mini-connector. Il like their analog signal isolator module which prevents electrical interference between sensors too.
I think their pH probe are too big, but as we have to change it after few years, I'll replace it by our standard. Happy with it (and ORP).
CTgrimreefer
New Member
Hello,
I am a Home Assistant enthusiast and have been making a DIY aquarium controller as well.
I like to tinker with electronic components (mainly off Aliexpress), programming, 3D printing, etc. I have implemented ESP32/ESP8266 microcontroller-based: ATO, AWC, temperature sensing/thermostat, auto fishfeeder, and weight sensors for my FW and SW reservoirs.
The latter is using HX711 load cell sensors and I highly recommend this approach.
Not only can I monitor for overfilled or empty reservoirs, but I have realtime monitoring (and history) of exactly how much water is in each.
For example, when the SW reservoir is empty, I automatically trigger a solenoid valve to turn on the RODI to refill, and I know exactly how many liters were added, so I can compute how many grams of salt need to be added before mixing up a new batch.
For the FW reservoir, I can monitor exactly how much evaporation is occurring.
Here's a pic of the sensor. It's custom-sized to fit the rectangular base of the reservoir.
Next steps for my system: auto dosing and PH monitoring.
(I'm playing with peristaltic pumps now)
