My PLC controlled aquarium project

[Curtie44]

Hey everybody, I've been working my own little DIY aquarium automation project for quite some time now and thought I would share some of my progress. I know what you are thinking...why didn't you just go out and buy an Apex or ACIII, right? Well, what's the fun in that?

I was able to get my hands on an electrical panel off an obsolete piece of equipment.

I had to gut it and rearrange the layout to suit my needs.

I'm using an AB ControlLogix PLC to control everything.

I rewired one of those lighting timer power strips so I could control each of the outlets with the PLC.

More to follow....

 

[m and m]

OMG you are the man. i mean it may be one hundred times bigger but it looks bad *** to the max.

 

[Curtie44]

Here is the finished power strip, wired so that I can control each individual oulet with my PLC program.

I was able to grab a couple of Efector level probes off of ebay super cheap. I'm using one of them to monitor the level of my aquadoser that I'm using for top off water. The probe tells the PLC when the Aquadoser water level is low and automatically turns on a MJ1200 pump that is in a 45 gallon brute trash can, full of fresh RO water. I meter the aquadoser with the supplied pinch valve to maintain proper water level in the sump.

For monitoring and controlling temperature, I picked up an Efector temperature probe. When the temp drops below my programmed setpoint, I turn on my heaters (which are plugged into the powerstrip I made above). If the temp rises above the setpoint the heaters are turned off and a box fan is turned on.

the box fan blows across the sump to cool the water

 

[Curtie44]

pH probes for both the calcium reactor and tank water are tied into the PLC as well. If tank pH gets out of tolerance I can shut off the Co2 to the reactor. I also control the pH of the reactor by turning on and off the Co2 solenoid.

I used to dose several chemicals manually once a week. Now that is automated (at least one of them is). I bought a peristaltic pump form Omega and wired it into the system. Right now I only have one because I wasn't sure how well the Omega model would work, but after testing for a while I'm pretty pleased. Eventually I'll pick up 3 more to handle all my dosing requirements. I'll also have to build an enclosure to house them, but that won't be a big deal.

 

[bige]

Thats really cool. I would an explaination of how it works. I mean I know how it works but what all the componets are. You have a key start, distributer looking thing, a vodka bottle and the helicopter for feeding. Nice clean work.

 

[Curtie44]

The next step was an interface to the whole thing. I got my hands on an AB touch screen VersaView industrial PC. I programmed a few custom pages display and control everything in the system. This will be a continuous work in progress as I add to the system.

This is the main screen. It displays all the important info so you can see it at a glance.

I also have a trend screen that I still need to work a few kinks out of. Trending tank pH and Temp.

Sorry about the crappy pics....I couldn't get rid of the glare of the lights.

 

[MimicOcto8]

DIY master right there! dude you must be an electrician or a computer programmer or something. like M and M said its huge but freaking awesome! can you hook up as many outlets as you want? may have missed that in the readings if you already stated that.

 

[MimicOcto8]

dude just saw your latest post that is insane bro! come over to my casa and hook me up. btw love disturbed!!

 

[Curtie44]

My next step is to find a reasonably priced electric ball valve to semi-automate water changes. I'll program a button on the touch screen for "Water Change" and the ball valve will actuate (opening the drain), at the same time turning off the return pump. The valve will plumbed from the sump to a drain. When the valve opens the sump will gravity feed to the drain untill it's empty. I will put a flow meter on the drain side of the pipe so I know when water is no longer flowing and the sump is empty. Once the sump is empty, close the ball valve and begin refilling with fresh salt water that has been pre-mixed. Once the sump has been refilled, turn the return pump back on. I haven't got all the details on the refilling part worked out yet but I think the draining part will work well. At least I won't have to stay down there while the sump in draining. I'm one lazy guy

 

[Curtie44]

OMG you are the man. i mean it may be one hundred times bigger but it looks bad *** to the max.

hahah..yeah, it is friggin huge isn't it. Good thing it's an unfinished basement, plenty of room for aquarium urban sprawl

 

[m and m]

hahah..yeah, it is friggin huge isn't it. Good thing it's an unfinished basement, plenty of room for aquarium urban sprawl

you my freind are still a master, that is one crazy set up mind sharing the hole thing cost to makle?

 

[Curtie44]

Thats really cool. I would an explaination of how it works. I mean I know how it works but what all the componets are. You have a key start, distributer looking thing, a vodka bottle and the helicopter for feeding. Nice clean work.

I decided to remove the heli from the design....it just wasn't working for me hehehe.

Let's see...how to explain it...well, the main electrical panel holds the PLC (programmable logic controller) and all the misc. electrical components like circuit breakers, relays, dc power supplies etc...

Just about everything runs off of 24Vdc (except for the outlets of course). The 3 blue things in the lower right corner of the electrical panel are the 24V power supplies for the various devices.

The 2 black devices directly above the power supplies with the BNC connectors are the pH transmitters. They convert the signal from thte pH probes into an analog signal the PLC can interpret.

All the relays (the yellow things) are what I'm using to control the individual outlets. A signal form the plc energizes the coil on the relay which closes the contacts which supplies power to the hot side of the outlet plug. My PLC program is what determined which relays to energize and when. So for example, the temperature probe sends the current temperature to the PLC. The PLC program looks at the temperature and decides weather it needs to energize the relay that turns on the outlet for the heater or the fan based on what I have programmed. So if the current temperature is 75 deg and my setpoint is 77 deg, the PLC will turn on the heater. When the temp reaches the set point, the PLC will turn off the heater. It works the same for pH in the calcium reactor as well. The probes constantly monitor the reactor pH. If it gets too high the PLC turns on the Co2 solenoid. When it gets too low it turns it off.

 

[Curtie44]

you my freind are still a master, that is one crazy set up mind sharing the hole thing cost to makle?

Not even close to a master....just someone with a little spare time and motivation (and yes, I make my living as a controls engineer).

Price...WWWAAAAYYYYYYY more than an Apex or any other high end reef controller. This is totally not practical for any hobbyist. What you see here is more like what you would see behind the scenes of a public aquarium (on a much smaller scale of course). I spent a year or so on ebay/craigslist scouring the listings for the componenets for the build. Most of the stuff I got super cheap but some of them I just had to pay retail for. I bought some of the items from scrapped equipment, but mostly ebay. I probably have a little under 1K invested but not all at once, I've been collecting for some time now.

 

[mr.coral]

Looks good. Glad to see you are still in the hobby. I hope all is well with the family.

 

[Curtie44]

Looks good. Glad to see you are still in the hobby. I hope all is well with the family.

Thanks Sonny. We were just talking about swinging into the store the other day but it didn't pan out. The boy is doing great, hopefully we will be able bring him in soon. He loves looking in the tank so I'm sure he'll love the store.

 

[m and m]

Not even close to a master....just someone with a little spare time and motivation (and yes, I make my living as a controls engineer).

Price...WWWAAAAYYYYYYY more than an Apex or any other high end reef controller. This is totally not practical for any hobbyist. What you see here is more like what you would see behind the scenes of a public aquarium (on a much smaller scale of course). I spent a year or so on ebay/craigslist scouring the listings for the componenets for the build. Most of the stuff I got super cheap but some of them I just had to pay retail for. I bought some of the items from scrapped equipment, but mostly ebay. I probably have a little under 1K invested but not all at once, I've been collecting for some time now.

Thanks i wasnt looking to reproduce somthing like this just wondering, i could never do somthing like this. Also i must say again you have somthing most reefers would love Good work and thanks for sharing with us.

 

[aalvarado87]

Dude that is freakin awesome. You are the master magician. So almost everything is automatic? That is crazy. I love the screen to and all the charts and stuff you can pull up. Wow i am still amazed. How much did all of this run you i may have missed it but not to sure...

 

[blurry]

Very nice. I thought about going down this road a while back after working with GEFanuc PLCs - then the price of the ReefKeeper won me over

 

[Curtie44]

Dude that is freakin awesome. You are the master magician. So almost everything is automatic? That is crazy. I love the screen to and all the charts and stuff you can pull up. Wow i am still amazed. How much did all of this run you i may have missed it but not to sure...

Pretty much all usual stuff that any off the shelf reef controller can do is handled. There are a few things that I haven't bothered to set up yet, like text messaging and a web interface, but it's capable, it just needs to be programmed. I really want to get the water change thing working because I hate having to fool around with that. I just haven't been able to find an affordable electric ball valve. I was thinking about trying to jerry rig a sprinkler valve to see if that would work but I think those might require pressure to operate and the coils on those are usually 24V AC, which means I would need a transformer.

 

[Curtie44]

Very nice. I thought about going down this road a while back after working with GEFanuc PLCs - then the price of the ReefKeeper won me over

I used to work for Fanuc Robotics several years ago....we did several jobs with the 90-30 series of PLC. Not a bad controller but the programming software left a lot to be desired...I'm sure the newer stuff is much better. Yeah, I bet I could have bought 2 or 3 RK's for the amount of $ and time I've put into this project but it wouldn't have been nearly as much fun.