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Yeah, honestly, I hate calibrating my pumps so much so I made it a goal to avoid calibrating everything on this system. Still not sure if my idea will avoid calibration but if I end up just requiring pump calibration then I can certainly increase the test speed.
Cheerleaders are the bestI can help! BUT..... Only count on me as your main cheerleader! My knowledge of electronics comes from the book of "Electronics for Idiots."
+1Wow, thank you all for the suggestions and advice. Love the community here.
Scanned over most of the posts and here are some thoughts based on those:
1. I have tried weighing the liquids as an alternative but found the scale to be a pain in the butt to accurately get a measurement. It might just have been the cheap load sensor I had but either way I just didn't like some of the challenges that were to be if I went that route.
2. I know there are better pumps out there and eventually I will add support for the better stepper based pumps for for now the goals are to hopefully eliminate the need for an accurate pump and also to keep the overall product small.
3. Yes, I know there are others out there and plenty of documentation. The goal here is for me to fail along the way and learn how everything works. I'm also not just going to go and rip off what others have done. So while I will be looking at the Alktronic and the like, I don't plan on doing exactly what they are doing right now.
All in all, thank yo all for the help. If anyone wants to really help out let me know and we can better figure out the plan for a group based project like this.
Thanks!
No more update?
I have not worked on a DIY version yet. I recently however had an experience with my Alkatronic that highlights the need for an open source solution.
I was at work and checked on the graph for my frag tank and was shocked to see that there was huge drop in the most recent measurement (~8.3 -> 5.9 dKH). The Alkatronic detected the huge swing and re-tested the measurement. Apparently the same or close enough for the Alkatronic to accept it as correct and dosed ~50 ml of alk into the frag tank to try and raise the dKH back to the minimum of 7.5 that I had preset. Being at work my head was racing as to what the possible cause could be. the only thing I could think of was that my ATO was stuck on and the overfilling of RODI had dropped the alkalinity of the tank (along with the salinity). At that point no one was home, but I sent out an urgent request for a visual check of the sump level as soon as someone was back there. I did get a feedback on the sump level, normal, but as it happened, there was a 2 hour delay, and the Alkatronic did another test just before the report came in. The new test was 8.53 dKh, back in the neighborhood of the normal range, just a bit elevated due to the addition of extra alk by the Alkatronic.
The only thing that I can think of for this to occur, is that the tank sample must have been incorrect causing the reagent to drop the PH down faster than normal causing the dKH to be interpreted as lower than it is. There is a micro filter inline in the sample line, but something must have obstructed the sample line for at least a couple of tests causing a partial sample, the low readings, and dosing to kick in. There was no major harm done in this event, but if the accuracy had not returned to normal, then I could see where this could have wiped the tank by the addition of all the extra alkalinity due to faulty readings.
As I contemplate a 3 week vacation in January, I may just set the frag tank size to a fraction of its real size to lower the calculated alk dose just incase this scenario played out again while I am away. I would be giving up the ability to boost too low alk levels, but alk spikes worry me more than alk too low.
For any DIY version, the addition of a way to detect similar occurrences would be desirable.
Dennis
Doesn't the alkatronic also just dose 0.2 dkh when low (unless manually disabled in setting) as an extra step of protection in this situation? And when there is that big of difference it tests in 2hr even if the user settings are longer? Seems like they built in a lot of safety features.