I'm excited to see this thing in action next week!
Parameter moniter business idea
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It is just their "egg" devices in one unit. People use it and it has plenty of reviews. It is still a manual tester though and expensive if you typically only test one or two things.
There was a unit by LaMotte sold under two different names (home and commercial). AquaSpin and SpinTouch. they were not popular because they were expensive to buy, expensive to operate and not accurate enough, especially for the cost. You can still get them if you wish.
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The OP is a high school student, and this conversation is a learning experience, maybe not one he expected.
To that end, it applies to anybody who has never built or owned a business or considered what goes into the cost of a product, be it a cell phone or a plastic paper clip.
Malcontent
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AquaSpin. Made by LaMotte and rebadgered by API. I think it's still around....
Malcontent
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There is a reagentless nitrate method now. YSI sells it for $5,000. For just the sensor probe.
And I bet it looks just like a $15,000 Ferrari replicaWell not nobody....
It is still around, @Coral Kai uses it and likes it.
I believe it’s $800-1000 and I’m not sure on the disk costs.
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ION Selective probes are nothing "new". The problem is the cost of the probes, their lifespan and the fact that they can't be used full time and instead need to be used and flushed.
The GHL ION Director's failure to launch and ongoing issues are a testament to the issues with "inexpensive" ion selective devices. There are others at or near market. ReefSpa and Xepta. I will assume at their inexpensive price points ($1500 or so) that they wil suffer from the same problems and also be expensive to operate. While there is no "reagent" the probes are consumable and their needs to be a neutralizing and cleaning solution to prevent probe deterioration. So "clenaer" or "reagent" there is a consumable cost.
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I think the issue is poor resolution and accuracy. I read am in depth test somewhere, but can't find it or recall where.
Malcontent
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It's not an ISE. There's been a method to measure nitrate using UV-C for sometime now but only recently have UV-C LEDs of the correct wavelength become available. The LEDs recently became available retail for $300 each if you feel like DIYing it...
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Not even remotely interested. The test bench, scope, soldering stations and the rest of it has been packed away for years. I have a set of tube monoblocks to finish… just point to point and that hasn’t been touched in four years.
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Yes the front glass of the aquarium is almost totally covered with blue ridge coral and coralline. And, yes I copper plated the transformer end bells, black nickel plated the chassis and hand cut the dovetails. I tend to go overboard sometimes… and sometimes not finish
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Do you have links on this UV-C based nitrate measurement method? This is really interesting for me.
UV-C LEDs are not a problem nowadays. COVID pushed their development very hard, and now there are plenty. Its for the UV-B range, that there are very few LEDs, with very poor efficiency and short lifespan, and they do cost around $300 per piece (in the few mW range)
If op makes just a automatic phosphate monitor that accurately reads phosphate twice a day, logs the results, and sells for 150$ I’d buy it
These are two completely different things that protect two completely different things.
A patent only gives you the legal right to sue someone if they copy your patented product. On top of taking years to get patent issued to you it will not be cheap. Sueing someone over patent infringement can also get very expensive - 10's of thousands of dollars. So if you don't have the financial backing to defend your patent it's pretty much worthless.
An LLC just separates your personal assets from your business assets so when someone sues your business, they cannot go after your personal assets in a lawsuit. LLC's come with annual fees and filings that must be done with your state every year.
Malcontent
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Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Detection of Nitrate and Nitrite in Seawater Simultaneously Based on Partial Least Squares
A direct, reagent-free, ultraviolet spectroscopic method for the simultaneous determination of nitrate (NO[3] [−] ), nitrite (NO[2] [−] ), and salinity in seawater is presented. The method is based on measuring the absorption spectra of ...
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Oh, wait, it can do salinity, too?
Thank you, this is very interesting. However, I believe that the difficulty in applying this method is not the light source (there are plenty of far-range UVC LEDs - 222nm), but the need for UV spectrometer with 1nm resolution - that is a delicate scientific instrument and cannot be obtained cheaply. If I understand the paper correctly, it is through the mathematical processing of absorption data at different wavelengths (with 1nm step) in the 215-240nm range, they are able to calculate the NO3, NO2 concentrations, as well as salinity. I believe that there is no useful applicability for this method, unless someone designs/manufactures an integrated sensor that would measure (and process) this spectral data internally...Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Detection of Nitrate and Nitrite in Seawater Simultaneously Based on Partial Least Squares
A direct, reagent-free, ultraviolet spectroscopic method for the simultaneous determination of nitrate (NO[3] [−] ), nitrite (NO[2] [−] ), and salinity in seawater is presented. The method is based on measuring the absorption spectra of ...
Oh, wait, it can do salinity, too?
Opus
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You are thinking of Mindstream. It basically went from a product that they showed off at one of the big reefing events and said it would be available soon. That "soon" turned into like 3 or 4 years. I don't remember what all it tested. They ended up needing a big kickstarter program and then a separate capital infusion. I think the final sale price was a lot higher than originally planned ($900) and plus they had a $30 to $50 monthly charge for the disks and I assume to also offset the "cloud" expense. If I remember correctly after launch they started having issues with algae building up on the unit so it had to go thru a redesign. Not sure how long they stayed in business, though I'm thinking less than a year after reaching market. I didn't feel like researching so I'm not sure if they filed bankruptcy or took a buyout to pay off the investors. If you are bored there were a couple of big threads on here about them.
There was also a company before Mindstream that was supposed to do a stand alone testing machine that would be about the size of an old arcade machine. They said you could bring in a sample of water and then pick all the tests you wanted from a menu with prices and then it would give you a total to pay and then it would do all the testing while you waited. They got a bunch of LFS to signup and pay something like a $5000 deposit on it at I believe their MACNA booth. As far as I know, no one ever received a working unit. Still a sore spot with my LFS since he put a deposit on it and I don't believe he ever got a dime back.
Malcontent
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