Arduino Aquaponics Controller

garyalan59

Chiumanfu wrote:

The Seneye slides only last 3 months and cost $30+. Little too pricey for my liking.

Good to know before I spend a bunch of money. Thanks.

garyalan59

I'm considering implementing something like this with fewer bells and whistles. In your original version, you used Arduino knock-off boards. How did those work for you versus the Arduino built models? Are they still your core boards, or did you make your own with the PCB's you had made? Any of those boards left? I can do my own soldering.

Gary

Chiumanfu

The Arduino knock-offs are just as good and a fraction of the price. I've had good luck with Sainsmart. Never had an issue.

I'll put you on the PCB list. I still haven't had a chance to test the power board. The controller board has been working flawless since October.

boss

"I'll put you on the PCB list. I still haven't had a chance to test the power board. The controller board has been working flawless since October." Made my day

gemmell

giddion wrote:

gemmell wrote:

Does anyone in AU have the list of components from jaycar or ebay or equivalent? Great project.

On the wifi front, are the xbee's no good?

Depending on your level of budget and electronics skill, this may be a good starter platform for you;

https://www.cooking-hacks.com/documenta ... g-arduino/

https://www.cooking-hacks.com/documenta ... onitoring/

It is possible to integrate the work done here with the above listed platform, it is just software. This is the path I have taken, I didn't find this thread until after I had placed my order for the cooking hacks components I wanted. Even though I have a background in electronics (not used for many years), I am time poor, so I choose this path to reduce my effort somewhat.

This is a good implementation of the cooking hacks solution;
http://www.instructables.com/id/Simple- ... dware-Sta/

Anyway, I am looking to integrate some of the work done by chiumanfu to expand my platforms capabilities.
I must say I do like the clean electronics boards created by cooking hacks, but it can be done much cheaper following chiumanfu excelent work in this thread. You can easilyt search for the parts in ebay, but I do not think they are always the cheapest. In AU there are a few good robotics stores that sell the control boards (Arduino etc), but the probes are more easily found on ebay, unless you're will to do a lot of searching.

I am in AU.

Research is the key.

I have been looking at the cooking hacks ones, and there's also a rasberry pi variant which can likely be adapted: http://rayshobby.net/ospi/

The only thing that's turned me off kitchen-hacks is the price tag. I am hoping they have a post xmas sale.

dasboot

Chiumanfu,a quick question for you or anyone else that can,i am completely new to world of Arduino but after reading the threads here really wanted to have a go,anywho i bought a UNO clone,plus a little starter kit and had my first steps,i got the led blinking at different rates watched videos and downloaded a book.
Right my first project the DHT11 Temp humidity sensor the three pin brick version,wired it up downloaded the library and sketch from Adafruit.Then after downloading the sketch to the Arduino and pressed the serial monitor,DHT test came up then it happily told me my living room was 640c and the humidity was 1000 something,i have had a look about and cant find an answer so the question is,is this sensor broken or have i done something wrong... :think:

Sorry for the really newbie question,but we all got to start somewhere.

giddion

gemmell wrote:

I have been looking at the cooking hacks ones, and there's also a rasberry pi variant which can likely be adapted: http://rayshobby.net/ospi/

The only thing that's turned me off kitchen-hacks is the price tag. I am hoping they have a post xmas sale.

Yeah I picked up the bits seperatly at 30% off. The bundle, which included the housing just pushed the shipping up more than double. So for less than 200AUD I got all the probes and boards that are in the OpenGarden/Hydroponics kit, including shipping. I felt it was reasonable.

That was 2 weeks ago, they had a 48hr sale.

If you message them they are quite reasonable, they may give you a discount code to apply.

pablomole

morning all....

just finished reading the 320posts..... have spent the last 2mnths looking for a good forum/open-source project before I found this thread. With the electronics involved maybe a little too opensource for me!

Anyway, there was a post previously discussing a port to Pi .... can appreciate the request as I grew up with linux, not familiar with Arduino. Is this being developed, or due to the nature of the system, residing on Arduino is required?

Anyhows.. on a side note, Chiumanfu, - do you have any boards left, or have you tried semi-commercial production yet :-)

Paul.

pablomole

and another question.... starting from scratch here.... cant the 'Chiumanfu Code' be run on an UNO?

Paul

Chiumanfu

Not enough pins on an UNO to support all the sensors. If you modify the code to cut out the sensors you don't need, then yes.

seanwg

Hi

Quick question --- I got my aquaponics setup running upstairs a few days ago and I know Arduno / AVR pretty good. I'm going to hook up PH sensor, water level sensor, flow meter... and most important use relay board to control AC powered lights / pump / air pump.

The box you have all your gear in --- where did you get those nice square 110 V plugs from? Did you get the case from an electrical supply place?

How did you cut the nice squares in your plastic case?

Thanks
sean

Chiumanfu

I got the AC plugs from eBay but I would suggest against using them. They are cheaply made and started going intermittent after less than a year.

I suggest using proper AC sockets.

This is the sole reason that I haven't released the PCBs yet, I have to test the power board, but I have to rewire all the AC to replace the bad sockets and I don't want to take down the whole system for that long. Once you rely on automation, it's really hard to go back to doing things manually.

For the holes, I used a dremel with cutoff wheel.

MasterCATZ

Nice Thread Don't know why I have not seen it before

Originally I was going to only run 3x large tanks now it seems i will be running 100+ smaller tanks
and not looking forward to building a separate controller / monitoring system for each

unless you know of a way to cheaply have multiple DO / PH probes

I am still playing around with Ammonia and Nitrate sensors

ps the Seneye are just using spectroscopy methods , and does not actually have a DO meter its using software to guess it based on Temp / other known light spectrum readings

Chiumanfu

100+ small tanks is going to be difficult no matter what. Are they all operating independent? Small water volumes is generally a bad idea for aquaponics. You might want to rethink your system design or think up some method of automatically diverting water to a common "testing" tank.

pablomole

Chiumanfu wrote:

Not enough pins on an UNO to support all the sensors. If you modify the code to cut out the sensors you don't need, then yes.

Hi Chiumanfu,

tried to PM you... but my messages are stuck in my outbox. Are you interested in some 'paid for development'? If so, PM me (if you can) and I will try to reply to it.

Paul

Backyard Aquaponics A place to discuss aquaponics

Arduino Aquaponics Controller

Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics