Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I designed and built a low cost, electronic control unit for a flood/drain Aquaponics System at home. No mechanical parts and a variety of applications.... Anyone interested ???

Ive approved this with caution Jack. Can you tell us a bit more about your controller.

What voltage does it require? how much power does it consume?

This controller operates in a variety of applications. The primary Aquaponics System runs on 12 volt dc 24 watt power. The max. power is only drawn when the 15 watt water pump is operating. In my system , it only runs the pump for 2 minutes every 30 minutes, as it floods the grow bed.

The System is designed in 3 models, so that many applications are available at the users request. The Model C is designed to monitor moisture in the soil or grow bed and supply water as needed.

A complete description is available at my e mail..... jckssite@gmail.com (not sure I can attach document in this forum ??)

Sounds interesting.

Let me rephrase the question: How much power does the system consume, when the pump is not running? Ie the standby power. Also what's the max wattage pump that it can drive?

Also can you program it to run 15 minutes on, and 45 minutes off, for 24 cycles a day?

The reason I ask is that there is a good demand for a controller that will work in a solar powered system.

If you check out my signature you can see the one that I designed and built, but it's not on the market.

Hope this answers your questions.... The system is capable, presently of running up to a 1.5 Hp 110 vac pump.
The stand -by power consumption of the unit is less than .5W
I initially designed it for a 12volt batt with solar cells, but the cost of the cells , in order to run it 24/7 was too great. So I use a 110 volt a/c convertor to provide the 12 vdc consistently.

Presently, it is not designed to operate 15 min. ON and 45 min.Off as you mentioned. My system's cycle time is determined by the drain tube, from the grow bed to the fish tank. It only pumps water, when the fish tank water level is full, then it circulates it back to the grow bed.

As noted, I am willing to custom design a system, based on the applications's needs, within the basic initial criteria.

You say it's not designed (presently) to operate 15/45....

What determines... and sets... the timer period?

NO... it's cycle is detemined by the level of water in the fish tank....The time it takes for the grow bed to drain back into the fish tank, determines the cycle time..

I don't know how better to explain this ???? You might say, it's cycle time is determined by the demand for water in the grow bed.....It has 2 sensor probes which monitor the water levels in both tanks....

Isn't this fun !!!!

No.. not really.... some pics, or a diagram would help...

From your last post above... it would seem that it's just a couple of level control switches...

P.S... you can attach a document to a post... in a zipped file format...

What happens if the amount of water in the system drops slightly (through evaporation) so that the fish tank never gets to the 'full' level?

I seem to be seeing two conflicting explanations... there is this......and this... which both seem to be saying that you have a sensor in the FT that tells the controller when to turn on the pump. Then there is this...... which seems to be saying the GB levels have something to do with it. The 2 sensor probes seem to be agreeing with the second scenario.

If it is FT level, why do you need the 2nd probe? If it is both, what logic drives the system? e.g. if FT=Full and if GB=empty then pump=On? If FT not =full and GB=full then pump=Stop?

2 sensors would appear to confuse the issue...

My sensor isn't working... I can't make sense out of it... and I can't sense what it's trying to acheive...

dont be so sensitive Roz

Surely adding that to yours would be a walk in the park nebbian?

Mine already does all that

But it's not on the market, and I've got bigger plans to get rich quick