Robo-Tank Web App - Development

[Rob F]

Got a few more things finished, these are the main things but there was some visual improvements here and there as well.

This is the simple chart screen to start, there's a shortcut on the dashboard to get here. 

When you hover over the name buttons appear so you can select how much data is in the viewable window. This setting I still need to save to database but it works. There's another hidden setting on left corner when you hover to change the rolling average which smooths out the line. You can also drag the chart to go through the full time line saved.

Down the road not to far I'm going to add more features. This is what I have planned, if you can think of something else let me know.

• There will be graphs for ATO, heaters, equipment, sensors etc.
  
• User can set how often every graph is written, maybe one temperature probe is recorded every 15 minutes and another every minute. 
  
• Custom graphs, overlay multiple charts of any type. These won't update to start as that gets complicated, they will be temporary charts you could say.
  

The manual mode for AC outlets and DC ports is finished, both are the same so I'll show the AC outlets. I was manually switching the outlets from the dashboard but now when you click any outlet there you get this screen where you can click the outlet on or off. The extra screen is so a user doesn't accidentally switch an outlet.

When you switch one a red dot appears on the icon indicating that outlet is in manual mode meaning no other systems will ever switch that outlet until the user puts it back in "auto" mode. To do so you just click the red dot, you can see a label "Resume Auto" appears when the mouse hovers it. This is saved, if you restarted the controller the outlets will startup in the same state and still be in "Manual" mode.




Here's the dashboard view, you can see the red dots on the icons. 

The "Resume" button on the shortcut dock will resume all AC outlets, DC ports and lights back to auto mode. It's just a quick way to make sure everything is back in auto mode.




And I just about have the pH calibration finished, just a few little details to finish up but it working. The code already supports temperature compensation on the everyday reading plus temperature compensation for the buffer solutions, this makes the reading as accurate as it can be through the code. This is how temperature affects pH.

pH is voltage based and measured in millivolts. The circuit reads 0mV at 7.0 pH and +/- 1.0 pH = 59.16mV @ 25 Celsius. If temperature compensation isn't used the 59.16mV is what's used to calculate the value. For example lets assume the circuit was reading -89.92mV from the probe, that needs to be converted to pH. If you don't use temperature compensation we get  "7.0 - (-89.92mV / 59.16mV)" = 8.519 pH.  But what is the pH if the water was actually 30 Celsius not the assumed 25c. 

First we offset the 59.16mV doing this "59.16mV * (30c + 273.15) / 298.15" = 60.15mV. Now we run the math to get the pH. "7.0 - (-89.92mV / 60.15mV)" = 8.494 pH instead of 8.519. 

So you can see it's not a big change for our environments, in reality you could say this is more of an advertising benefit but it does affect things. The same technique is applied with the buffer solutions when calibrating.

The backend is also calculating the slope during calibration, I can't really explain that as I mainly forget but it can be used to indicate if a probe needs replacing based on how it performed during calibration. Again it's just a cool factor thing but definitely coming.

This screen is from the "Settings" button on dashboard, a few more buttons. This is where to go to calibrate.




Any probes in the system will appear here, later I'm going to fully support Atlas conductivity, ORP and dissolved oxygen circuits and maybe their temperature sensors. This icon is red not yellow because different probe types will be different colors, pH is red.




Next it'll ask 1 point or 2 point calibration or option to delete current calibration. If you hit delete a popup will appear to verify.




This is the single point calibration, dual is the same just slightly different text and you get this screen twice.




When you hit start it'll warn that current calibration will be erased.




At that point you sit and wait till the yellow bar completes. The criteria for that is 20 consistent readings within a +/- .004 range so it is strict. The controller reads probe every 3 seconds so this works out to 1 minute. If the criteria can't be reached after 15 minutes it'll just finish with what it has. In reality this should happen within 3-5 minutes.

If the calibration is 2 points when this finishes it'll go to the page above for the 2nd point and repeat.




And when it's done you'll get this screen. Later this is where it'll show the details and rate the probe. Good news is any calibrations done on beta you'll still be able to see results of current calibration when it's added.



I'm not going to add temperature calibration until possibly next release, I'm sure some are thinking about that, it's on the list that doesn't exist.