Optical CO2 bubble counter?

[Sideways]

I have finally ordered a DIY kit and am considering all the cool stuff I will do with it. One thing that came to mind was to build a bubble counter for my CO2 injection. I am thinking an optical gate that would register bubbles passing in a tube or regular bubble counter of some sort. I have seen someone do something similar when making wine, to monitor the fermentation process. So I would really appreciate some input on the feasibility. Would it be possible to connect something like that to the board and would reefpi be able to make sense of the readings?

[Rob F]

Hi, thanks again for that, I appreciate it!

Sorry I'm not sure how you would do something like this and I don't think reef-pi could make sense of it.

However if you can do a bit of coding it might be possible to run a script that reads a sensor port and counts how many times the sensor is active, then continually save the count to a text file which you can import into reef-pi using it's file driver. Not sure how you would read a bubble though, the sensor port looks for 0v or 5v, if you can setup a sensor and the output voltage changes when it sees the bubble it would work.

[Sideways]

Hi, thanks again for that, I appreciate it!

Sorry I'm not sure how you would do something like this and I don't think reef-pi could make sense of it.

However if you can do a bit of coding it might be possible to run a script that reads a sensor port and counts how many times the sensor is active, then continually save the count to a text file which you can import into reef-pi using it's file driver. Not sure how you would read a bubble though, the sensor port looks for 0v or 5v, if you can setup a sensor and the output voltage changes when it sees the bubble it would work.

Hi Rob,
Thank you for your reply. Here is a link to the wine DIY counter thingy that gave me the idea. I believe the IR gate he used switches between Low( 0.5V) and High(4.5V) depending on the state of the IR link.

https://www.sparkfun.com/tutorials/131

I am a pretty decent coder but I'll wait until I've gotten the hang of ReefPi before attempting a proof of concept. It sounds as if it could work if I can provide the right circumstances for the IR gate to do its thing reliably no? Could be a cool project. :-)

[Rob F]

Yeah if you can get a sensor switching from low to high or vice versa when it sees a bubble I think it's very possible. I'm thinking when you import the bubble count at a set interval the pH chart will update showing the latest count. Maybe if you reset the count daily the chart might be readable over time. I think it is a cool project and I'm sure others would be love to do this as well. I don't use co2 but I've seen lots of talk about bubble count. If a reliable count can be taken this could be a hit.