Robo-Tank v5.0 Screenshots and Flowchart - Ideas Needed

[Rob F]

Hey Rob, ah so your thinking of using it as a method of detecting when the AC power goes out, I love that idea! In the past I looked into making a circuit to sense if the power goes out but it was quite involved but this could be perfect. I wanted what you want, a power outage mode but put it on the side burner. With that relay being monitored it could send an email, if network on backup power, and put the controller in a special mode. I am going to play with this idea, might take a few components but it's doable, it'll use an analog port. Then in the next couple months I will add a power outage mode on the controller so you don't need custom rules as it can be integrated into everything.

Yeah in your situation I didn't think the AC power bar would be of much use, this would only be useful for UPS backup. There would be no point in powering the processor as it'll only control the outlets, just need to keep the controller and DC power bar running, the display can be unplugged as well.

[Skwerl77]

Just thought of this as I was about to feed the corals.. When I do a manual feed, I like to have basically everything except the lights shut off for about 10 minutes while I feed the fish and then target feed the corals with the turkey baster. Then I usually unplug everything but the wavemakers so that when the feed timer is over, the powerheads blow all the particulate foods around for the filter feeders without everything immediately going down the overflow and getting filtered out. Then after a half hour or so, I turn everything else back on.

Is it too late to ask for like a two-tiered feed timer? So when manual feeding: List A gets shut off, then after time X, List B comes back on, then after time Y, list A goes back on?

[Rob F]

Hi Skwerl77, well first it's never too late to ask and I've been giving this some thought as a couple other people have mentioned something similar.

After more thinking I've decided the best is tying this into the custom rules as I want that to be go to for advance settings and it keeps the basic settings basic. Doing this would give unlimited tiers and more flexibility because the other custom rule options can be used.

Yesterday I did make some changes to the custom rules, I put the alert options back on and added 2 small features. One might not be of much use but is "only allow rule to run during feed schedule" and the second more useful "only allow rule to run during maintenance mode", more on these later.

Now this is what I've come up with and will approve upon down the road.

The feed schedule will remain the same, you'll be able to set an outlet or DC accessory to on, off or no action. When the schedule ends any equipment changed for the schedule will resume back (on a side note the maintenance mode will have this option as well). There will also be a timer so the feeder won't run for X minutes into the feed and there will be a button to setup a custom rule/s to run when the feed schedule STARTS.

First lets think about the custom rules as they are. These are all based off different sensors and switches and the two extra options just added basically split the custom rules. This allows certain rules to run only during feed or maintenance, only run when feed or maintenance is not running or run at any time. For example, if an open float is used to turn an outlet on only during maintenance but maintenance wasn't running that open float would be ignored until maintenance started. Now if a timer was set on this custom rule so it didn't run for 10 minutes after maintenance starts it would take that long before the open float turned the outlet on. Basically the float needs to be open and the maintenance mode needs to have run 10 minutes.

In the image below on the bottom right side, "Scroll Through Feeder and Maintenance Options", has 3 options, the one showing counts. Same settings for feed and maintenance.

• Feed Schedule Has No Effect on Rule
  
• Disable Rule During Feed Schedule
  
• Only Allow Rule to Run Feed Maintenance
  

To the left "Scroll Through Custom Rule Timers" has all the timers available, the "next timer" button scrolls through them. All of them can apply to the rule at the same time, this is what I have. If anyone has more ideas or better wording for descriptions let me know.

• Run Custom Rule X Minutes After Feed Schedule Starts (max 255 minutes)
  
• Run Custom Rule X Minutes After Maintenance Starts (max 255 minutes)
  
• Stop Dosing Pump from Running for X Hours After Custom Rule Runs (max 24 hours)
  
• Allow Sensor to Stabilize for X Seconds Before Custom Rule Runs (max 255 seconds)
  

Now for the addition, I'm going to have the custom rules not based on any sensors or switches, instead these will run only once during or after each feed schedule or maintenance.

When you add a new custom rule you get presented with buttons for all the sensors and switches connected, for now I will add a button bottom left corner to add a rule based on feed or maintenance. There will also be a button on the feed and maintenance settings page.

When the custom rules options page opens the screen below is what you'll get.

This one is based on the feed and as you can see some options that don't apply has been removed. All the timers are available except "Run Custom Rule X Minutes After Maintenance Starts" as this is only for feed. If it was a maintenance custom rule you only get the maintenance timer plus the other two.



The important setting is the interval to trigger the rule after the selected schedule starts. If you setup multiple rules you could have some equipment resume 2 minutes after and some 10 minutes after, etc... Because you have all the options in custom rules you could even run a dosing pump X minutes into a feed, instead of turkey baster add a small hose and feed corals automatically. :) This should give complete control as you can use any many custom rules during a feed or maintenance as you want.

[Skwerl77]

Perfect!! I like it!

[Skwerl77]

Quick one maybe? I was re-calibrating my pH probe today, could you make it so that the "return to home screen time-out after no touch" is disabled when doing a calibration? I have mine set for 3 minutes or something like that and a couple times I got distracted and missed it.. I guess I could go in and change that myself before calibration, but laziness.

On that note, there's a line on the calibration page that says for better accuracy, place the temp probe in the calibration solution. The calibration solutions I use say they are 4.01 and 7.0 at 77F, so when calibrating I get the solution within a degree of 77F.
So not knowing quite how all that works, does the controller compensate for temp thus eliminating the need for me to get the solution to a certain temp? And if so, could we select which temp probe to use (ambient air or tank temp or etc.)? Or, given that the calibration solution value is listed at a specific temp, could we have the option of entering that temp?

Thanks!

[Rob F]

Hey Skwerl77, yeah I'll do that with the return home timer.

In my experience the temperature being out a couple degrees doesn't affect PH very much, apparently the conductivity has greater affect but yeah the controller does compensate for temperature, I believe you currently have to use temp4 but you'll be able to select any sensor in v5. You wouldn't want to change the temp to match the bottle unless it actually does, if your solution is 75 but you told the circuit it was 77 it wouldn't be as accurate.

[Skwerl77]

I guess what I'm asking is what would be more accurate: getting my solution to exactly 77 and telling the controller it's at 77 (either manually or with a temp probe), or just leaving the solution at room temp, and entering that into the controller instead? Like I said I'm ignorant as to how that all works, I'm definitely no chemist! I don't know if the solution NEEDS to be at 77 for accuracy, or if the controller can compensate for all that for me. I would have to say, during winter, that the room temp would be about 68, so almost 10 degrees different than what the bottle says it should be..
It would be nice to just leave it at room temp instead of dipping it in hot water and overshooting and waiting for it to cool and dipping the thermometer over and over and cleaning it between solutions etc.

[Rob F]

If you didn't use a temp sensor then you would want the solution to exactly 77 for a perfect 4.01 or 7.00. Temperature does change PH, pure water is 7.00 at 25c or 77f but there is a common formula used to adjust the offset from the temp. If your 4.01 was 68 it might actually be 3.99 or 4.03, not sure which way it swings off hand. But once your water temp of 68 is added to the formula the ph will come out 4.01 like it should. A lot of cheap PH meters just use the default 77F but more expensive will have a temp sensor built in so the 77F can be replaced with the actual temp, that's what the controller does. When I added temp calibration to the controller I didn't think it was working properly because I couldn't see a difference like I expected but then discovered it has little effect so even if it wasn't temp calibrated I wouldn't be too worried. Maybe for other parameters it's more important but I can't imagine someone caring too much if ph was truly 7.15 but came out as 7.12.

But yeah you can leave your solution at room temp and put the temp probe in to get the most accurate results. Remember to clean the probe really good as it doesn't take much to contaminate the solution especially if you reuse it.

On the controller side currently the water temp sensor is used to update the circuit with the temp, I think its being sent every 10 minutes or so. When you calibrate you have to use temp sensor 4 on the controller instead of the the water temp port. During calibrating the temp is sent to circuit after every couple readings. In v5 you'll be able to select any temp sensor.

[Skwerl77]

Ah, that makes sense now. Thanks for the explanation! Yeah I'm not too worried about 7.15 vs. 7.12 either, especially when those stupid colorimetric tests are so hard to read accurately.

And yet another subject, I got home this very evening from work to find that the temp sensor had apparently failed, and the tank was about 65F. Any suggestions on how to prepare for this? Can there be a way to automatically switch to an alternate temp probe if the primary one doesn't have a reading? I'm only using two at the moment, the display and the sump (not counting the DHT22). I guess I could add a rule that controls the heater relays based on the sump temp being a couple degrees lower than the primary heater settings, but I already have rules that shut the heaters off if the sump gets to a certain temp (in case the return pump is shut off for some reason, so when it starts back up, I don't pump boiling water back into the tank). I think there would be conflicts there..
Maybe on a bigger scope, is there a way to add a faulty equipment notification/alarm? Say, enable a setting where if an input is not received but expected it triggers an alarm? Again, I guess I could just add a custom rule.. Am I being too picky?? Lol

Thanks!!

[Rob F]

Yeah definitely better than those test strips, I think the quality of the probe has a lot more to do with accuracy than temp offset ever will, also cable length between probe and circuit could have an effect, shorter the better. Cable length between circuit and controller doesn't effect the reading.

I do like the idea of having the heater switch over to a backup temp sensor if the main one quits, that's probably the best way as an alarm isn't going to fix anything if your 100 miles from home. In v5 you'll have more control with alerts as you can set multiple for one sensor so that shouldn't be a problem and I can add a simple setting to send alert if sensor stops working, that's a good idea. I'm thinking the controller will then look for all alerts marked "sensor failure" and will monitor them lets say every 5 minutes, when it does the test if no response is received it'll send an alert. At that point the sensor would be marked as a failure and more actions could be done based on that until the user marks it as "fixed". The 2nd part will come a little later though, I'll probably add something to custom rules as in create a rule based on a failure so anything could happen when something goes bad.

With custom rules you can stack them for one sensor. For example you could have one if temp <= 70.2 do action 1. 2nd rule if temp <= 70.1 do action 2, etc... If multiple rules are found <= 70.1 they would both run. For now you should be able to setup a couple rules to use a 2nd sensor to turn the heater on/off so you have a backup.

In v5 on the heaters page under each you can select the temp sensor to use, I think I will add a second option to select a backup sensor if that one fails and have it send an alert that way custom rules won't be needed, I agree you shouldn't need to set custom rules for this. The backup will also be monitored and alerted if it stops working.

Thanks for all your input, I love every bit I can get. I don't think your being picky, I can see this being quite important.

[fietsenrex]

So when will it be released?
Last week I had a serieus fuck-up regarding the heater.
In automatic mode it doesn’t control ot properly (indicated off while on and vice versa)
But this week it was in manual on, But the controller had is switched off for some reason..

[Rob F]

Hi fietsenrex, sorry to hear, v4.2 does have some issues with the heater. The issue with the heaters slowly got worse as I did updates, this happened because back a couple updates I did a major change with communications and it made a mess of some things because the display was always meant to control them until that update happened. This is one reason I'm redoing all the code because that last major change could never be fully removed from the display. So I'm just trying to say it will be fixed in v5 and I know why this is happening. It might be good to add some custom rules to act as a backup.

I'm getting close to being finished with v5, I expect another week to 10 days.

[Irass]

There is a small error in version 4.1. :)
If the screensaver is enabled it does not work (you do not hear) the sound of an alert eg from high or low temperature.
If the controller is on the main menu then it is OK

Maybe it can be improved in v5

[Rob F]

Hi Irass, that's not suppose to happen, it should be fixed in v5. Thanks for letting me know.

[rott]

will be very excited to try this new version

[Rob F]

Getting closer every day and anxious to finish it up.

[fietsenrex]

Still only 8 relays in V5? And you have to buy the expansion pack for the other 8?

[aquaalgae]

When do you think the ssr relay box will be available for purchase?

[Rob F]

Still only 8 relays in V5? And you have to buy the expansion pack for the other 8?

v5 will handle 64 relays and you only need some kind of expansion for the 17+ relays. Just like v4.2 and gen2 hardware you can connect 16 relays directly without any parts. Because there isn't enough pins on an Arduino the remaining have to be the way they are.

When do you think the ssr relay box will be available for purchase?

It'll be at least a month, I have a box of parts I ordered to mockup but haven't had time to open it. As soon as I finish v5 I have to update the website then I'll be digging in.

[fietsenrex]

64 :O
Thought 16 was already plenty of controllability xD