Auto top up

[Guy Hall]

I want to use auto top up without water change. I see you use solenoids etc but my set up would be

3 floats, 1 in the reservoir to stop the pump from running dry and 2 in the sump. About 1cm apart, when water drops and activates the bottom one, it triggers the pump to come on till the water is back to the top float.

Which am scenario would suit me and which arduino pin is for the pump, I can connect it to uln2003a as it's only a small 12v submersible one low milliamp

Thanks

[Fernando Garcia]

Hi!

How are you?

I don't understand fine what you mean.

You can show some schematic?

Best regards.

[Dale Jennings]

he is looking for just regular auto top off using 3 floats. Top float is high water. Middle float to trigger pump on and off to pump from reservoir to sump and bottom float Low water turns pump off so it will not burn up. On a side note using a relay dpdt maybe he could hook up a buzzer to it tell him time to fill reservoir

[Guy Hall]

That's pretty much it dale. Or at least my original plan. I was just worried that it would come off and on to often. So in thought if they were 1cm apart (I don't get a lot of evaporation) then the bottom one would trigger it so start filling (the pump in the reservoir) and the second one would say stop. The third in the reservoir is like you say to stop the pump burning out.

It is basically what Fernando has if you take away the quarantine tank except I won't pump water out, I would let it evaporate triggering the reservoir and instead of the float triggering another solenoid to refill it, it would just stop the whole process until refilled and the float is reset.

I will try to draw something tonight that will show in more detail, however I am building everything around this controller so I am open to suggestions still

[Guy Hall]

I think this is very similar

http://ferduino.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=373#p372

Using Bomba3pin (resevoir pump) and sensor 2,3&4 I think this will work the same. I didnt see this before but looks right. I just need to figure how to use only those 3 floats and 1 pump on the correct voltage triggers. Once the code is installed, I will test more thoroughly and see how it behaves.

If I am not using all 6 sensors, can I relocate solenoid1Pin to one of the other sensor pins without much code changing? then I dont thing I will need the expander chip as only using 8 relays (6 from normal pins and maybe use other 2 sensor pins for the other 2?)

Thanks

[Fernando Garcia]

Hi!

You can use other pins to it.

If your RTC is connected to pins 20 and 21, use the pins 18 and 19 to control the relay.

You can use the pin 7 too.

Best regards.

[Dale Jennings]

Guy I use a float in my 55 gal (US Gal) and the tank is covered I use a 10 gallon tank to hold top off water and as long as the main tank is covered and the 10 gal tank is covered I don't loose much water maybe a couple gallons a week so the top off won't go on and off to much but it does keep your salinity almost right on buy not letting it evaporate large amounts

[Guy Hall]

Sounds like I've got myself a plan then. It'll only be a few days till I've finished soldering everything up and I can get to testing.

I am only planning on using ph at the mo and salinity later so I was going to save 18 and 19 for salinity and not need a multiplexer then if that works. I won't be using the wavemaker function for now as I have a mp10 so I could use those pins for the relay for now and pin 7 for solenoid pin.

Dale, how have you integrated your top up into this controller? Or do you use the full system?

[Fernando Garcia]

Guy Hall » Yesterday 6:14 pm wrote:

I am only planning on using ph at the mo and salinity later so I was going to save 18 and 19 for salinity and not need a multiplexer then if that works. I won't be using the wavemaker function for now as I have a mp10 so I could use those pins for the relay for now and pin 7 for solenoid pin.

In this case you can use the pins 16 and 17 too.