As usual the system didn’t work when I set it up. This time the top float was not working right. when down it was on and when up it was pulsing. So I tried to replace it but I had the control system powered when I went to plug it in and it shorted to 24VAC and welded the float in the on position. I ordered another float and a submersible mix pump as one of them was not working as well. This time I checked the float with a meter and connected it with the controller off but it still did not work! However, the new mix pump did. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
At this point I am suspecting my control board may not be working right; at lease with that input. Unfortunately, I made my control board about 8 years ago out of a H32 zone controller by reprogramming it and I have since lost the source code! This may be the kick in the pants I was waiting for to design my own industrial or home hydroponic controller. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
At a minimum it would need two float inputs to detect tank full and empty, three mix tank pumps 12V, a 12V water feed solenoid valve output, and a 120VAC relay output for a feed pump. It would also need a screen and some buttons so the user could set some configurations like the time the mix pumps should run and the feed timing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ideally it should also have a TDS sensor input and water temperature input so it could also control recirculating systems. And it would be great if it had Ethernet\/WIFI for a network based advanced interface and a second 120VAC relay output for lighting control. Then the only thing it would be missing is a PH sensor but that is extremely difficult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Right now I am using a hearty 12V power supply as the pumps and valves take a lot of current and power the controller through a 24VAC transformer. Then use an external timer for the feed pump. A product that runs off of 120V power is difficult to bring to market as UL testing is expensive. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As usual the system didn’t work when I set it up. This time the top float was not working right. when down it was on and when up it was pulsing. So I tried to replace it but I had the control system powered when I went to plug it in and it shorted to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":92,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/my-private.info\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/my-private.info\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/my-private.info\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my-private.info\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my-private.info\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/my-private.info\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93,"href":"https:\/\/my-private.info\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90\/revisions\/93"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my-private.info\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/my-private.info\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my-private.info\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my-private.info\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}