shortymet55
Fishaholic
Hey all,
I have decided to try to make a system that does water changes for me. Im away from home at school 8 months out of the year, so my tank never gets enough attention (father will clean it occasionally, but not once a week, or even once a month). What I have decided to attempt is drill the rear of the tank near the bottom and install a solenoid valve that I can control with a simple microcontroller and have a clean bucket of water with a pump, also on the controller, that refills the tank after 20% of the water is drained. My dad is much more likely to empty one dirty water bucket and refill another clean bucket once a week rather than having to break out the gravel cleaner.
As a safety, I will have some type of button that my dad can push after dumping the old water and adding fresh, so in case he forgets the system wont drain more water overflowing the waste water bucket and try to pump water out of the near empty clean bucket.
The question I have for all of you is has anyone tried a system like this? Or have a better system?
The pump to refill is the easy part, the 120V pump will be on a relay so the 5V controller can turn it on and off.
The solenoid valve is where I most stumped now. First, most valves need backpressure to move a diaphram for the valve to function. The weigh of water in my tank is not enough. There are direct acting valves too, but they are a bit expensive and often metal. One example is https
/www.adafruit.com/products/996 . While $25 is not too bad, my concern is it being brass. Will I have to find a plastic one or will this work?
The final piece Im an uncertain of is how to track the water level. I want to have something that will feed back when the water is drained 20% and when its at the top. The top level would be easy with a float switch, but the 20% emptied is tough, because I would have to submerge another float switch and somehow secure it. Does anyone have any clever ideas? I did find https/www.adafruit.com/products/463 but $40 seems way high and Im not sure if I trust the precision and repeatability of its reading.
Anyways, does anyone see any flaws in my system or ways to improve it? These are mostly some inital ideas, so I havent finalized anything yet.
Thanks,
J T
I have decided to try to make a system that does water changes for me. Im away from home at school 8 months out of the year, so my tank never gets enough attention (father will clean it occasionally, but not once a week, or even once a month). What I have decided to attempt is drill the rear of the tank near the bottom and install a solenoid valve that I can control with a simple microcontroller and have a clean bucket of water with a pump, also on the controller, that refills the tank after 20% of the water is drained. My dad is much more likely to empty one dirty water bucket and refill another clean bucket once a week rather than having to break out the gravel cleaner.
As a safety, I will have some type of button that my dad can push after dumping the old water and adding fresh, so in case he forgets the system wont drain more water overflowing the waste water bucket and try to pump water out of the near empty clean bucket.
The question I have for all of you is has anyone tried a system like this? Or have a better system?
The pump to refill is the easy part, the 120V pump will be on a relay so the 5V controller can turn it on and off.
The solenoid valve is where I most stumped now. First, most valves need backpressure to move a diaphram for the valve to function. The weigh of water in my tank is not enough. There are direct acting valves too, but they are a bit expensive and often metal. One example is https
/www.adafruit.com/products/996 . While $25 is not too bad, my concern is it being brass. Will I have to find a plastic one or will this work?The final piece Im an uncertain of is how to track the water level. I want to have something that will feed back when the water is drained 20% and when its at the top. The top level would be easy with a float switch, but the 20% emptied is tough, because I would have to submerge another float switch and somehow secure it. Does anyone have any clever ideas? I did find https
/www.adafruit.com/products/463 but $40 seems way high and Im not sure if I trust the precision and repeatability of its reading.Anyways, does anyone see any flaws in my system or ways to improve it? These are mostly some inital ideas, so I havent finalized anything yet.
Thanks,
J T
