I’m relatively new to Arduino and even newer to Blynk but I have an interesting project that others in the community might find useful. I’m interested in creating a monitoring system for pool and spas. As any pool owner knows, this can be a tedious but necessary task. This has been done before but not with these new sensors and not with Blynk. http://openspamonitor.blogspot.com/
I’m proposing to use the new Atlas Scientific monitoring kits which handle much of the processing onboard and are I2C compatible. http://www.atlas-scientific.com/kits.html
As I mentioned earlier, my best coding days may be behind me, but I am still pretty good with the hardware side. Any qualified person who is interested, I will loan you the hardware for the development portion of the project.
I like finding projects which bring about a quick return and I can think of plenty of things I’d rather be doing than checking my pool chemicals. The hardware side will involve 3 sensors, pH, ORP (which is used to gauge chlorine levels), and temperature. On the hardware side, the sensors, arduino, and wifi connectivity will be in integrated into a ruggedized case, perhaps just a floating PVC pipe. Each 3 sensor kit will be standalone. For my case, I will double this for both a pool and spa.
This is just for my personal use at the moment but I imagine it could be commercialized in some way. Could certainly generate some interest in Blynk as well.
Would it be possible to emulate the sensor values? That way it may be possible to build a system without the actual (really expensive) sensors. It could save a lot of time and postage
I know the sensors are expensive, but so is your time trying to manage a pool and spa. I’m already moving forward. If you have any coding experience, I’m sure I could use your help.
I do have some coding experience and also starting to find my way around Blynk. I do have a lot of hobbies, maybe too much, but we can try and see if we can put something together.
It definitly sounds like an interesting project with lots of added value. Not only for pools but I can see this being useful for aquariums too for example.
First things first, I haven’t got a single clue about pool and spa health. Is there a webpage with some introductions about measured values, what they mean and so on? Sort of a tutorial. I’d like to get at least a little knowledge about that and how the sensors integrate into that whole stuff. Just to get a bit of a feeling with the general subject
Since we usually don’t have pools in our backyards (the netherlands…) I’m not very familiar with that sort of thing, but I like a good challenge!
From a practical monitoring standpoint, the two we want to concern ourselves with at first is ORP (measures Chlorine) and the others change on a much slower basis.
I would like to using some newer style sensors by Atlas Scientific which handle the sensors reading at their board level and then pass the data serially. http://www.atlas-scientific.com/kits.html
Let me know if I have pointed you in the right direction.
R
That looks likes good stuff to read! That openspa monitor may indeed be a nice place to start.
Currently I’m using an esp8266 for wifi connectivity and so far I’m absolutely not happy with it. It’s slow and unstable. We may have to figure out an alternative to connect to blynk, like the official wifi boards, but they are more expensive.
I think the measurements from the sensors are the easiest parts of this project. The trick is gonna be making a one deal package and have that being used by someone.
So, if you are gonna use the Atlas ones, I think I’d recommend the I2C board for 4 probes. That looks kind of promising in terms of easy reading. I2C is originally a Philips protocol for controlling lights, believe it or not. But it’s quite simple and should be easy to use. You just get data from the board and put that in Blynk.
You can also havo two arduino’s talk I2C with eachother in about two seconds with a couple of lines of codes. It makes local meshes of networks possible fairly easy. It should integrate well with Blynk considering it’s really stable.
So far the only thing I’m wortied about is the wifi connection to the rest of the world. If we want some sort of device which you can put in the water you need to consider power too. Have you thought about that?
i have no experience with the 8266 so can’t lend much of a hand there. Others have seemed to make that pretty reliable though. I’m currently using a W5100 ethernet card, so that might be my first implementation. I agree with all your comments re: one deal package. I have a mini and micro arduino on the way so I can see how they work out. Maybe the first part of the project should be designing a universal sensor node that works well with Blynk. In that regard, you can just try measuring temperature for example without the problem of an expensive sensor.
Feel free to reach out to me directly at arduino@rapgar.com as we get deeper into this project.
I got a temp sensor allready, so that’s no problem. I’ll setup a second arduino via I2C to input some random data to the sensor node.
I’m not sure what the time estimates will be because I’m also involved in a local modelrailroad club which takes time too, lol.
And my own stuff ofcourse … Ah well, this will be fun though!
I ordered another esp to try for my own use too. Maybe mine were somehow faulty. The sensors can integrate directly into the esp too. I’ll try and look at that too. It may be easier and some models tend to have more space to program stuff into.
Here’s a stupid question, were some of your problems with the 8266 caused by overflow errors. I posted on this a little earlier and it made my application very unstable…resolved by slowing things down with simple timer.
The monitoring service that OPENSPAMONITOR refers to “COSM” has since become “Xively”. At first glance, they do not appear to be working with DIY’ers anymore but there is a back door…
Doing the same project I got two sensors already on hand (DS18B20 and Atlas Scientific DO) and waiting for the third one (analog PH meter). I got a lot of ESP8266 but might as well use a Mega if necessary.
I am pretty happy with the Atlas pH sensor. In my first implementation, I did not include the temperature compensation though which is absolutely necessary. Haven’t ordered the ORP sensor yet, but I’m close in doing so.
Starting to use the ESP-8266 and beginning to prefer it over the standard Uno. Planning on switching over the next build to the 8266 with pH and ORP.
Atlas senors will work with I2C but programming is a little more complicated. Please let me know if you go in that direction and how you made out.
