"Roll your own" Automation

The kit above is just the starters kit so I can learn the art of electronics builds.

Here we have the first parts for my new solution:
1) New traditional analog pool thermometer. So I can compare my new digital results against something else.
2) I’m planning to put my new solution in this floating chlorine tablet thing.
- The probe will dangle out the bottom a bit into the pool water.
- The electronics board will sit in a small waterproof case inside the dispenser.
- I’m hoping to pop a small solar panel on the top so it can keep the battery charged all the time.

The whole thing can then float around the pool so I get readings from all parts of the pool, not just inside a skimmer basket or tied to a tether.

I’ll go through some of the parts in my photo above for you next Kim !!!

OK, Some of the things you can identify in the kit photo earlier are:

1) The heart of it is the 2 things in the center towards the top.
a) On the right there is a small red circuit board - named "Red Board". This is a general purpose circuit board with connectors along the right and left for connecting various things.
b) To the left of the red board is the white plastic rectangular block with rows and columns of tiny holes. This is called a "breadboard" and its used when designing electronic circuits. It lets you easily connect and disconnect lots of different parts as you are building your circuit. Once you have designed, built and tested your circuit using the"Red Board" and the breadboard, then you would usually build your final solution using only the bits you need and solder everything together and try to get it as small as possible.

2) Just above the white breadboard is a rectangular "thing". That's an LCD display (2 display lines I think, but I haven't used it yet). It can be used to display diagnostic info as you are debugging, or any key bits of info you want to see. Can't see a need for it in my temperature probe solution, but you never know.

3) To the right of the "Red Board" is a red USB cable. This connects to the Red Board and to your computer. Its how you upload your program to the Red Board so it can start to do its thing.

4) To the left of the white breadboard is a black plastic holder for 4 AA batteries. This connects to the Red Board and is how the final solution will get its power when its away from the computer.

5) The rest of the photo, in the bottom half of the case is just random parts for the various starter kit project builds.
a) There are 2 wheels on the left hand side (one of the sample projects is some kind of remote vehicle)
b) The white thing in the middle is a screwdriver - double ended, philips and flat.
c) 2 small motors on the right hand side
d) A pack of "hookup cables" below the motors. These are the cables you use to connect the red board to the bread board during the build stage.

The rest is just random stuff. Some LED lights, some switches, a piezo buzzer.

I'm happy to post photos of a random project build if you want, but that's not really anything to do with pools and might be a waste of a lot of people's time !!!

I will definitely post photos and provide updates on what's actually relevant to the pool part of the project though !!!!

YippeeSkippy said:

I"m following along with Kim!

Maddie

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Yay - my fan girls !!!!

kimkats said:

Red board-I get why it is named that hehe but the "bread board" ??? Why bread board? as in why did they name it that?

Here at TFP we are not super strict about keeping every thread strictly pool related. This is your thread so you are free (and encouraged) to share all of your fun with this new toy!

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I *believe* that the expression "breadboard" may have evolved from the fact that the thing kind of looks like a piece of white bread, with lots of small holes in - maybe if you look at it from a distance - without your glasses on. But I could be completely wrong on that !!!

jonpcar said:

Salsiccia, I am rooting for this project...my plan is to have the temperature transmitted to my spreadsheet as well, but my temperature sensor is in the pipes rather than floating in the pool. I am sure you realize the advantage to your method...you don’t have to have the pump going to get an accurate pool temp reading. Like you, I want to get accurate readings throughout the day for my data collection (I don’t know yet what I’ll do with it all, but I want it, haha). But I don’t like to run my pump in the middle of the day during summer (peak electricity rates), so haven’t decided how best to solve this.

Search around for pool temp monitors (instead of pool controllers as my previous suggestion). There are quite a few of those as well...water proofness and battery life are two of the issues that people run into with a “floating” temp monitor.

pH readings are In my future, too...so please get it working, haha. Lots of DIY projects have been been posted on the web...but there is usually little follow-up to indicate whether or not the project’s original goals were accomplished.

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You raise some very good points Jon !!

I also contemplated putting my temp sensor in the pipes or the skimmer box, as tethering it to a fixed point makes it a lot easier to get power to it. For me though, as I said at the outset this is more about a learning and fun exercise for me. At this stage anyway this is about augmenting my reporting regime as well as learning new electronics skills. I will still employ my manual testing process for the forseeable future (as I obviously cannot reliably automate the other measures yet). If the solar panel / recharging bit doesn't work then I'll just have to replace batteries every so often - no biggie.

I have no understanding yet of the effect that the salt water environment will have on this solution. I already know that I cant't keep anything metal (like some nice power tools I have) near the pool as the salt air destroys them. This is truly going to be a voyage of discovery !!!

setsailsoon said:

Sal,

I'm following with great interest. I just started playing with EXP 32 control and seem to have figured out how to interface with wifi very easily using canned software that just needs minor modifications. My goal is to wifi contol swg and other equipment. I currently use iAqualink automation and I love it but this sort of locks me in to their equipment. Also Jandy is now eliminating all warranty for DIY installation of everything except valves and valve parts. So I'm a "motivated developer".

Good luck to you and I'll follow with great interest.

Chris

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Thanks Chris, I feel your pain !
We've been looking at home automation for a while now, but have hesitated because it seems you have to commit to a particular architecture for all your parts and as an IT guy I don't like that, I want the freedom and flexibility to do what *I* want, not what a particular manufacturer is prepared to let me do.

I discovered IFTTT last year and found that to be a good step in the right direction. ("IF This Then THAT" - if you're not across this have a look at it. It lets you start tying different manufacturers' devices together. Its far from perfect, as you are still limited by whatever functionality the various device manufacturers are prepared to expose, but its just another tool that might be the right solution for some jobs).

I'm lucky in that I'm an IT guy so for these home automation tasks, all I really need to do is to get the data into my network somehow, then I can control the rest. So my weakness there is at the sensing end of the line - getting the data. That's why I think Arduino / Raspberry Pi is going to fill that hole for me - at least to learn how to do it, not necessarily be the implemented solution, but I'm hoping to learn how to build those missing bits.

Also I'm realistic enough to know that I'm not going to be able to automate everything, some things you just have to stick with the traditional way of doing, and I'm OK with that. This is about picking the low hanging fruit and having some fun along the way - I do love a good tinker !!

Glad to know you're following along - pressure's on me now to make this happen - lol !!!

Sal

setsailsoon said:

Sal.

I couldn't agree more. I'm not really anti the great manufacturers I really am thankful they compete so much to one up each other with better and better equipment. I just wish there was a standard protocol for control instead of each manufacturer using slightly different protocols to make it hard to switch. Seems like a universal protocol for pool control is much needed but none of the manufacturers are incentivized to do this nor adopt it.

I'm taking a slightly different approach because eventually I want to have full control via wifi. I'm starting with a couple of projects in sequence that I hope will get me there. First, I just want to open and close a valve and valve position indicated on a phone via wifi. Then I will try to fully automate my Circupool SWG. After that I think I'll be able to replace the board of my iAqalink with the esp 32 and use any equipment I want with anything else. I've think I've figured out the first step on the esp 32 and just need to finish the bread board and test it. A disadvantage I have is that I'm not an IT type so learning to code is challenging. I learned Basic and FORTRAN 40 years ago so that helps a little, but not much. Right now I'm also playing with opto couplers to emulate button presses which is turning out to be pretty easy, but I'm still trying to find the best way to get display back to my app from the device. There's a great You Tube video here that explains the opto coupler on the esp8266 (one generation earlier of the esp32). I'll post as I make progress.

Chris

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Good stuff Chris, sounds like you're well on your way to getting this going.
The beauty of doing it this way is exactly what you've just stated - we can each go our own way and achieve a different set of goals using the same approach. Its very much horses for courses.

My big gripe with the IT industry is that while a lot of people say they believe in this approach, the sad reality is that very few actually do. At the end of the day IT companies are a bit like pool shops. They want you coming back again with a new problem for them to solve !!

BTW the approach to coding hasn't changed much at all in 40 years so your principles you learned in Fortran and BASIC will still be relevant. (I just started a new job and I have to pick up FORTRAN now - I haven't touched it since University many many many years ago !!!)

If you haven't already, check out the Sphero robots (www.sphero.com). They are a fun way to learn coding and their approach is very well thought out. My partner is using one to learn how to code (I may be helping her a little bit too!!)

dunginhawk said:

All routed through a smart things hub. If all you want is a temperature sensor, even the normal motion sensor for smart things has temp readings in it. Water proof it easy enough and bingo.

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Smartthings is on my list of technologies I need to explore. I bumped into it following one of the links Jon posted earlier in this thread. It does look pretty simple.
And I'm already on board with IFTTT, great to see you've had so much success with it as well.

jonpcar said:

Sal, the Photon is an arduino-like component that is supported with firmware/cloud functions that make it easy to interface with it, at least for someone who knows what they are doing like my son-in-law. The photon is probably overkill for a floating temp sensor but there are some using it for that purpose.

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Thanks Jon, I did see your mention of the Photon earlier and plan to have a look at it. It looks to be much smaller than my Arduino board and could be a good fit since I have a space requirement with the floating canister.

While it is true that my *initial* goal is just pool temp, I'm sure that will be the tip of the iceberg. I can already see pH reading as an incremental improvement so that's probably next. I'm sure over time this will become bigger than Texas, but I'm just trying baby steps for now !!