Continuation of an odyssey

[Rattus Suffocatus]

Well, as crazy as it sounds, the F007TP probes are only $17 each ($10 in quantity 2-8)... so if you have the other stuff laying around.... I decided to buy the floater and display and that was most of the cost....

 

[markayash]

I have been going crazy testing my salt levels, was 3800 and then went to 2800 so I added more salt..Then this week was reading 2400.
Thinking I had to be doing something wrong I found this video and it seemed to work..Now my salt is 4100

 

[Rattus Suffocatus]

Is the Edge happy with it? Mine sure seemed to bounce around and take a long time to mix. If it's 4100 and the unit seems happy I would do nothing. My readout is 3400 now and I am guessing that the actual is 3500 based on the Taylor test not quite changing at 3400 but almost being brown at 3600...

So I am leaving it until we have a monsoon washout. Probably you should do the same as long as the cell is generating.

And yeah.. That is almost exactly how I do the test...

 

[markayash]

yeah it's happy, but before I was swirling and getting readings of 2600 and as about to go by more salt! Doesn't seem to like shaking

My chlorine has dropped so eitehr fighting algae or the water has warmed up. I set to super shock mode for 24 hours.

 

[Rattus Suffocatus]

Mine was reading 3600 this morning after reading 3000 two days ago. I think I won't worry about it. 14 hrs 52% is just about right FC was stable at a high 10.5.

It's off today until I get it to about six. Then I think I am done.

 

[Rattus Suffocatus]

I continue to have to turn down the SWCG. I am at 45% now running 14 hours a day and it is still creeping up. At 35% and I turned it off for a bit. The thing is a beast. pH finally crept up and I had to add acid. Got my new toys yesterday and finally got them to work. The pictured display is touchy but works. Not bad and I should eventually be able to whip up a computer interface for it.


Hot Tub temperature.


Hot Tub sensor

Floater thermometer with the displays kit...

The other display is fancier and I am thinking I might eventually stick a probe in the autofill and do away with the floater, but it was less expensive this way.

 

[mguzzy]

How does the quality look.. do you think it will last more than a season or two? How far apart are the floaters and your receivers in the house?

 

[Rattus Suffocatus]

I have an incompatible Ambient Weather station up (Weather Underground KAZVAIL71) that has been running two and a half years now and it is ok. The floater is probably going to be like any other ($30 to replace) but the probe sensors (less than $15/ea in quantity) should last for a few years as will the displays. The protocol is known and there is two different ways of receiving the sensors on Raspberry Pi. What makes these incompatible is that they are 433 MHz and my weather station is 915, but that is fine with me. They support up to eight sensors, too. I might get a few more for the chest freezer, beer fridge, etc.

I will add a picture of the other display later, but it was $75 shipped (including expensive AZ sales tax) for the floater, two displays and two probe type temperature sensors. They also have a temperature humidity sensor available for the bigger display. It should work with the little one too but it won't display humidity then on that display.

Typical Chinese stuff but it works well enough for the price.

Ch 3 is the outside temperature. Ch 1 on the bottom is pool temperature. This is the second display unit.

 

[Rattus Suffocatus]

The current range of the floater is probably 30 ft to the kitchen unit and maybe 50 feet to the bedroom unit. The other two probe sensors are half that distance. One hundred percent. The small night light plug in needs to be on its own outlet away from other wall warts or it really loses sensitivity. The stated range is three hundred feet, and my weather station is working at over 100 feet. The lower frequency units should even have better range.Current pool temperature.

 

[proavia]

Fred - is there a particular reason you are running the pump 14 hours a day?

I am guessing a few hours a day for the infloor on high and the rest of the time at a lower rpm (enough to activate the flow switch on the SWG. If you don't need the skimming you may be able to cut the pump runtime back also.

 

[Rattus Suffocatus]

Yeah. I might back it down to twelve. A couple of hours early in the morning on high for the floor system. After that I would like to run the SWCG during sunlight. But yeah. I have it running at half speed (200W draw) for most of that time. The setup guy really had it just a little too shy for my liking on filtering the water. So I figured that at 14 hours that at 60% I would make enough chlorine. Probably because I cover almost 100% when not in use now, that I don't burn as much FC as average here... So much less seems to be thd actual answer here...

I will figure it out in the next few days. My intellectually disabled boy has a thing about even the occasional bug in the water as well, so I want some skimming when we swim as well because of that.

 

[proavia]

Well that makes perfect sense. I'm not a fan of bugs in the pool either.

Yeah, with the cover on it won't burn through much chlorine. Of course, as it gets warmer here in AZ (hotter for non-AZ residents) this coming week, you just may need to leave the cover off more. I saw a forecast for near 110* Thursday and Friday by me.

 

[markayash]

Send some warm weather to Ga, my water is still 68. Wondering if my SWG will work better when the water warms up

 

[Rattus Suffocatus]

Well that makes perfect sense. I'm not a fan of bugs in the pool either.

Yeah, with the cover on it won't burn through much chlorine. Of course, as it gets warmer here in AZ (hotter for non-AZ residents) this coming week, you just may need to leave the cover off more. I saw a forecast for near 110* Thursday and Friday by me.

It's pretty sad how fast you get used to the warmer climate. I look back to Iowa and see a high of 56°F with Tornado Warnings and storms at Memorial Day weekend and I wonder how I did it for 48 years. (20 in Iowa but surrounding states for the rest).

Having used to swim once the water hit 75°F and been happy there, the current 84°F is still a little nippy, to be honest, especially if there is a breeze. It's windy today and no one is running to the pool. I will be happier once we get to 86+°F pool water...

I am at 3300' so I probably run six to seven degrees cooler than you in Chandler year around, but still 102°F is still pretty warm!

 

[vjc103]

The current range of the floater is probably 30 ft to the kitchen unit and maybe 50 feet to the bedroom unit.

Hi,
When you mentioned that the range from the floating thermometer to your display unit is 30', did you mean the distance ? Or that the signal can reach your display unit reliably at 30 ' only ?

I am thinking about placing either a floater or the cheaper unit you mentioned inside the skimmer, but not sure whether there is enough room for either or whether the distance (about 40') from the skimmer to an rpi would not be too far for the signal to arrive reliably. My house has concrete walls.

 

[mguzzy]

If your house has concrete walls and the skimmer has concrete walls.. I bet you will have a lot of signal attenuation.

 

[vjc103]

If your house has concrete walls and the skimmer has concrete walls.. I bet you will have a lot of signal attenuation.

Maybe, maybe not. I have a zigbee thermometer in the garage with CBS walls and the receiver is in the house with CBS walls about the same distance (40') as the skimmer. I can successfully receive packets although RSSI is pretty low (-80/-85). So, if can receive at this distance with 2.4GHz I probably should be able to receive even better with 433MHz.

 

[Rattus Suffocatus]

Hi,
When you mentioned that the range from the floating thermometer to your display unit is 30', did you mean the distance ? Or that the signal can reach your display unit reliably at 30 ' only ?

I am thinking about placing either a floater or the cheaper unit you mentioned inside the skimmer, but not sure whether there is enough room for either or whether the distance (about 40') from the skimmer to an rpi would not be too far for the signal to arrive reliably. My house has concrete walls.

The 30 to 50' is actual distance as I have it set up. The floater has a non ideal antenna setup and is the weakest of the three sensors. The other two really probably are good for their 300' rating, and even the floater is probably OK at 100'. I am in Arizona, and we have a Faraday cage of chicken wire in the walls covered by thin concrete stucco. So it's bad here too.

It's about thirty to the kitchen downstairs display and fifty to the upstairs bedroom display.

I did not want to do the floater at all, honestly but if you go to buy the setup, it's less expensive to buy the kit with the floater with two displays than two displays and a sensor. I wanted the displays until I have time to futz around with the pi receiver and probably even beyond that.

You seem to know what you are doing... So I think you won't have too much problem making this work, especially if you are going to hack your own receiver.

 

[Rattus Suffocatus]

I am thinking about placing either a floater or the cheaper unit you mentioned inside the skimmer, but not sure whether there is enough room for either or whether the distance (about 40') from the skimmer to an rpi would not be too far for the signal to arrive reliably. My house has concrete walls.

By the way, the housing of the sensor itself isn't waterproof... It has a waterproof temperature probe with six feet of wire. I suspect that you could splice in more.... But I would not put the sender nor floater inside of the skimmer. The probe is okay as that is where I have it in the hot tub... But not the unit itself.

I might put a waterproof box nearby with the unit in it and hide the wire down in the paver cracks... But I think putting the probe in the autofill is better.

 

[vjc103]

By the way, the housing of the sensor itself isn't waterproof... It has a waterproof temperature probe with six feet of wire. I suspect that you could splice in more.... But I would not put the sender nor floater inside of the skimmer. The probe is okay as that is where I have it in the hot tub... But not the unit itself.

I might put a waterproof box nearby with the unit in it and hide the wire down in the paver cracks... But I think putting the probe in the autofill is better.

We do not have an autofill. For some reason I do not recall we opted out.

I can probably attach a PVC pipe to the skimmer lid and place the sensor inside the pipe in the manner this chap did:

Pool Level Sensor

Pool Level Sensor: A few years ago we moved into a house with a nice little pool. It's an old one, built some time in the '70s. I replaced the pumps and upgraded the pool controller but keeping the pool at the right level was, well, hit and miss. And with all the mone…

www.instructables.com

I was actually more interested in the level sensor, then a non-invasive flow sensor and the temperature sensor being the least interesting in my specific case, but the last is the easiest to deploy( no power issues, comm frequency is good, the rpi receiver is cheap and reliable). Unfortunately, some parts used for the level sensor above are not available anymore. I could have used different ones, but it seems too much trouble with the limited time I can spend on a project like that.

For a level sensor, one can use a simple float switch, but the only place to place the sensor that's esthetically acceptable to all parties is the skimmer niche which complicates the project beyond its utility at least for now.