Water quality monitor

[Fodder1]

Hi Guys,

I have some simple questions, i have been reading the posts here and came across one that really sparked my interest. It was about attaching a PH probe to the IO-Bridge. After bit of discussion it was possible.
That's great, but what i have not been able to find is how many devices can be hooked up to the IO-Bridge at one time?

this is what i want.

• 2 or 3 temp probes
• PH Probe
• Salinity Probe
• ORP Probe
• Disolved Oxygen Probe
• 3 x water level switches
• current probes hooked around one wire on the Pump lead (to know that its running)
• possibly some relays switching some high current relays for said motors
• Serial LCD for display
• buzzer for warnings etc.

The probes should not be a problem as they all just give a voltage according to the amount of what they measure.

But could all these components be controlled/measured/logged  by one IO-Bridge.

And no this is not for a fish tank, i would use a Profilux controller for that ($900 - $1500 AU for that feature list) i have another project that could benefit from this setup.

Also reading another post I could probably interface the XBee modules to make the sensors wireless

thanks for your time.
Chris
 

[whitehexagon]

I think the answer is yes, but you'd need something like an Arduino attached via serial to have that many data feeds into a single iobridge module.  That's going to require some programming on your side for the arduino, and something on the other side listening to the serial messages, but maybe that's the way you want to go anyway if you plan some XBee integration.  You might also in that case have a look at 1wire devices and the 1wire library for arduino.  That lets you string a whole bunch of all kinds of sensors along a single bus, each with it's own unique address.

Otherwise the simple approach (what I did) is just buy more than 1 iobridge module.  Each module has 4 ports, each of which has analoge in, digital in and digital out.  So depending on which smart boards you connect you might get 8 useful inputs, but if you are looking to log each of the inputs, I think the current limit is 4 logs per module. ie 4 useful inputs per module.  From the list it sounds like you might be able to do all this with 2 modules, but I'll leave that to the experts.

[Fodder1]

Mr Hexigon,

Thanks for taking the time to reply!

Ok, each IO-Module has 4 usable logs. Exellent.
Right if i can ask in your setup are to two io-bridges connected in some way? Do you  have is there a way that they are interconneced?
The reason i ask is the LCD and buzzer, and getting them to react to the sensors on the other i0-bridge?

I really have no idea how this gear works and if it can even do what i want.

IE
on io-brdige 1 there is a ph sensor, temp & float sensor
on io-bridge 2 there is power sensor, float, disolved oxygen & ORP sensors
on io-bridge 3 Power sensor, serail lcd and buzzer

can the io-bridge 3 react to the temp sensor going over a set temp and then display it on the lcd and the buzzer go off?

the idea i have is for people that will (mostly) only have the ablitiy to wire it up and follow the instructions to get the widgets part working. And to be honest that is probably me as well, to some extent. I have no experiance in programing in any language but i am in IT, hardware and customer service mainly.

thanks for your time.

Also having more than one IO-Bridge is actually a good thing for this idea as long as the others can react to one going missing........ (at least in some way.)

[whitehexagon]

My 2 ioBridge modules are installed quite independently, apart from sharing a switch at some point in the network.  But I have a bunch of Actions that make them appear connected, so all of my readings end up on a single LCD connected to a digital output on one of the modules.  To do this I have an Action against each sensor that writes to a specific XY on the LCD.  You might find this a bit imperfect if the length of the value changes much, eg 0c becomes -10c is 2 characters more or less on the LCD, which might leave some garbage depending how you set things up.  Here's a look at my setup:

http://www.iobridge.net/forum/index.php/topic,518.0.html

If you are checking for limit conditions you might also be interested in Actions that send emails.

Regarding 'missing' modules, they are very good at reconnecting in case of network or power outages and have some fail safe settings.  I haven't got much experience with that though since my 2 modules seem very stable and only go down when I unplug them

My advice would be to just have a go, the community here is pretty helpful if a bit quiet at times.  Blame the ease of setting up these things on that

[rlw]

I have what sounds like a similar environment that I am trying to monitor.  Do you have any recommendations on sensors, particularly the DO sensor?  Any comments on calibrating the DO sensor?