jstarne1
Ez Robot community I wanted to introduce my latest application of this system. Some members hear already know I keep two salt water aquariums one coral which unfortunately died off and my predator tank. Sea life needs delicate balance maintained in their little ecosystem. Things like light spectrum , temperature, ph balance , current of water , nitrate and ammonia levels and calcium levels. These things take a practiced hand to maintain. I am building a new system and using ez b to monitor salinity, nitrates and ammonia, temp , water current flow and the ph. The ADC ports are useful for these and EZ board can control the current and switching to a backup power supply ( a apc for computers inside the cabinet to keep ezb and pumps powered). Also the ezb can turn on and off night , morning , day , and evening lighting settings. With a custom injection device im designing ezb can provide nutrients , calcium and even medicine if levels are out of wack. I started the build today and I am very excited!
i made a new post for others about the bad problems of using transistors Make shore you add a diode across the coil contacts or the transistor will be fried from inductive kickbacks IN4002 0R IN4007 TYPE
Idea on rackmount frame looks good,may use one of mine for that,depends if it fits inside my cabinet with my saltwater stuff,plus filters and cleaning stuff. i look at making my setup real nice looking ,notthing on the outside ,like a piece of furniture
Tiny update- ok the EZ Board is now mounted and insulated from the steel case. I put it right in front of the vent and hopefully Bluetooth will still make it directly above on the second floor where the host pc is. I installed 4 fans but im still kicking around the idea of a single 120mm fan pulling air from the center. I will see if I can tolerate the 40mm fan noise when its inside the case.
I see you love using a lot of fans in your robots and designs.so far i never found a need for them IF you work out the power dispatching ,where is very little or no heat is produce
Fans add to the longevity of electronics. Heat even in smaller amounts reduces the working life. Considering this is going inside a cabinet which is probably about 82 -86 degrees I feel that its needed. The cabinet is about the same temp as the water flowing through the refugium.
not really,but if going in cabinet you may need it look at TV'S they dont need it and other electronics pulling high current and wattage way i work it out is get a good temperature probe and measure the temperature,most transistors will take high heat without thermal breakdown and mosfets are even more,most can easy handle 85 deg OR MORE ,,check the data sheet on them ,plus with a heatsink even more ,like almost 100deg without going bad (thermal runaway)
Another tiny update for today...
I have been trimming back wires and tommorow this will be even cleaner..
This is the switching transistor board. Tommorow I will pick up 1k resistors and diodes to complete the circuits. These are for triggering the relays.
Here is the circuit for triggering the coil on the relays
To divide up the 12v pos and ground and the 5v pos and ground im using a barrier strip. This makes changing and adding additional 12v or 5v connections easy.After 5 days without the uv light you can see the red algae on the rocks. Im glad that the maroon clows treatment is over so I could turn things back on.
I cant wait for my first thunderstorm....