Coding a dosing pump timeout?

[kirkwood]

I want to code a timeout on my dosing pump ports similar to what the standard function is on the ATO code. I already have the run times set up for the ports, but basically if I manually turn on my dosing port, I don't want it to run for more than 20 minutes. I thought of this the other day when I manually turned on my ALK and forgot about it for 30 minutes. Luckily it was no problem, but I see a potential for accidental overdosing.

Thanks.

[lnevo]

Kirkwood. If you get the logging stuff worked on we can add that based on the runtime that we are tracking. Lets tackle that in the other thread once we get the logging confirmed properly.

[kirkwood]

Kirkwood. If you get the logging stuff worked on we can add that based on the runtime that we are tracking. Lets tackle that in the other thread once we get the logging confirmed properly.

OK, sounds good. I usually just fire these ideas onto the board before I have time to forget them. I appreciate all your help.

I just removed my JBJ ATO yesterday and installed the RA float switches. That gave me another great idea directly in line with the dosing pump runtime logging.

I want to set up another custom field to track the run time of my ATO Pump (Aqualifter). I use a 5 gallon Top-Off Reservoir and I could time how long the pump has to run to empty the container. Then I can track the run time of the pump in a custom field so that I will know when the Top-off Reservoir is almost empty. From there I could set up an email alert to my neighbor who is watching the tank when I'm out of town to come and refill the Top-Off Reservoir.

[lnevo]

You mean like this

ato.jpg

Yes, definitely doable. I have a running 6 hour log that I track in memory of the water level in my reservoir and with that I calculate the rate of of usage. From there I can calculate how long my ATO reservoir will last

I have an alert setup, but currently it's based on the usage rate, which has been varying a lot.. I have to come up with a better way to track the result, because I was sending an alert if it dropped too low and it was going to that level a lot more than I expected...

But the timeout for the dosing pump will be easy once I know your tracking the seconds properly.

The bigger question is what do you want it to do? I can mask off the relay so that it doesn't run during the normal schedule. Would you want to reset it at midnight? Wait for manual intervention?

Here's another option. I added a patch to the libraries for locking ports and making sure they don't get masked accidentally through portal or apps. This way the scenario you describe never happens. Basically it sets the pump to always follow the programmed schedule and not allow manual on/off.

[kirkwood]

I don't know what "masking" is, but I like to have manual on/off on my dosing pumps. My dosing pumps are off on water change mode, so if I do an extended 1-2 hours of tank maintenance then I would want to run my pumps manually to catch up on the missing dose. Or if I do a water test and see that my CAL is a bit lower than I like then maybe I would want to run my CAL for 20 minutes or so to give a larger dosage that day. I just want to make sure that if I forget I turned it on manually, that it won't just dose permanently.

As for the ATO - it would be easy for me to calculate how many minutes the aqualifter has to run in order to pump 5 gallons of water. With that information, we could create a custom field that tracks minutes and seconds the same way you have been working on my dosing pump code. So if it takes 30 minutes of run time for the aqualifter to pump 5 gallons of water I would want an email alert sent to me when the custom field hits 25 minutes. Does that make sense? Then the custom field could reset itself every time it hits 30 minutes or maybe there could be a way for me to reset it manually.

[lnevo]

Do you have the iphone or android app? Masking is when you turn the relays on and off from the app and you get the blue or green dot next to the relay. That indicates that the port is "masked" and not doing what it was programmed to do.

It's like on the portal when you look at the relays and you have Auto / On / Off. On and Off mode use the masks to turn the ports on but the "programmed" state is still there. If that makes sense.

So my recommendation if your dosing time gets exceeded then it would mask off the port and set a variable for you to set an alarm. Then you could disable the mask when you are ready to continue dosing again (by setting the relay back to auto on the portal or turning off the blue/green dot on the phone app)

For the ATO, yeah the tracking code is the same, and I would actually use the same functions to track the minutes and seconds of the ATO ports. The only thing we'd have to do is adjust when the value gets reset which wouldn't be tough.

I'd have to think about ways you could reset the counter. Maybe if you turn off your ATO pump from the phone when you get the alert, then we could reset it when you reactivate it after you get confirmation from your neighbor? How does that sound?

[kirkwood]

Do you have the iphone or android app? Masking is when you turn the relays on and off from the app and you get the blue or green dot next to the relay. That indicates that the port is "masked" and not doing what it was programmed to do.

So my recommendation if your dosing time gets exceeded then it would mask off the port and set a variable for you to set an alarm. Then you could disable the mask when you are ready to continue dosing again (by setting the relay back to auto on the portal or turning off the blue/green dot on the phone app)

For the ATO, yeah the tracking code is the same, and I would actually use the same functions to track the minutes and seconds of the ATO ports. The only thing we'd have to do is adjust when the value gets reset which wouldn't be tough.

I'd have to think about ways you could reset the counter. Maybe if you turn off your ATO pump from the phone when you get the alert, then we could reset it when you reactivate it after you get confirmation from your neighbor? How does that sound?

Yes I live on the droid App... Now the masking makes perfect sense...

Sounds good.

S

[lnevo]

Ok kirkwood...

In the other thread I added the tracking for the ATO port and will clear the ATO counter when the port is masked off and then cleared. So you should be able to test that part...

Once we know this is working good, we can add the functionality to set your time limits and disabling the ports...