My reef control design

[doodle1800]

This is a design I've been thinking of doing for years and finally did it. This will be placed next to an aquarium in a dentist office. It has a touch screen and a programming logic controller (PLC) controlling the lights and water top off, along with monitoring the temperature, water level, PH, and in the process of developing salinity monitoring.
The touch screen is for the patients to interact with to learn about saltwater tanks, fish, etc.. and for manually controlling the lights and such if needed. It even has tests for the patients to take if they want - like how a skimmer works for instance..
here are some screen shots before it was stained and after...
let me know what you think!!

 

[doodle1800]

another pic - I'll take more and explain more if anyone is interested...

 

[coachklm]

very interested... wow... is that running off a separate controller? how does it monitor perameters? how...how... how
what screen? how much for you to build that for a wounded veteran(iraq sucks) with one hand (as touch screen and voice activated software is everything for me now) ?? holy **** thats cool let me know... kmox2002@yahoo.com

 

[jessica47421]

that is awsome.....tell us more

 

[dennis210]

I love the idea. Taking fhe stress out of a dental visit! Would love to see a sample of it!

 

[doodle1800]

thanks - I'll take more pics today as I maintain their tank every saturday. I put some nemo decals on it and some other saltwater fish on the sides. I'll take some screen shots too...
I'll answer tech questions later today....
thanks again for the comments, i really appreciate them..
hey beazlbob - you awake?

 

[bonita69]

Now this is way to cool

 

[doodle1800]

more pics - more tech explanation coming...

 

[natclanwy]

This is probably one of the coolest things I have seen. Just curious how much was the PLC? I was thinking about going this same route so that I could program it any way that I wanted instead of a pacage like the Reefkeeper or Aquacontroller.

 

[doodle1800]

Go to the automationdirect web site and price it. I've had this for a few years (the PLC, not the setup). You can choose a cheaper PLC, depends on what you want to do with it. They have new equipment, so it may be cheaper now. If you want to monitor for instance the temperature, you need an analog input card, a digital input / output card for water level monitoring, a relay card for controlling the lights or pumps. I like programmability of a PLC, fairly simple. You also need transducers to bring the readings into your PLC cards. The touch screen is the major cost of this contraption, I don't even want to say it.
So - I'm looking for a PC based system instead to make it more affordable. I need to research that way instead if I'm to make this for people making less than $5 million a year.

 

[natclanwy]

I am a system builder and did a little checking I can build a pc with a touch screen monitor for about $550 so this would be a much cheaper way to do this than using a PLC. The only thing I'm not sure about is the I/O card I found one that had 8 inputs and 8 outputs but they were all digital haven't ran across an analog I/O board for a pc yet but I'm sure there is one available.

 

[doodle1800]

you're right - I'm trying to decide what to do as far as PLC or PC.
I like ladder logic, easy for me.
Not sure which way to go - price wise its a no brainer.
Here's a analog input card.

 

[natclanwy]

I did run across some open source software for aquarium control. Not sure how powerful it is but if I run across it again I will post a link or at least the name.

 

[acrylic51]

Cool Beans!!!!!! There is a controller out there for your aquarium that does monitoring and all of the system with touch screens........It's amazing, but not cheap by any means.

 

[dennis210]

That dentist would have to wait when my name was called, between the tank and the controller I think I could procratinate even more while in his own office!