TIME TO STEP UP TO A BETTER TESTER March 21, 2021
Posted by rik94566 in aquaponic systems, aquaponics, Controlled Environment Agriculture, DIY aquaponics, general, Internet-of-Farming, IoT aquaponics, pH, rik kretzinger, rik.diy.IOT, rik94566.Tags: aquaponics, Bluelab, pH, rik-dyi-IOT, rik94566, tester
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For about 3 years I have been using a cheap pH tester. The main reason for using cheap units has been that I did not know the type and configuration that I wanted to purchase for the main unit that I would be using for many years to come. After the purchase of another testing probe made by Bluelab I started researching the pH options the Bluelab offered. As I found many different units that could be purchased for this purpose. So after some time and reading many reviews I selected the pH-PEN. Life has gotten much simpler with this purchase. More expensive YES – but I now save so much time as the calibration holds for a month and is very accurate every time I use the unit. So happy I selected this unit of very high quality and perfect for all my needs. I purchased the unit from Amazon.
DS18B20 – Resistor Module – parts defined November 4, 2019
Posted by rik94566 in 1-wire, agponics.com, aquaponic devices, aquaponics electronics, auqaponics automation, DIY aquaponics, DS18B20, ds18b20, Electronic Componets, indoor aquaponics, internet of farming, Internet-of-Farming, IoT aquaponics, One-wire, rik kretzinger, rik.diy.IOT, rik94566.Tags: aquaponic automation, aquaponic devices, aquaponic electronics, aquaponic sensors, aquaponics, DS18B20, DS18B20 aquaponics, ds18b20 water proof, Internet-of-Farming, rik, rik-dyi-IOT, rik94566, sensors
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Working with the resistor module is making things much easier and a lot less work on my part. I am liking what I am seeing from a development standpoint and can see a real time savings that will deliver consistent results. First step is understanding what is found on the board and which end goes with which connection.
Been looking for a better way – DS18B20 October 15, 2019
Posted by rik94566 in 1-wire, agponics.com, aquaponic devices, aquaponics electronics, arduino, auqaponics automation, Balcony aquaponics, Balcony Garden, Controlled Environment Agriculture, DIY aquaponics, DS18B20, ds18b20, Electronic Componets, internet of farming, Internet-of-Farming, IoT aquaponics, rik kretzinger, rik.diy.IOT, rik94566, sensor, Stainless Steel Temp Probe, Temperature Probe.Tags: agponics, aquaponics, DIY aquaponics, DS18B20, DS18B20 aquaponics, Internet-of-Farming, rik, rik94566, sensor
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I was doing some research on a totally different subject and this popped up.
Why this one?
Well easy answer – I have been making my own 4.7 pull-up resistor connectors for sometime now. Problem for me is that they take a lot of time and are very bulky and hard to work with. For a little more cost a dollar or so I get a board that will allow easy connections to many (so I think) DS18B20 sensors using one resistor. The order came and now I can start testing my idea. Having a solution this turn key will save a lot of time and perform better, time will tell now.
I will be posting how the testing goes and what will be needed to get top performance out of this module.
Miniature Test Leads – which ones work best for my projects July 20, 2019
Posted by rik94566 in adafruit, agponics.com, aquaponic automation, aquaponic systems, DIY aquaponics, indoor aquaponics, Instructables, internet of farming, Internet-of-Farming, IoT aquaponics, rik kretzinger, rik.diy.IOT, rik94566.Tags: aquapnic devices, aquaponic system parts, aquaponics, DIY aquaponics, Internet-of-Farming, jameco electronics, rik, rik94566, sensor
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I wanted to move away from alligator clips because they were much large when working with small gauge wire. They did not work for me in very small areas. So was looking for a better solution. Found this miniature test leads at Jameco Electronics when I was picking up an order, they were a good solution for me.
When first using these miniature test leads they worked very well. But after a little time using these leads and problems surfaced. The problem was that they were cheaply made. The connection of the wire and the metal insert probe would break off without much stress placed on them. One or two is understandable, but 5 out of 10 was not the experience I was looking for.
When doing a search for a new product on the Adafruit site I found these test leads
These leads are a little larger than the Jameco test leads, but still were small enough for my use. Construction and connections were of high quality and work perfectly and held up with repeated use. So these are my new go to test leads for my development efforts. They will be seen in a number of up coming Instructables that I am working on and all my testing of sensors and connectors.
WATER LEVEL INDICATOR – AQUAPONICS quest for a useful one September 13, 2018
Posted by rik94566 in adafruit, aquaponic automation, aquaponics, Balcony Garden, DIY aquaponics, Instructables, internet of farming, IoT aquaponics, rik kretzinger, rik94566, sensor, Uncategorized.Tags: aquaponics, DIY aquaponics, rik, ultrasonic sensor
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THE PROBLEM IN AQUAPONICS for me —
Up to this point I have wanted to have a simple, but effective water level indicator sensor for the water level in the Balcony Garden fish tank component of the build – that works!
Aquaponic Sensor Set for Balcony Garden — see section on ultrasonic sensor
I spent a lot of time working with and trying to stabilize a ultrasonic solution.
First off these sensors are not waterproof ( the waterproof version is around $85.00 US Waterproof version). The non-waterproof versions run around $5.00 US. So this would seem the best way to go and work to make it work by using some waterproofing strategies. Hard to do when working in an aquaponic environment.
Next they are very hard to mount in a way that they can be useful to determining water level in a tank. There are a lot of instructables talking about this aspect for these sensors and even more youtube articles, but most if not all are just demos and breadboard applications. No real useful solutions that really can be implemented in a scalable way.
Final issue is that I have yet to be able to stabilize these sensors and have wasted a lot of time trying to get them to be reliable in a usable way.
SOLUTION – find a better method or be able to purchase one that actually gets the job done in a simple and affordable and scalable way.
Arduino IDE running on RPi using 5″ HDMI 800 X 480 display March 30, 2017
Posted by rik94566 in 800 X 480 display, adafruit, agponics.com, arduino, DIY aquaponics, Instructables, IoT aquaponics, Raspberry PI, rik kretzinger, rik94566, Uncategorized.Tags: 800X480 display, arduino, arduino IDE, rik, rik94566
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Since the problem with using a 5″ HDMI display was worked with the Raspberry Pi. A new problem developed that needed to be addressed. Running Arduino IDE on Raspberry Pi using the 5″ HDMI display at 800 X 480 resolution. The problem is that the Arduino IDE bleeds off the edges of the display (see picture below). The issue is that the Arduino IDE cannot be moved around to get access to the menu options. So there is no way to check libraries or setting to insure sketches are being up-loaded correctly. No new sketches can be opened either. Major pain.
After some research and a little time solving the Raspberry Pi – Jessie with Pixel display issue I found a solution that resolves this issue as well.
I wrote an Instructable to document what is needed, so check it out if this is a issue for you.
Window size issue with Arduino IDE and RPi
Here are the results:
800 X 480 – 5″ HDMI display – Jessie with Pixel – resolution issue – Raspberry Pi March 16, 2017
Posted by rik94566 in 800 X 480 display, adafruit, aquaponic automation, aquaponics electronics, Balcony Garden, DIY aquaponics, Electronic Componets, indoor aquaponics, Instructables, IoT aquaponics, Raspberry PI, rik kretzinger, rik94566.add a comment
This display was purchased to allow a graphical interface element to the automation effort of aquaponic systems. So I was very happy to find this display and it could easily be integrated into the overall design with a very small footprint.
ADAFRUIT is quite clear that that this 5″ HDMI display will not work without changes to the “config.txt” file to set-up for the different display size. In this case 800 X 480 resolution. The documentation to make these changes is very good and works as documented.
THAT IS UNTIL A NEW RELEASE OF RASPBERRY PI OS —
As always technology never stands still. Advances are made almost daily when it comes to Raspberry Pi and the OS is no exception. In late 2016 a new upgrade was rolled out called “JESSIE” with Pixel. There was a lot of buzz about this new upgrade and it does look and perform much better over all. Once you upgrade or update there is no going back.
The problem with the “JESSIE” upgrade is that now the solution provide by ADAFRUIT for the 5″ HDMI display no longer worked very well and was unusable as a display on the Balcony Gardens.
A fix was needed, but since “JESSIE” was so new no one was really aware of this resolution issue and the resolution issue was not even being talked about on ADAFRUIT site or in the Raspberry Pi forums.
After a lot of searching and months later a solution was found.
Long story so I will not go into details of the issue, but have documented it all in an Instructable that can be found here:
Instructable – 800 X 480 5″ HDMI display – resolution issue
HERE IS THE FIX AND LINK TO THE SOLUTION:
Actual changes needed in the “config.txt” file for use:
In the file /boot/config.txt add the following text to the end of the file:
#increase HDMI signal strength
config_hdmi_boost=4
#remove black borders
disable_overscan=1
#set specific CVT mode
hdmi_cvt 800 480 60 6 0 0 0
#set CVT as default
hdmi_group=2
hdmi_mode=87
dtoverlay=ads7846,cs=1,penirq=25,penirq_pull=2,speed=50000,keep_vref
_on=0,swapxy=0,pmax=255,xohms=150,xmin=200,xmax=3900,
ymin=200,ymax=3900
dtoverlay=w1-gpio-pullup,gpiopin=4,extpullup=1
Save the config file and then do this: (see note below about this one)
sudo apt -get install xinput-calibrator
I have not tried using the above install command, because I was able to gain the results I needed without it. I believe like Auvy that sometimes less is more!
HERE IS THE LINK TO THE SOLUTION AS SHOWN ABOVE:
AMAZON SOLUTION – 5″ HDMI display – JESSIE – Pixel – resolution issue
Technology is complicated — May 8, 2015
Posted by rik94566 in Controlled Environment Agriculture, DIY aquaponics, Electronic Componets, indoor aquaponics, IoT aquaponics, Temperature Probe.Tags: agponics, aquaponic automation, aquaponics, arduino, arduino sketch, automation, DIY aquaponics, indoors aquaponics, microcontroller, rik kretzinger, Temboo, YUN
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I say this because I will be displaying my aquaponic – IoT – Balcony Unit at Maker Faire next week in San Mateo. To accomplish the IoT part of the build I have to use technology that allows for internet communication thus IoT! Well there are many options available to accomplish this task – some not so easy and others not enough features to be effective for this project.
So my choice in this case is the Arduino YUN —
I made this choice because I had one (but had not used it as yet) and the fact that documentation on it is easy to find. The other fact is that Temboo www.temboo.com uses the YUN as one of its options for their solution to the Internet of Things and I am working with them on this open source project so many others will be able to get up and running in short order and have simpler options to add additional capability based on the persons needs and I will not have to supply the customer support for any aspect of the code other than give everyone a stating point.
WELL – that is where things got interesting.
Had to work through getting the YUN on the network of choice. Not a big deal but it took some time and many attempts to get it dialed in because the Arduino instructions tell you to go to arduino.local to find the individual unit. Well this only works about 60% of the time. So the solution is to use the IP address of 192.168.24.1 now I could configure the thing to my liking. Once configured it would not show up in the Arduino IDE at all. Major issue for me as I had no idea if the unit configured or not. I finally when on to my wireless router to see if the board was being recognized. Had to dig out all the USER ID and PASSWORD info and then work through all the menus to determine what in fact was connected to the router. There is was — YEA
Now I had to research out why it was not listed as a port option in my Arduino IDE. Well after some time and deep research I found that Arduino IDE only works some times for the YUN on wireless. So the uploading from Arudino IDE to the board is not an option as most of the YouTube videos demonstrate quite well. This becomes an issue because I found out that as configured the YUN does not have enough on board memory, so a SD card is needed.
Using an SD card with the YUN requires that the card be format using the YUN. To do that you need to know that the YUN is connected to the internet and working properly which is very hard to know if it is or not.
So once you know the YUN is connected and you have it connected through cable to your computer you need a file called ” YunDiskSpaceExpander” found on the Arduino site. Once uploaded you access it through the Serial Monitor of the Arduino IDE. If all goes well you answer a bunch of cryptic questions and bingo the thing kicks off. Once do you have a formated YUN SD enabled board.
Now I am ready for the real fun stuff to generate code to be used through Temboo so I will have “Streaming Data” and text messaging in short order – lets hope!
The good news in all of this is that I will be documenting all of this for the instructions to the Balcony unit for all to use and save anyone interested in building one or gets a kit from me that will be up and running in short order.
See you all at Maker Faire next Saturday if you make it there!
TOWER SYSTEM – set-up at Maker Faire 2014 May 22, 2014
Posted by rik94566 in adafruit, agponics.com, arduino, DIY aquaponics, DS18B20, Electronic Componets, indoor aquaponics, indoor gardens, indoor growing, Internet-of-Farming, IoT aquaponics, One-wire, Raspberry PI, Tower System, Tower Tubes.Tags: agponics, aquaponics, automation, Controlled Environment Agriculture, DIY aquaponics, indoor aquaponics, IoT, Maker Faire, microcontroller, rik kretzinger, sensor
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EDITOR’S CHOICE – not once – but 3 times @ Maker Faire – WOW May 21, 2014
Posted by rik94566 in agponics.com, aquaponic automation, aquaponics, aquaponics electronics, arduino, DIY aquaponics, indoor aquaponics, indoor gardens, indoor growing, Internet-of-Farming, IoT aquaponics, Raspberry PI, sensor, Tower System.Tags: aquaponic automation, aquaponics, automation, DIY aquaponics, indoor aquaponics, microcontroller, rik kretzinger
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Very few displays achieve 3 EDITOR CHOICE AWARDS —
Aquaponic DIY Automation Blog 