Which hardware to get for water monitoring/control?

[Toron Archibald]

Hi,

I'm just getting into home automation hardware and I believe CommandFusion is going to work for most (if not all) my intended uses. But I'm more familiar with software than hardware. I'm hoping to get some guidance on the first things I want to try and connect up.

I've got 2 "appliances".

1) A solenoid valve that will open/close to fill a series of water tanks. It has 2 x 24V 60Hz wires. I have yet to read the documentation for it, but I'm guessing one is power for the actuator, and the other is a control signal to open or close the valve itself. Or perhaps just power one opens, and power on the other closes. Either way. I want to be able to control opening/closing of this valve through software. From what I've read, I'm guessing I want the MOD-IO8 for this and configure one/two of them for external relay control output? Is that sensible?

2) A transducer that sits in the water tanks and can signal what percentage full the tanks are. I would like to monitor this level through software interface. The sensor takes input power of 12VDC 100mA max, and outputs a "variable frequency signal". I'm really not sure which product might fit this.. :/

Overall, I guess I'll need a LAN Bridge and IViewer to play around with these things on our network. So I was thinking one of the Pro Value Packs might be a good start. Sounds like the Mini Starter pack might do everything I've suggested above, but this is also just the beginning of a much larger home automation project, so perhaps a MOD4 pack is more suitable for future additions?

Any tips/pointers/advice would be greatly appreciated!

Cheers,

Toron

[Jarrod Bell]

1) I believe to control the solenoid valve, you will just need a relay. The CF Mini relays are rated at 30VDC 1A, which should be fine to trigger your solenoid open/close.
My understanding is that it depends on the solenoid type, but applying power will open or close the value, removing power will do the inverse. We would need to confirm with the exact specifications of the valve you are intended to use.

2) The variable output of the transducer will define if we can read it natively in the IO ports or not. If it is a variable voltage or variable resistance output, then it can be read natively (so long as it fits within the ranges of our input ports, as documented in our spec sheets and wiki). If it is a variable current output, then our IO ports will not be suitable directly. If you can link us to the spec sheet of the sensor, then we can offer more advise here.

LAN Bridge and CF Mini will be perfect to get started, and you can always expand with another CF Mini or MOD4 units further down the track. CFLink bus is very flexible in this manor.

Regards,

Jarrod Bell
CommandFusion
www.commandfusion.com

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "CommandFusion Hardware" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to commandfusion-har...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to commandfusi...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/commandfusion-hardware.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[Toron Archibald]

Hi Jarrod, thanks for the reply!

This is the link of the transducer level monitor. http://www.sjerhombus.com/ses-controls-level-monitoring-details.php?ID=106
Unfortunately, it just says 'variable frequency signal' as the output under tech specs. Couldn't find anything more detailed than that, but the input is 12VDC 100mA max, and the thing doesn't have it's own power supply, so I presume the output will be no more than the same amount of power returning.

Still working on figuring out what the exact model is for the solenoid valve, but I think you're right that its just a normally closed valve that requires power to open up, so a relay makes sense to me.

I'll probably order the CF mini pack to start me off as it sounds like that'll work for everything I've got so far.

I read something from someone in the UK that was paying a lot of import fees to bring in his hardware until he started dealing with your UK distributor. Don't know if that's a concern for me here in Canada, but just in case, do you guys have a Canadian or US distributor?

[Jarrod Bell]

US distributor, contact details are on our where to buy page:
http://commandfusion.com/buy#distributors - Bass Products (right at the bottom of the page).

Unfortunately it looks like your level sensor will require one of their control boxes as well.

Regards,

Jarrod Bell
CommandFusion
www.commandfusion.com

[Toron Archibald]

Hi Jarrod,

Sorry if this is a silly question, but why do I need a control box? And which control box? And does that mean it won't connect to any of the CommandFusion components?

I'm not yet tied to this particular level sensor, but if I go shopping for another one and/or other components I want to automate later I need to understand what will and won't work with CommandFusion.

I don't really understand what they mean by variable frequency output.. I didn't think DC power had a frequency at all.. Are they meaning they turn on/off power at a particular period to create a frequency? In which case, isn't that basically the same as variable resistance that you were talking about?

Sorry to ask so many questions.. Just trying to make some sense of all this. I very much appreciate your helping me out! :)

Cheers,

Toron

[Jarrod Bell]

The problem is the sensor is made to work with their control boxes. It's not meant to be used with other systems.
I'm sure some other systems can handle the data output, but without full specs of the output, then I can't see it being able to work with our input ports.
Variable Frequency could mean PWM signals, but I'm not sure. Our hardware does not support PWM input.

You should look for one that reports data via variable voltage (0-10V DC) or variable resistance (0-10,000 ohm) output.

Regards,

Jarrod Bell
CommandFusion
www.commandfusion.com

On 10/26/2014 6:32 PM, Toron Archibald wrote:

Hi Jarrod,

Sorry if this is a silly question, but why do I need a control box? And which control box? And does that mean it won't connect to any of the CommandFusion components?

I'm not yet tied to this particular level sensor, but if I go shopping for another one and/or other components I want to automate later I need to understand what will and won't work with CommandFusion.

I don't really understand what they mean by variable frequency output.. I didn't think DC power had a frequency at all.. Are they meaning they turn on/off power at a particular period to create a frequency? In which case, isn't that basically the same as variable resistance that you were talking about?

Sorry to ask so many questions.. Just trying to make some sense of all this. I very much appreciate your helping me out! :)

Cheers,

Toron

On Saturday, October 25, 2014 7:33:20 PM UTC-7, Jarrod Bell wrote:

US distributor, contact details are on our where to buy page:
http://commandfusion.com/buy#distributors - Bass Products (right at the bottom of the page).

Unfortunately it looks like your level sensor will require one of their control boxes as well.

Regards,

Jarrod Bell
CommandFusion
www.commandfusion.com

On 10/26/2014 7:23 AM, Toron Archibald wrote:

Hi Jarrod, thanks for the reply!

This is the link of the transducer level monitor. http://www.sjerhombus.com/ses-controls-level-monitoring-details.php?ID=106
Unfortunately, it just says 'variable frequency signal' as the output under tech specs. Couldn't find anything more detailed than that, but the input is 12VDC 100mA max, and the thing doesn't have it's own power supply, so I presume the output will be no more than the same amount of power returning.

Still working on figuring out what the exact model is for the solenoid valve, but I think you're right that its just a normally closed valve that requires power to open up, so a relay makes sense to me.

I'll probably order the CF mini pack to start me off as it sounds like that'll work for everything I've got so far.

I read something from someone in the UK that was paying a lot of import fees to bring in his hardware until he started dealing with your UK distributor. Don't know if that's a concern for me here in Canada, but just in case, do you guys have a Canadian or US distributor?

[Toron Archibald]

Hi Jarrod,

Ok that's good to know. Glad I started looking into all this before everything was installed and done.
I've started looking at other level monitor options.

I found one that was variable current but they said it could be converted to variable voltage using a 125 ohm resistor, 0.5-2.5 V (This: http://www.globalw.com/products/levelsensor.html) would that work?

I also found a few (like these: http://www.stevenswater.com/water_level_sensors/pressure_sensors.aspx) that have RS232 output. Am I right in thinking that would be ideal for CommandFusion? I gather RS232 is used for all communication between CommandFusion nodes already...

[Jarrod Bell]

RS232 ones would be perfect. Our CFLink bus is not RS232 (it's based on RS485), but most of our devices have a 232 port on board that you can use for external comms.
The LAN Bridge and CF Mini both have one you can use.

Regards,

Jarrod Bell
CommandFusion
www.commandfusion.com

[Toron Archibald]

Hi Jarrod,

Ok, sounds good. I'll try to get the RS232 type (have to get prices on the various types first).

Thanks again for all your help! I'm sure I'll have more questions later, but at least now I feel like I know what I need to get started! :)

Cheers,

Toron

[Toron Archibald]

Hi Jarrod,

How about variable amperage (4-20mA) output?

Still shopping for a new transducer.

Thanks!

Toron

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to commandfusion-hardware+unsub...@googlegroups.com.

[Jarrod Bell]

Our IO ports do not support reading variable amperage unfortunately.

Regards,

Jarrod Bell
CommandFusion
www.commandfusion.com

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to commandfusion-har...@googlegroups.com.

[Toron Archibald]

Ok, thanks for the quick reply! :)

Cheers,

Toron

You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the Google Groups "CommandFusion Hardware" group.
To unsubscribe from this topic, visit https://groups.google.com/d/topic/commandfusion-hardware/k1Mimb-Y280/unsubscribe.
To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to commandfusion-har...@googlegroups.com.