Robo-Tank Basic User Manual Download

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User Manual

(V4.05 Nov 2017)

*Major Update and Edited by Iain Bonnes

Summary of Contents for Basic

Page 1: ...User Manual V4 05 Nov 2017 Major Update and Edited by Iain Bonnes ...

Page 2: ...brating Temperature Sensors Water Air Light 18 Dosing Pumps 19 Changing Dose Amount and Manual Dosing 19 Calibrating Dosing Pumps and Reservoir Capacity 19 Scheduling the Dosing Pumps 20 Magnetic Stirrers 21 Custom Rules 22 Port Assignment Assigning Hardware Ports to Sensors Equipment 24 Flow Meters 25 Calibrating Flow meters 25 LED Light Control 26 Setting the LED Intensity for Each Daily Light M...

Page 3: ...g the AC Power Outlet Icons 38 Setting Custom Labels 39 Setting the Date and Time on the Controller 40 Setting up Local Weather Sync with OpenWeatherMap 41 Setting up the OpenWeatherMap API Key 41 Setting up the Local Weather on the Controller 44 Controller Alerts 45 Audio and Visual Alerts 45 Web Alerts 45 Automatic Top off ATO System 46 Setting up the Automatic Top off ATO System 46 Running the ...

Page 4: ...nchronizing the Display with the Controller 57 Restoring the Controller to Default Settings 58 Auto Dim Level Auto Dim after Last Touch 58 Internet Settings 59 Graphs Logs 60 Graph Features 60 Viewing Graphs Logs 60 Sensor Graphs 61 Equipment Log 61 Setting Up Robo Tank Email Alerts 62 Setting up a Free Email Account 62 Set Up Email Alerts on the Controller 64 The Web Page 66 Setting up Access to ...

Page 5: ...U Australian Chinese etc Introduction This manual covers all the software features in Robo Tank and how to use them Robo Tank has the features to control all the equipment on your freshwater or saltwater aquarium You can control 16 AC power outlets 16 channels for LED s using 12 bit resolution 8 dosing pumps 8 dosing pump stirrers 7 temperature sensors an automatic fish fisher basic Internet contr...

Page 6: ...luxe Version Basic Version 5V PWM Dimmable LED Channels 16 8 Dosing Pumps 8 4 Switchable AC Power Outlets 16 16 Temperature Humidity Sensors 7 7 Atlas Scientific Circuits 5 5 LED Channels for Cooling Fan 1 1 Automatic Top Off System ATO 1 1 Automatic Fish Feeder 1 1 Internet Connection 1 1 Digital and Analogue Sensors 5 0 Digital Powerheads Circulation Pumps 4 0 DC Accessories 4 0 Flow meters 4 0 ...

Page 7: ...adjust voltage to match using DC DC converter o Automatic or manual control of each pump mix and match o Set dose amount in milliliters for each pump o Set pump rate for each pump in milliseconds per milliliters this allows easy calibration for each pump o Set reservoir capacity for each pump o View total doses remaining with each reservoir on home screen o Reservoirs on display are colored inside...

Page 8: ... sensors o View sensor data from the internet phone or computer Works with PH ORP Dissolved Oxygen and Conductivity EZO Atlas Scientific Circuits 2 pH circuits can be connected o Calculate CO2 using pH and KH value KH value is manually set in UI o Optional low and high level audible visual alarm for each parameter all set within UI o Optional low and high level email alerts for each parameter o Ho...

Page 9: ...rameters Water Temperature Air Temperature Humidity Light Temperature Temperature One Humidity One Temperature Two Humidity Two Temperature Three Humidity Three Temperature Four Humidity Four CO2 pH pH Two ORP Dissolved Oxygen Saturation Conductivity TDS Salinity Specific Gravity o Log and view data for equipment and actions AC Outlets Dosing Pumps Lights Fish Feeder Controller Startup Set Light i...

Page 10: ...rightness based on ambient light conditions o Independent temperature control for 3 water heaters o Header status icons for ATO webpage open internet connection screen lock and controller connection o All settings stored in an eeprom so you never loss your settings o Smart startup routine resumes controller on power outages base on schedules and custom rules o Display all times in 24 hour or 12 ho...

Page 11: ...hen fish are fed o Receive email when dosing pump runs o Receive email when ATO starts and stops o Receive email showing all the current water parameters Local Audio Alerts o 22 different parameters are monitored o Set low level and high level alarms o Independent volume control for each parameter o The levels set for audio alerts are used for email alerts ...

Page 12: ...er will restart is if the time is changed Where Do I Connect It The following pictures show where the power sensors and probes are connected On the back of the controller you have left to right A green LED indicator power on Standard 12V DC 2 1mm center pin connection for the power transformer if you ordered an AC power bar there s a cable and jack on power supply to power up controller if you don...

Page 13: ...the Display and the 8 dosing pumps which use standard RJ45 connectors 4 pin Male Terminal Block Connector NOTE When you buy either the DIY kit or the preassembled kit you will be provided with 20 male 4 pin terminal block connectors to wire up your devices On the front going left to right top row Flowmeter 1 and Powerhead 1 and DC Accessory 1 Flowmeter 2 and Powerhead 2 and DC Accessory 2 Flowmete...

Page 14: ...o right top row LED Channels 9 12 LED Channels 13 16 Left to right bottom row 4 DC Grounds LED Channels 1 4 LED Channels 5 8 Pin Outs for Connecting Devices 4 Pin RJ45 Connectors Refer Wiring up Connectors for Equipment V2 RevB Start Up Screen This is the Splash screen you will see if you have the display connected when Robo Tank starts up Once you have configured Robo Tank it will continue to ope...

Page 15: ...to show the local weather forecast for the location you select Below that we have the current Feeding status where you can see the last time the fish were fed When a feed cycle is running the information changes to how much longer the fed lasts If you press the fish bowl you get the feeding screen where you can manually feed your fish see below This section can also be configured to show the 4 flo...

Page 16: ...tarily the controller resumes to the regular schedule for all the AC power outlet If a feed cycle is running the AC outlets can t be resumed until the feeding is complete If you press and hold the resume button for 1 second the controller will beep once and the lights will resume to the current schedule Finally if you press and hold the resume button for 5 seconds the controller will beep twice an...

Page 17: ... if there s no direct shortcut on the home page add them to the Home Dock the different screens available from the home page are Fish Feeding Status Flow Meters Data Manual AC power screen Full Local Weather Forecast Temporary Light Mode Turn Storm Mode On coming soon Access graphs and equipment logs All Parameter Values ATO settings Dosing Pump basic settings Simply press that box area and you wi...

Page 18: ...enu This is the main SETTINGS menu for all the options from the Home screen press Settings Lights Takes you to settings for the lights Weather Takes you to the weather settings Schedules Sub Menu for navigating the schedules Web Alerts Turn on off different alerts Audio Alerts Adjust different audio alerts Feeding Make changes to the feeding cycle Dosing Adjust your dosing settings Hardware Sub Me...

Page 19: ...cally save the changes unless a power outage occurs before the display returns to home page automatically All settings changed are implemented immediately From the Home screen press Settings Hardware and you will get the HARDWARE SETTINGS screen Heaters Adjust the heater settings Calibrate Temps Calibrate main temperature sensors Dosing Pumps Calibrate dosing pumps Powerheads coming soon Atlas Sci...

Page 20: ...l not be perfectly accurate out of the box and as such you will need to calibrate or compensate for the variation It is strongly advised that you do this as soon as you have added the sensor You can do this by using a standard spirit thermometer if you have a mercury one please dispose of it with your local hazardous waste facility and replace it with a spirit one as mercury is a neurotoxin The lo...

Page 21: ... maximum reservoir size is 2550ml All this is taken into account when you change your settings For example if you have the bottle capacity set to 2000ml but you wanted to dose 5ml that would be over the maximum amount of doses allowed per reservoir so to set 5ml you would have to adjust reservoir size to 1270ml or less Press NEXT bottom right to view pumps 5 8 Calibrating Dosing Pumps and Reservoi...

Page 22: ... dosing see Setting Custom Labels Pg 39 Here you can configure up to 10 schedules for this dosing pump A schedule can be set for any time of the day and day of the week to run Any day column that have an X verifies a schedule is set and will run at that given time on that given day If a schedule number has no X under any of the days that schedule is disabled and won t run at the time shown These s...

Page 23: ...ditional equipment controlled using these channels since most people DIY and the commercial light units don t use 16 channels for LED s When the stirrer is enabled on the DOSING PUMP SETTINGS screen the slider on the LIGHT MODES screen will be replaced with text saying Stirrer Enabled The stirrer will automatically start when the dosing schedule comes along or you do a manual dose it ll run for 30...

Page 24: ...all the custom rules setup and running At the top it ll tell you the total number of rules and the page you re viewing Currently 30 custom rules can be setup and running using 31 different parameters once the page is full an icon shows up on bottom right corner to change pages Column 1 shows the parameter and value to trigger the rule with a delete button Column 2 is AC outlets outlet number is un...

Page 25: ... so the dosing pumps don t run again no matter what the parameter reads until the timer has expired The timer can be set from 0 720 minutes 12 hours so it would never dose more than twice a day If a rule is setup using a dosing pump and the controller is restarted the dosing pump won t run until the sensor is flipped both ways You can also add an option to the AC outlets for better control these a...

Page 26: ...he controller which turns DC accessories on or off If Powerhead is selected the Ground pin is always turned on in effect becoming a regular ground pin The port has a 12v pin but you can easily use a 6v or 24v external power source if needed This pin is PWM so it ll also be able to change the speed of fans etc There s also a pin available on each port that can put out a digital or analog signal to ...

Page 27: ... press Settings Hardware Flow Meters and you will see the screen to the left FLOW METER SETTINGS On this page you can select the measurement type home page view and a calibration value for each flow meters You also see the current amount flowing so when you adjust things you don t need to leave the screen If you change the measurement type to gallons the labels and flow will update to match Calibr...

Page 28: ...dim allowing you to fine tune the lights at the lowest brightness Use the sliders to adjust the values for each channel the screen shows 8 channels to modify the other 8 channels press Ch 9 Ch 16 in the bottom right hand corner At the top left corner there s a button Test Modes if you press this the controller will cycle your 24hr cycle in 1 minute so you can see the effect Please note the transit...

Page 29: ... Lights and you get the LIGHT SCHEDULE screen where you can view the schedules for each of the 4 daily light modes You can see on the left that the lights come on at 11 00am and start transitioning from Night to Low Sun this means the controller slowly brightens from Night mode to Low Sun mode in this case it will take 1 hour and 30 minutes before the lights hit the intensity values selected for L...

Page 30: ...the time you want the transition to start and how long you want it to run On the left the transition starts at 7 45pm and runs for 1 hour and 15 minutes Schedules Sub Menu Screen From this screen you have access to set up schedules for lights power outlets dosing pumps the auto feeder and powerheads wave makers From the Home screen press Settings Schedules and you will get the SCHEDULES screen to ...

Page 31: ...ower will be turned on when a feed cyclehappensif it isn t already If theoutlet icon is gray it will turn off the outlet during the feed cycle You can also select how long the feed cycle will last In the image its set to 10 minutes After 10 minutes the AC outlets go to the regular schedule You have the option of using the auto feeder or manually feeding your fish Press the checkbox to enable or di...

Page 32: ...f the box is checked the fish will be feed that day at the set time for each feed Manual Feeding If you have the auto feeder enabled you don t need to do anything however if you feel like giving your fish an extra feeding you can press the Fish Bowl on the Home screen or shortcut on dock and you will see the FEEDING screen on the left If you press Auto Feed the feed cycle will run and your automat...

Page 33: ... plugged into which outlet Press any of the outlets on the first two rows and it will disappear next press one of the icons on the bottom row in green and the controller now knows what s plugged in For example if you had a heater plugged in outlet 2 as seen on the left the controller will turn the relay on off when the water temperature changes If you change the heater to outlet 6 that outlet will...

Page 34: ... of the week to run Any day column that has an X verifies a schedule is set and will run at that given time on that given day If a schedule number has no X under any of the days that schedule is disabled and won t run at the time shown These schedules don t need to be in order for example schedule 1 could be set to run a 4pm and schedule 2 could be set for 11am it won t make any difference To setu...

Page 35: ...r on the bottom corner of the icon on Home screen so you can easily see from there if anything is running in manual mode If an outlet is in manual mode it will never change unless you change it manually or resume auto mode To resume auto mode press Resume on the Home screen dock or webpage at the bottom of the screen All outlets that are in manual mode will then go back to auto and the M will disa...

Page 36: ...en Setting Up the Storm Mode From the Home screen press Settings Weather and you get the screen on the left This is where you adjust the storm effects In the middle column you can set the Length of Storm this is how long the actual lightning runs and doesn t include the time it takes to get to the lightning You can set a low and high number the controller will then randomly select a time between t...

Page 37: ... Storm Settings screen you get the screen on the left WEATHER SETTINGS Here you adjust how the lightning flashes and how long the cloud over and clear lasts In the first column we have Lightning Strike Intensity which allows you to adjust the brightness of the flashes The 1 2 3 and 4 are multipliers for the number 4 at 255 is the highest setting 1 at 0 is the lowest The controller randomly selects...

Page 38: ...ou get the sub menu on the left CUSTOMIZE CONTROLLER From here you can customize the controller to your liking Customizing the Home Screen Press Home Page and you get the CUSTOMIZE HOME PAGE screen this is where you customize the parameters you wantdisplayed on the Home screen On the left side of the screen you select check which water parameters you want to display have scroll on the Home screen ...

Page 39: ...ess Display on the screen above you get the CUSTOMIZE DISPLAY screen this is where you customize the Home screen The first setting is Return Home after Last Touch this tells the controller when to return back to the home screen after being left idle Next is Scroll Home Screen Parameters this setting tells the controller how often to scroll through the different water parameters at the bottom of th...

Page 40: ...ower Outlet Icons From the Home screen press Settings Customize Outlets and you get to the CUSTOMIZE OUTLETS screen where you can change the icon for each of the different outlets This is useful for navigating the controller you won t be confused as to what s what Press any of the outlets on the first two rows and it will disappear next press one of the icons on the bottom row in green and the con...

Page 41: ...ra temp3 custom name temp4 Temperature 4 n extra temp4 custom name humidity1 Humidity 1 n extra humidity1 custom name humidity2 Humidity 2 n extra humidity2 custom name humidity3 Humidity 3 n extra humidity3 custom name humidity4 Humidity 4 n extra humidity4 custom name dosing pumps dosingPump1 Conditioner n dosing pump1 custom name dosingPump2 Nitrogen n dosing pump2 custom name dosingPump3 Phosp...

Page 42: ...ou can do the same thing on any of the temperature and humidity sensors to customize its label and remove any confusion on the display In a future update with the addition of an on screen keyboard these will be able to be changed via the screen and you will no longer have to remove and manually edit the file on the SD card itself Setting the Date and Time on the Controller You can adjust the date ...

Page 43: ...penWeatherMap API Key To access to OpenWeatherMap s data you will need to remove the controller s SD card to edit a file sign up to OpenWeatherMap generate a Key which you will copy then edit a file on the controller s SD card weathAPI txt paste the Key you just copied into the correct location in the file and save Then put the SD card back into the controller and restart the controller 1 First st...

Page 44: ...ype in a username your email address and a password and click Create Account And a pop up screen will open see the image below 5 Select a Purpose for using the API from the list such as Education and then click Save no company name is required After clicking Save you ll go to the page below 6 Click the API keys tab as shown in the image above ...

Page 45: ...e image above to your clipboard 8 Now open the weathAPI txt file on the controller SD card this is located in the System folder and paste the Key you just copied above into the file in the location between the sign and the bracket as seen in the image below and save 9 Now insert the SD card back in the controller and restart the controller Now your controller will be able to access OpenWeatherMap ...

Page 46: ...raphic coordinates for your location press the latitude label the current latitude will disappear and you can enter in the new latitude part of the coordinates After you enter in the latitude press the save button and do the same with the longitude If you make a mistake entering in the new location you can press clear and start over After you set the location you should also adjust the UTC Offset ...

Page 47: ...itable level 0 off Adjust the Low Level and High Level alarm thresholds to a number that suits your setup The high level alarm must be higher or the same as the low level alarm When the alert is triggered the buzzer will start buzzing if the parameter goes over the high level threshold the readout on the display will turn red it ll turn blue if the parameter goes under the low level threshold At t...

Page 48: ...d every 5 seconds and the startup delay is bypassed Next is the Maximum ATO Run Time setting here you can adjust the maximum time the pump is allowed to run when the ATO starts up This is a malfunction feature which ensures no flooding occurs if the main and backup sensor fail If the pump runs longer than the Maximum ATO Run Time the pump will stop running and the ATO system will be disabled the A...

Page 49: ... controller only works with Atlas Scientific stamps circuits Sensor Parameters Screen From the home screen if you press Sensors you get a view of all the sensors and probes connected to the controller If you have the controller set to Celsius the temperatures are shown that way This screen updates every 5 seconds You can view the following parameters on this page Water Temperature Light Temperatur...

Page 50: ...necting Atlas Scientific Circuits V2 RevB Adding a Probe From the Home screen press Settings Hardware Atlas Scientific Probes here you re able to select and calibrate your probes When you add a probe you have to tell the controller it s available by enabling it here NOTE If you don t have for example a conductivity circuit be sure that circuit isn t enabled or any other circuits you don t have con...

Page 51: ...circuits are capable of doing a 1 2 or 3 point calibration with 3 being the most accurate Each calibration requires a different buffer solution A single point calibration uses the Mid Point buffer solution the 2 point uses Mid Point and Low Point buffer solutions and a 3 point calibration uses all 3 buffer solutions Mid Low then High The Oxidation reduction Potential ORP circuit is a single point ...

Page 52: ...ding improves with the use of each additional solution Low point High point Simply select which solution you re using on the screen above below the pH icons Select pH1 or PH2 in this case pH 1 was selected it takes you to the screen at left CALIBRATE PH Select the calibration method in this case we select 1 Point Calibration NOTE The Atlas pH circuit is set to a default temperature compensation of...

Page 53: ...nt or more you ll be taken to step 2 or 3 after pressing OK The screen will confirm the calibration solution you selected at the beginning Simply repeat the above steps using the other solutions until it tells you the calibration is complete For the 2 Point calibration you will need both the Mid point and the Low point solutions which you selected at the beginning For the 3 Point calibration you w...

Page 54: ...ORP only has 1 point calibration select and continue After selecting 1 Point Calibration you ll see the screen to the left CALIBRATE ORP It confirms this is a Single Point Calibration and the Target ORP value Below this are the instructions to calibrate the circuit Pour enough calibration solution into a clean glass beaker or jar rinse out with RO or distilled water to cover the end of the probe s...

Page 55: ...a Dry Calibration and only requires your probe to be dry and exposed to the air A 2 Point calibration does the same as a 1 Point but with the addition of a Low Oxygen Test Solution in this case a 0mg L solution for the second calibration Regular maintenance calibrations i e yearly are done just using the 1 Point or Dry Calibration Now select the calibration type you want to perform and you ll be t...

Page 56: ...hemically absorb oxygen once it is opened the test solution has been exposed to oxygen and will slowly stop working Inside each bottle of calibration solution is a small amount of nitrogen gas that helps to displace oxygen out of the bottle during the filling process When the DO probe is removed from the bottle Oxygen will enter the bottle and begin to dissolve into the solution In order to slow d...

Page 57: ...er cm Atlas solution 111 800 µS cm micro Siemens per cm 150 000 µS cm micro Siemens per cm Selecting Conductivity EC will take you to the screen at left CALIBRATE CONDUCTIVITY When you calibrate the Conductivity you should first clear the calibration data on the circuit this is only required if you were playing and didn t do a proper calibration but doesn t hurt to do it every time The Conductivit...

Page 58: ...ter pressing OK Repeat the above until it tells you the calibration is complete Remember always rinse your glass container with RO or distilled water before adding the solution and only pour out enough to just cover the probe tip and swirl the probe around to ensure full contact with the solution and to get rid of any trapped air Warning Message When Updating Calibration Data Once you press OK you...

Page 59: ...eft corner is used to sync the display with the power bar This is handy if you disconnected the display from the power bar and adjusted the settings When you sync the system all the settings in the display are sent to the power bar Synchronizing the Display with the Controller When you press Sync System on the screen above left you will get the SYNC SYSTEM screen at left where you can sync the dis...

Page 60: ...ou can also adjust the brightness of the display using the 3 different settings The Auto Dim Level top center decides how much to dim the controller based on your lighting conditions The setting is from 0 25 if its set to 0 the auto dim feature will be turned off if its set to 1 the display will go completely dark no matter the lighting conditions of the room The higher you set the number the less...

Page 61: ...les display it for you to note down remember memorize it and destroy never keep usernames and passwords written down unless stored in a Crypto Safe Generate User Pass will be removed in a future update when the on screen keyboard is introduced Alternatively you can set your own custom username and password in which case you will need to edit two files in the root directory on the controller s micr...

Page 62: ... frame being viewed To zoom in on a graph press the right side of the graph and to zoom out press the left side of the graph This is the only setting not saved to eeprom so once you restart the controller the view will be restored from where you started Currently same zoom level effect all graphs Data can be viewed based on day week bi weekly and monthly When you view monthly the date range at the...

Page 63: ...s 24hr format but displays according to settings and the action that was taken This will log all the major equipment such as the AC outlets dosing pumps lights auto feeder and ATO system Later I ll be adding the other equipment ports When an outlet is switched on off the log will report the outlet number with outlet type the time it happened and if it was turned on or off and if it was turned on m...

Page 64: ...viewing of how many pages for that day and you can switch between pages by pressing Previous Page Next Page To exit this screen press Exit at bottom right Setting Up Robo Tank Email Alerts Setting up a Free Email Account Using as an example the free plan available at SMTP2GO First create a new account at SMTP2GO Select the Free Plan Now check your email and activate your SMTP2GO account ...

Page 65: ...you won t need to remember this information When you finish setting up your login information you ll see the following page This is the dashboard for emails sent through the SMTP2GO system With the free account you are allowed up to 25 emails per hour or 1 000 emails per month Under regular use this is more than enough If you re testing the controller be sure you turn off your alerts so you don t ...

Page 66: ... the Controller Now you need to set up Robo Tank to use your account to send you alerts Browse the microSD card that s on the controller plugged into your w5100 Ethernet shield and you should see the following list of files a Open the file USER_smtp2go txt and add the username you used in step 3 save and close the file b Open the file PASS_smtp2go txt and add the password you used in step 3 save a...

Page 67: ...ow you can configure the controller to send the different alerts From the Home screen press Settings Web Alerts and you see the WEB ALERTS screen at left Here you can enable disable different alerts If the box is checked the alert is enabled To set the different values for when alerts are sent From the Home screen press Settings Audio Alerts ...

Page 68: ...sor data The 3rd column shows all the AC outlets and the current state you can press these buttons to turn an outlet on or off If you use the webpage to turn an outlet on off it ll go in Manual Mode and stay in that mode until you press Resume Auto Mode This will put all AC outlets back in auto mode At the bottom of the page you can view a webcam if you have an IP compatible camera This does requi...

Page 69: ...8800 is your Internet IP address the port number for your camera Justme is the login ID for your camera and fGj1K45sT is the password for your camera This will only work if you have your camera port forward on your router firewall so you can access it from outside your local network If you only want access within your local network change YOUR_IP_ADDRESS to the local IP address of your camera A fu...

Page 70: ... of flow metric mg L Milligrams per Liter 1 mg L 1 ppm parts per million ORP Oxidation Reduction Potential more correctly now known as Redox balance which is the balance of both Oxidation Reduction both proven to be essential for all life pH Potential Hydrogen a measure of the acidity or alkalinity of a solution ppm Parts per million SAL Salinity of water SAT Saturation Oxygen The percent saturati...

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