Need a better dosing command

[javajaws]

It seems to me that using dosing pumps with the Apex is unnecessarily difficult and error prone on behalf of the user. Why doesn't Neptune add a command specific for dosing?

Proper dosing is one of the major criteria in maintaining a reef aquarium and the margin for error is small. Using the OSC command augmented with IF statements is unnecessarily difficult IMO. If we could have a simple 1 line command to regulate a dosing pump this would I believe be a significant enhancement to the controller.

I was thinking about something similar to the following:

DOSE desired daily rate in ml/calibrarated rate in ml per minute/start time/end time/frequency

An example of using this might be:

DOSE 50/1.1/20:00/06:00/30 Then ON

This would dose a total of 50ml per day between the hours of 8:00pm and 6:00am at 30 minute intervals (divided into equal amounts).

Want to separate dosing of Alk and Cal so they don't dose at the same time (5 minutes apart in this example)?

Alk:
DOSE 50/1.1/20:00/06:00/30 Then ON
Cal:
DOSE 50/1.1/20:05/06:05/30 Then ON


Want to dose 24 hours a day once every 30 minutes?

DOSE 50/1.1/00:00/00:00/30 Then ON


This would make it SOOO much easier to read the program and modify at a later date. As we all know dosing rates change over time and making this easier to modify (and without error) 6 months down the road after you did the initial programming is important.


Thoughts?

 

[Deleted member 143833]

A dosing module is on the list of future enhancements; no more information is available at this time.

 

[swearint]

One of your parameters is redundant. If you specify the total dosage, the rate, the start time, and the frequency, then end time is unnecessary. Or if you specify start and stop time, assuming equal intervals, frequency is unnecessary.

Todd

 

[niko5]

The only problem with that is the motor on the doser would have to be controllable speed-wise which would make it really expensive.

I have 3 dosers and I just use of OSC command to make them come on and off throughout the day. As long as you know how many ML/HR your doser puts out you just have to figure out how long it needs to run to dose the required amount.

 

[javajaws]

The only problem with that is the motor on the doser would have to be controllable speed-wise which would make it really expensive.

Only if you wanted to guarantee that any set of numbers you put in were valid.

With a fixed speed pump there would be the assumption that your range of valid inputs would be limited (a reasonable assumption IMO).

 

[javajaws]

One of your parameters is redundant. If you specify the total dosage, the rate, the start time, and the frequency, then end time is unnecessary. Or if you specify start and stop time, assuming equal intervals, frequency is unnecessary.

Todd

You're right. I think the preference would be to specify the start/end and have the frequency auto calculated.