RaspiPool. A DIY Swimming Pool Automation System

I am proud to announce the first release of the project @ segalion/raspipool
A raspberry pi based system to monitoring, control and automate a DIY system pool.

More info and screenshots in the wiki

And the video showing the GUI working…

UPDATE:
Some more links:

Thanks all people supporting.

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Now, some “intro” around this project…

Home Assisttant is a great automation tool for domotic. There are lot of examples around about home automations, but almost none about swimming pool.
Although you can surely say that not everyone has a pool in their house, only in my country there are 1.2 million pools, most of them are small private pools.
And there are one more thing: maintenance of a swimming pool is a very laborious and constant task, where automation can save, not only a lot of time (and money) for the maintainers, but a lot of water for the planet.

Unfortunately, in the residential environment, the annual complete water renewal for each summer period is habitual, so I estimate that more than 30 million m3 of purified!!! water are wasted annually (only in my country) due to the complete filling of swimming pools for the season of bathroom.

There are many causes that justify this behavior, but surely one of the most important is the high cost of an automation system for a pool.

This is surely the most important reason that has driven me to create and share this project:
Create a cost-effective, easy-to-install, easy-to-build, Swimmig Pool Automation System for all people with the minimum and simple filter and satinization system

This is the first part of the project (only lot of yaml config files in github), to control a minimal and carefully selected hardware after many surveys, to has basic but powerful automation system.

But there are a lot of work for the future. Mainly to document lots of instructions for people outside of all these technologies (surely all here know the importance but workload of documentation…)

There are some similar projects around (mainly based on node-red and node-js systems), but, in my opinion, they are projects to control systems of specific (and usually closed) manufacturers, or they are projects very specifically oriented to the needs of their creators.
My intention is create a system where the “the peripherals” (motor pumps, peristaltic pumps for injection of chemicals, chlorinators and dispensers), are as dumb (and cheap) as possible, and all intelligence is centralized in a mini-box wit a raspberry pi and cost-efective-but-reliable hardware “easy to istall, easy to obtain, update and mantain”.

I am aware that in a control system of a swimming pool there are always a lot of things that can fail (and really fail), and that is why I have put a lot of intelligence in notifying any anomaly that goes out of the “expected” thing, before wanting to regulate it all without any human intervention (It is better to notify that the alleged injection of chlorine does not seem to work, to find that the system has emptied the bleach tank in the pool overnight)

Now, I just hope there are more people to try and help improve this project.

Thanks

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I have updated the project with more funtions, reordering gui, bugfixes, offset callibration for ph and ORP sensors, raspberry pi sensors (cpu temp, sdcard disk, last_boot)

And more wiki schemas for connections…

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I am proud to anounce the first video showing raspipool in action (see first post)

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@segalion thx for sharing.
Could say me how do you choice the atlas item ? Why enzo / to the other from atlas ?
Brgds

Great project @segalion , you might want to consider using full electrical isolation for the ORP and PH probes, to prevent accuracy issues caused by electrical noise.

Hello @Twinsen68
I dont understand very well the question…

I have selected Atlas Scientific, because is the best quality / cost /easy-to-build / easy-to-obtain circuit for connect pH and ORP probes to a raspberry pi, that I found.

I have no relationship with any manufacturer of those that appear in the project. Moreover, I am open to improve it with new hardware that is proposed to have advantages over those currently selected.

Thanks @GadgetUK

I believe that if you are careful with the RPI connections, electrical insulation is not necessary for this kind of project (only pH and ORP). My proposal to use this non-isolated carrier board is in the sense of being cheaper. But everything works exactly the same with an isolated carrier board like this usb or this UART.
The tentacle dont works with the HA custom component because it uses I2C protocol and I have not developed it (maybe Atlas want to donate one :wink: )

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Thx for the precision because I was first attracted by the tentacle !
The isolated board is useful between power supply and the board or between sensor and the board ?
We can have often electrical leak in water due to the pump and heater. Should I use isolated board ?
Thx in advance.

Isolation is not for security. It’s for noise reduction in meassurents.
The ezo circuits need a carrier board to connection between the to probe and RPI. The carrier board can be isolated or not isolated. Please see the diagram connection in the wiki

So its safe that this works with any pool pump?

@david1
Can work with fixed speed and dual speed pumps.
Variable Speed Pumps maybe could be controlled wirh turbo relay to commute between two predefined fixed speeds.

The system calculate period cycle time depending on temperature and some fixed parameters (recirculation time, 1 or 2 dayly cycles…) Automatically make proper injections of muriatic acid (to decrease ph) and bleach (to control Free Chlorine).

New schema to create a bypass where put the sensors…

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More and more updated wiki.
I want to promote this project to encourage people to try to mount something similar… because today, my system is the only one in the world working and so it is very difficult to evolve and improve

This is an overview of what raspipool implies in a swimming pool…

@segalion

This actually looks pretty good. Although with my pool, I wont be keep acid and chlorine out in a colorbond shed during the Aussie summer. I’d be more interested in the readings, and knowing when I need to add stuff.

I’ve got a few other projects going on at the moment with my home automation, so I don’t think my wife would appreciate yet another project…

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Thanks @cjsimmons

You can simple do not connect any peristaltic pump, to work with no regulation.

Currently, the system send you a pushbullet notification at the new starting cycle time, with ORP, pH, Free Chlorine and temperarure meassurements and the supposed quantity to correct it. The message is like:


FC: 1.28 ppm, T: 28.0ºC
pH: 7.7 (7.67-7.73)
ORP: 702 (700-705)
Muriatic: 422 ml
Bleach: 0 ml

@23:35[17/09]

With this, you can know witch quantity liquid to add, in order to correct levels to reach your targets.

About projects, I have to say I suffer WAT effect too :laughing:… but take into account that automation in a swimming pool reports incomparable benefits in time, money and ecology (except security and heating, probably more than lots of home-related automations).

This looks great. Will definitely implement the sensor side of things.
Not yet sure about the pumps. I’ve yet to come accrosse liquid chlorine here in Indonesia… HCl is no issue!
Ezo boards have been ordered, although reluctantly due to price…
How long have you had the sensors running? Any maintenance/recalibration?

Thank you, @monkey-house

EZO circuits seem indestructible, but the probes must be changed from time to time (they are used up as cell phone batteries). Regarding the recalibration, I have been using the same pH probe for 2 years and I have never recalibrated. The ORP has only been this summer and I can’t tell you.

The EZO connections with the carrier and the probes are on the wiki.
Here the schema (that I am pending to update with rev.2)

P.S. Remember that with liquid chlorine, (bleach), you should always have an adequate CYA level to protect it from sunlight.

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Hey again,

Quick question: why not add tds and turbidity sensors to your sensor array? This could help with determining water quality, circulation and chemical needs. These are cheap and are readily available from places like Dfrobot.

hi the project looks awesome i don’t have a swimming pool but i was looking for something like this to collect data from my plants hydroponic system i have got all the sensors but i dont have a heavy coding background

I just want to ask this if i want to use TDS probe Insead of ORP will that work ?

also should i use tentacle https://www.atlas-scientific.com/product_pages/components/tentacle-t3.html

or

the individual ezo circuits https://www.atlas-scientific.com/product_pages/components/usb-iso.html