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Running Linux On Your Swimming Pool
Forkenhoppen writes: "Ever considered having a computer look after your swimming pool maintenance? Check out this project by Richard J. Kinch. Mr. Kinch uses a Linux box configured with several shell scripts to control the chlorination levels of his pool."
How about installing an electronic ozone system? They're supposed to be quite efficient and don't require much maintenance as they're basically just a fancy neon tube that the water passes by. I understand they've been required in many european countries since the seventies.
Something like this would be a prime candidate for Embedded Linux running on a smaller, weathertight, dedicated device instead of a full blown PC tho.
The headline remined me of what I used to say to the people (several years ago) in the office when I had to re-boot a NetWare server:
"Everybody out of the memory pool!!"
Soko
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
I am thinking about doing something similar with a reef tank that I am going to build. Hook a cheap 486 or pentium up to all of the monitors and dosers that I need to run the tank. I would also like to hook it up to the light ballasts and pumps and have them controlled by some sort of software that mimics the sun and moonlight in the corals natural habitat. What would be really cool is some sort of random cloud generation, as well as random storms in the winter. Even some water temperature variations would be nice.
I was origionally going to use X10 for the design, but I am going to look closer at his custom designs and possibly use those. I really would like to stay away from X10 because of those damn popup windows that they started. I really dont want to support that sort of company.
I am really glad he did this project, it really gives me some good ground work on which to base my smaller project on.
(B) + (D) + (B) + (D) = (K) + (&)
= smart people who can negotiate them. By the time any kind of control for the pool filtering & lighting system reaches it, it's gone through so many physical and electrical insulations, that it should be completely safe. Heck, I could control the Atlantic ocean if my blender ran more than Redhat 4.0 and I had the right kind of seals.
/.'ed), this is a pretty neat idea, as it would elminate all of those stupid manual timers (which generally keep very poor time) and eliminate the need for continuous monitoring of pool chemical levels.
Seriously.... from what I saw on this page (before it got
--- There is a man in a smiling bag.
The problem with this system is that its automating something that is more easily handled by cheap mechanical devices. Mechanical autochlorinator technology is cheap and works.
Most people think a pool with too much chlorine will have a "chlorine" smell and will irritate your eyes. This is a fallacy; pools get that funny smell because the available chlorine has been turned to chloramines. The only way to get rid of the chloramines is to add more chlorine. So ironically, a "chlorine" smell in a pool is a sign of poor maintence and NOT ENOUGH CHLORINE! Your eyes will not be irritated, your skin won't turn red, you won't be harmed by too much chlorine in a pool.
Besides this is attacking the wrong problem. Keeping the proper chlorine levels in a pool with the proper chemistry is simple. Combined with the mechnical device I've already mentioned makes checking the chlorine levels a once-a-week chore for a residential pool. Its the least bothersome part of running a pool.
The tricky part is the rest of the chemistry (particularly total alkalinity and pH). It can be done via automation, but there's no particular need to have a computer do it. Again, its a once-a-week check, and then you add small doses of chemicals at that time if it needs to be balanced. But the balance is critical to everything about the pool and the health of the people in it.
The bottom line is that you have to check it once a week yourself anyway, regardless of the automation system. Spend your time swimming, not inventing the equivalent of an electric dog polisher.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you