Introduction
Just over a year ago we moved into the house we'd been saving up for. We'd been dreaming for months beforehand, stuck in a Sydney apartment, of the fantastic fun that would be had by owning a pool. Long summer days of bliss driving away the heat, fun bbq's with the obligatory dip and the cool comfort of a splash following a run.
Neither of us had any idea about how much work was involved in managing a pool. It went green. After the first few months of learning about chemical balance, supershock and buffer, we managed to get the black algae under control. To keep maintenance costs down we decided against outsourcing regular visits from the local pool shop. But as two busy working people renovating their house became parents, there seemed to be no time in the day for backwashing, chlorinating and the endless number of tasks associated with a pool that require regular attention. It just was not the highest priority.
So, how could we keep the work to a minimum while still enjoying a sparkly fresh pool? Luckily one of us is a bit of a nerd who is able to see how such dreams can be realised by shifting a few bytes and getting the techno world to do the work for us....
... and the Pool Pad Partner was born. Read on for more.
Pool Pad Partner is a pool controller designed using Altium Designer 10 and executes on the Altium Industrial (or standard) Nanoboard 3000's. The PPP was created to take care of the most common day to day tasks of keeping a pool crystal clear, and to provide important information on a 7" VGA LCD screen mounted in a discreet location, such as the kitchen or study. Most features have been implemented, and the system is running beautifully on my own pool installation. There are still a few features I would like to add, such as pump speed control, a reverse solar defrost option and a web control interface, but at this stage I am very happy with its current performance.
The design is based purely on logic - there is no microcontroller to hang, crash or halt the system anywhere in the design. Reliability has been the highest priority, and the intention is to enable a design that can run for several years without a restart. Its operation is usually in conjunction with a small 7" to 10" VGA OLED or LCD display, but that is purely optional to the installer. The system can be switched to automatic or can start a task all via a wireless remote control. Although the system is intended to run on a NB3000 out of the box, there are a few small hardware extras that need to be added to make the system complete - that is an RTC (Real Time Clock) chip and wireless receiver, which both plug onto the iNB3K's (Industrial Nanoboard 3000) prototyping area. There are a lot of technical notes I may include over time, detailing how I installed the required temperature, pressure, actuators and high voltage controls to aid anyone interested in installing their own.
