Hey guys, just finishing up my nutrient mixers and got my dual peristaltic pumps in. I had planned on just plugging the pump into one of my tp-link smart plugs and then using HA to control it but I also have an athom smart plug, so I could use tasmota if controlling it using mqtt would be better. Since I'm just using an A & B nutrient solution for the moment, the dual pumps don't need to be controlled individually, once I set them to the same flow rate then they can be treated as a single entity since I need equal amounts of A & B.
For now, id be happy with something simple, like a slider on my grow room dashboard in HA to set the time I want the pumps on before they turn back off (once I have a better idea of flow rate, ill just do the math myself to get to my target ppm).
Eventually I'm hoping to be able to just input the ppm I want to raise my rdwc system to, and have the dosing automated based on the size of the system, flow rate of the peristaltic pumps, etc.
Past that, being able to set the wanted ppm based on the week of the grow, and just having HA automate the pumps to keep the system to that ppm would be amazing, but that's probably a little far off on the horizon.
Any help or guidance would be much appreciated as I'm still fairly green with HA and I'd certainly be open to buying someone a few beers for helping me figure out a good solution to this. Thanks guys
Nutrient dosing with an RDWC system
For now, I've just set up some timers for various timeframes, automations to turn on the dosing pumps while the timer is active, and to turn the pumps off when the timer is complete (idle). This way I can at least do the math in my head and then easily dose for a specified amount of time.
To loop the nutrient mixers in I just created a few scripts that turn on the mixers for 15 seconds, wait 15 seconds, and then start the dosing timer which turns on the peristaltic pumps. I then created a vertical stack card, added the scrips to it as buttons, and then set it up so if i long press the button it will stop the dosing timer and the pumps. Not the most elegant solution but it should work for now.
Feedback or thoughts are welcome
To loop the nutrient mixers in I just created a few scripts that turn on the mixers for 15 seconds, wait 15 seconds, and then start the dosing timer which turns on the peristaltic pumps. I then created a vertical stack card, added the scrips to it as buttons, and then set it up so if i long press the button it will stop the dosing timer and the pumps. Not the most elegant solution but it should work for now.
Feedback or thoughts are welcome