PerpetualNoob
New Member
I'm planning on running a CAP Ebb & Gro with a 55 gallon reservoir for flowering and a 4' x 4' flood/drain table with as of yet undetermined reservoir size for veg. I'm also running my water through RO. So far just the Ebb & Gro is up and I'm having to produce a lot of water and its only going to get worse once the veg table gets going. On top of that I have the bad habit of forgetting the water is on to the RO system and letting it run all night. Fortunately none of the resulting floods have been bad but I'm getting tired of sopping up water and eventually I will have a bad flood if I keep going the way I am.
The current setup has the RO water draining into a 55 gallon rubbermaid (little scary when its full) and I pump it off into a second rubber maid for extra storage. The water then goes from there into the reservoir as needed, again a manual process. I'd like to figure out a way to automate the process to remove the possibility of "I forgot the RO again" floods and reduce the amount of manual labor involved.
What I'd like to design is the RO machine fills a 55 gallon drum with a submersible pump and some float switches in it. One just above the inlet of the pump to serve as a "Is water available check?" for the holding tank and one at the top that will shutoff the RO machine and prevent flooding. It looks like the RO shutoff I can buy a pre-made kit for. We'll call this the RO tank.
Then there is a second 55 gallon drum to act as a holding tank. This one will have two pumps and again float switches just above the inlets of the pumps to shut them off if water runs low and one at the top to shut off the fill pump from the RO tank when this tank is full.
Finally float switches at the fill level in both reservoirs. The pumps in the holding tank would be timed to turn on once a day, when the reservoirs are not in a flood/drain cycle so we don't flood that way, to refill the reservoirs automatically. This drop in level in the holding tank will trigger it to refill itself from the RO tank, which will then turn the RO back on until its tank is again full.
In theory my reservoirs would stay topped off and I'd always have ~110 gallons of water ready to be used. And no more early morning mopping sessions because I was "over-medicated" the night before!
I've never installed a float switch before and I'm not sure how you would combine the results of two float switches to control a pump. The decision points that need to be built are these.
RO On/Off - Easy. Is the RO Tank full? If no, turn on RO until it is.
Fill Tank - Is there water in the RO tank? (Bottom float in the RO tank UP)
- Is the fill tank NOT full? (Top float in the fill tank DOWN)
- If both yes, run the pump in the RO tank until RO is either empty or fill is full.
Reservoir fills - Is the reservoir NOT full? (float in the reservoir DOWN)
- Is there water in the fill tank? (Bottom float of the fill tank UP)
- If both yes run the pump.
* These pumps will be on timers to avoid filling the reservoir when in a flood cycle so we don't over-fill anything. One fill a day should be more than adequate so I'll probably just turn this system on for 30 minutes a day.
Where I'm stuck now is how do I combine the results of two float switches to control pumps?
Is there some kind of fail safe I should look at adding? I'd really hate for a float switch to stick and end up pumping water all over my grow room. I'm good enough at making messes without automating that part.
The current setup has the RO water draining into a 55 gallon rubbermaid (little scary when its full) and I pump it off into a second rubber maid for extra storage. The water then goes from there into the reservoir as needed, again a manual process. I'd like to figure out a way to automate the process to remove the possibility of "I forgot the RO again" floods and reduce the amount of manual labor involved.
What I'd like to design is the RO machine fills a 55 gallon drum with a submersible pump and some float switches in it. One just above the inlet of the pump to serve as a "Is water available check?" for the holding tank and one at the top that will shutoff the RO machine and prevent flooding. It looks like the RO shutoff I can buy a pre-made kit for. We'll call this the RO tank.
Then there is a second 55 gallon drum to act as a holding tank. This one will have two pumps and again float switches just above the inlets of the pumps to shut them off if water runs low and one at the top to shut off the fill pump from the RO tank when this tank is full.
Finally float switches at the fill level in both reservoirs. The pumps in the holding tank would be timed to turn on once a day, when the reservoirs are not in a flood/drain cycle so we don't flood that way, to refill the reservoirs automatically. This drop in level in the holding tank will trigger it to refill itself from the RO tank, which will then turn the RO back on until its tank is again full.
In theory my reservoirs would stay topped off and I'd always have ~110 gallons of water ready to be used. And no more early morning mopping sessions because I was "over-medicated" the night before!
I've never installed a float switch before and I'm not sure how you would combine the results of two float switches to control a pump. The decision points that need to be built are these.
RO On/Off - Easy. Is the RO Tank full? If no, turn on RO until it is.
Fill Tank - Is there water in the RO tank? (Bottom float in the RO tank UP)
- Is the fill tank NOT full? (Top float in the fill tank DOWN)
- If both yes, run the pump in the RO tank until RO is either empty or fill is full.
Reservoir fills - Is the reservoir NOT full? (float in the reservoir DOWN)
- Is there water in the fill tank? (Bottom float of the fill tank UP)
- If both yes run the pump.
* These pumps will be on timers to avoid filling the reservoir when in a flood cycle so we don't over-fill anything. One fill a day should be more than adequate so I'll probably just turn this system on for 30 minutes a day.
Where I'm stuck now is how do I combine the results of two float switches to control pumps?
Is there some kind of fail safe I should look at adding? I'd really hate for a float switch to stick and end up pumping water all over my grow room. I'm good enough at making messes without automating that part.
