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Thread: Integrated Light Sensor

  1. #1
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    Integrated Light Sensor

    A little off topic, but not by much ....

    Has Neptune ever considered making a light sensor ?
    Something that could be wired or wireless and placed by a window or maybe outside your home that has an unobstructed view of the sky.

    Things it could be used for:
    True sunrise / sunset by your environment.
    If it's overcast outside, then your lighting will reflect that.
    Partly cloudy could be simulated too with passing clouds.
    I think this would be an easy build, using some type of light sensor that would return 10 for the highest amount of light (Noon on a sunny day) down to 0 on a non-moonlit night and work our light programming of those numbers in between.

    I know we are trying to replicate nature in our tank and I think this is one of the best ways to simulate whats going on outside, inside.

    Does anyone at Neptune feel that this is possible, I'm sure I'm not the first to think of this.

    Thanks,
    Matt

  2. #2
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    Quote Originally Posted by mmullaly View Post
    A little off topic, but not by much ....

    Has Neptune ever considered making a light sensor ?
    Something that could be wired or wireless and placed by a window or maybe outside your home that has an unobstructed view of the sky.

    Things it could be used for:
    True sunrise / sunset by your environment.
    If it's overcast outside, then your lighting will reflect that.
    Partly cloudy could be simulated too with passing clouds.
    I think this would be an easy build, using some type of light sensor that would return 10 for the highest amount of light (Noon on a sunny day) down to 0 on a non-moonlit night and work our light programming of those numbers in between.

    I know we are trying to replicate nature in our tank and I think this is one of the best ways to simulate whats going on outside, inside.

    Does anyone at Neptune feel that this is possible, I'm sure I'm not the first to think of this.

    Thanks,
    Matt
    I don't think this is even necessary. The Apex should be able to fetch weather data based on your location (or any other location you specify i.e. Fiji Islands) from the internet and if you so desire dim the lights accordingly. I definitely think this is a feature that is missing since it is very easy to implement and it requires no additional hardware.

  3. #3
    Master Control Freak aquamanic's Avatar
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    since it is very easy to implement
    And you know this how....?
    Al

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  4. #4
    Frequent Contributor zombie's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by n.beglitis View Post
    I don't think this is even necessary. The Apex should be able to fetch weather data based on your location (or any other location you specify i.e. Fiji Islands) from the internet and if you so desire dim the lights accordingly. I definitely think this is a feature that is missing since it is very easy to implement and it requires no additional hardware.
    That is actually a LOT more difficult than you might think. That requires a GUI to choose locale, a pretty complex script to fetch the data from each website, a lookup table to determine which website to pull data from depending on the locale that is set, a GUI to relate the data that is pulled to your programming, and a change to the code structure of the apex itself at bare minimum. My old job looked into doing a similar thing for weather readings for each substation (the substations already had weather equipment) and adding the coding to the EMS system was going to cost 30 million dollars. Definately not novel or easy to implement.

    You might be an engineer if...You have no life and can PROVE it mathematically.

  5. #5
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    Come on guys.... First of all there is Fusion. All the GUI related stuff can be incorporated there. At the end of the day the Apex has a locale configured for displaying the correct time. The code to pull weather data is trivial, the world is full of mobile phone weather apps for example. What is needed apart from that is a piece of code that will high-jack the logic currently existing for running the VDM ports. A check-box saying "Sync with weather data" could be added that for a given weather state it will reduce the signal (colour/intensity for my Kessils for example) by a percentage:

    1. Cloudy -30% from the existing setting (whatever this might be based on your profile)
    2. Showers -50%
    3. Overcast -50%
    4. Heavy Showers - 70%

    etc....

    I wouldn't think that is TOO difficult.

    I would be keen to hear a Neptune person commenting on this - I don't have strong feelings, I understand it might not be a priority for the company. My comment was mostly directed to the original poster who was suggesting a new module with a sensor which is difficult to install and perhaps costly. Why do that when your local weather station does the same thing for you anyway?

  6. #6
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    I don't see the upside to this. Why would I want my tank to mimic what's happening outside my window? It starts getting dark around 4pm now and that's about the time I get home from work. Does that mean my tank lights go off at that time too so I can't enjoy it?

    OK, say you set it for the weather in Fiji. Then one day you go on vacation to Florida and little did you know, Fiji is about to get struck with a hurricane for 2 days. Your fish will love that. lol

    As for it being possible, I would say it should be. I remember having a video game system, probably a Wii that displayed your local weather at the startup screen. There was one particular game that dealt with the main character walking around. The cool thing was that the weather in the game was the same as the weather outside your window. Somehow the game was able to draw upon your local weather forecast and incorporate it into the gameplay.

  7. #7
    Just a Nerd in the Herd alb's Avatar
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    So I have this phone. It's quite nice, really. Made by a reasonably large company; perhaps you've heard of them. I live in the same town as their headquarters. The phone comes with a built-in weather app, which shows the ambient temperature outdoors.

    It's pretty much always wrong.

    So I'm going to side with zombie on this one; seems as if it must be a bit harder than it looks.

  8. #8
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    How about turn on a outdoor fan if the outside temp is cooler than the inside fan. Would this be useless?


    Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

  9. #9
    Frequent Contributor zombie's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by bpiermat View Post
    How about turn on a outdoor fan if the outside temp is cooler than the inside fan. Would this be useless?


    Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
    In a smart home thermostat to save AC costs, yes that is useful. In the apex, the comparative statement doesn't exist and I don't understand why you would even want to do that.

    Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

  10. #10
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    My tank is in a basement, that sometime gets a little warm, might be nice to ventilate, if that condition exists


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  11. #11
    Frequent Contributor zombie's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by bpiermat View Post
    My tank is in a basement, that sometime gets a little warm, might be nice to ventilate, if that condition exists


    Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
    You can do something along the lines of this, where AirTmp is an indoor air temp sensor, OutTmp is an outdoor temp sensor.

    VentFan
    If AirTmp > 78.0 Then ON
    If AirTmp < 75.0 Then OFF
    If OutTmp > 75.0 Then OFF

    Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

  12. #12
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    Quote Originally Posted by zombie View Post
    That is actually a LOT more difficult than you might think. That requires a GUI to choose locale, a pretty complex script to fetch the data from each website, a lookup table to determine which website to pull data from depending on the locale that is set, a GUI to relate the data that is pulled to your programming, and a change to the code structure of the apex itself at bare minimum. My old job looked into doing a similar thing for weather readings for each substation (the substations already had weather equipment) and adding the coding to the EMS system was going to cost 30 million dollars. Definately not novel or easy to implement.

    You might be an engineer if...You have no life and can PROVE it mathematically.
    Well I have to agree and disagree here Zombie.

    Actually you don't need a gui for that. Or you need a very simple one to input your GPS location. Based on that information there are algorithms that you can use to determine sunrise, sunset, moonrise, moonset, transit, etc, etc, etc.

    And I know this because I have developed that. Before going with APEX I developed a Arduino based controller for my aquarium. Drop it because of time to develop and maintain due to work was impossible.

    I still have the code somewhere and definitely i can find the algorithms I used to implement that.

    All the best,
    Rui

  13. #13
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    Regarding the weather outside you can use a humidity sensor (I have one similar to STC-1000 or at least the same family) and I am pretty sure there is one to measure atmospheric pressure.

    That uses a internal relay (non powered) that you can then connect to the BoB and do some nice stuff if you want.

    For instance I use a ventax in my fishroom to take air out and APEX turns on depending on the closed contact at the BoB by the humidistat.

    All the best,
    Rui

  14. #14
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    There is already the season table and you can modify it if you log on locally. This will at least give you sunrise and sunset. I am sure the seasonal table could be enhanced to carry light intensities.

    Light sensor outside I personally would like as through winter my tank wouldn’t get enough light and during summer it would get too much. Using a season table will allow you to replicate where your fish and coral are from.

  15. #15
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    https://forum.neptunesystems.com/sho...Weather-events

    this will help with some of it with weather events

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