2 Axis Plankton Feeder

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herring_fish
 
Posts: 31
Joined: Fri Nov 20, 2009 12:16 am

2 Axis Plankton Feeder

Post by herring_fish »

After lots of experimentation, I am successfully growing rotifers. They are a type of zoo-plankton that is smaller than brine shrimp. They look like little flecks of dust but fish and corals in my aquarium love them. I originally posted here about a powder dosing auger for an aquarium.

http://forums.adafruit.com/viewtopic.ph ... ger#p69421

The relatively small device was intended to grow the rotifers but could be used for many other applications, not limited to aquariums.

While trying to grow the rotifers, a friend told me that a particular liquid food was easier to use when you are a beginner. Therefore, I started the liquid and it worked. Before returning to the auger development, I have completely changed gears.

I am well into a new project now.
Image
(On the far left, there is the Algal Turf Scrubber above the main tank that cleans the water. The water tubes go out to the garage and back.
In the center at the top, is a peristaltic pump that feeds six plastic tubes that are 6 inches in diameter and 6 feet tall. They can grow different types of plankton.
Above them, is an automated motor driven slide mechanism. To the right, is a refrigerator
with the liquid food source and another peristaltic pump.)

A picture is worth a thousand words. Everything is gravity fed except for where the replacement water and food are pumped up hill and into the tubes. I am building a very light wait carriage for an 8 foot slide that is comparatively inexpensive.

Because of the long throw of the slide a worm gear was out. I wanted to keep tension without lots of rollers to hold a belt up so I decided on this.

Image

Right now, I am trying to get the motor to go faster. Then I will need to incorporate the clock function of the RTC/EEPROM board so that I can call out when the feeding cycles start. Since the point of this is to be a steady state system, dispensing lots of small feeding and water changes, I will not need a lot of features that aren't already design in.

If I decide to go with it, a much smaller motor will provide the second axis. It will extend the feeding tubes down into the towers and then retract again after feeding. This will allow me to add dividers, at the top, between the towers that will protect against cross contamination between cultures from bubbles that become air born or from over splash. I have already added that code.

I have already written some code (with lots of help) that will let me fill in an external text file that is included at run time and read into an array. It can be written manually or a simple application can be written in something like VB or C# so that a user can just file the blanks to tell the controller where the towers are, locating them with relative distances not absolute. Then the user can enter things like how often to start, how much water and how much food is dispensed at each station.

The next part should be easy but I have been distracted by the motor and clock. I will have to add a little more extra code for targeted feeding, single tower BANNED and skip/off line status for a tower that needs cleaning.

I have a lot to do but its fun. Please chime in with any thoughts, ideas and improvements that you might have ...but remember one thing. I don't know anything about electronics and I'm only a casual, cut and paste, hack programmer so if you have anything to contribute, it will have to be explained like to a rank beginner.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have currently:
>Arduino Mega 2560 >Rugged Motor Driver >Breakout Board Shield (Assembled) >BNC Sensor Shield (Assembled) >RTC/EEPROM board
Stepper Motor for to choose from for main slide.
>23KM-K213-P7V/ 1.8 DEG./COIL: 3VDC/1.8 ohms/2.6mH,TYPE: 2 Phase Uni-Polar, 6 lead
>57BYG084/1.8 Step Angle/12V/4 phase/0.6A per/100ohm(500VDC)/20ohm per/Class B/25mH Inductance per/Rotor inertia 38g.cm2/holding torque 6Kg.cm
Last edited by herring_fish on Fri Apr 01, 2011 12:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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adafruit_support_bill
 
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Joined: Sat Feb 07, 2009 10:11 am

Re: 2 Axis Plankton Feeder

Post by adafruit_support_bill »

Nice work!

For the second axis, you might consider a small linear stepper.

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