A Pointless thread ;)

[Oblio]

There is a market for that and there have been a few around but if you can make a good one, then you could make some money.

Years ago (1980s) there was an electronic probe you connected to a computer via cable. The probe went into a water sample and the computer told you what was in the water. It was good but hideously expensive and cumbersome to carry. About 20 years later another digital probe came out and was cheaper but still pricey, and it didn't identify many items in the water.

If you could make a digital probe that gave a complete analysis of the water, and have it link to a smart phone or laptop via wifi, and make it affordable, you would have a winner.

Things you want it to test include: ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, phosphate, pH, GH, KH, salinity, chlorine, chloramine, and anything else you can think of. Have the results appear on your smart phone, tablet or laptop by wifi, and market the hell out of it.

Every water company around the world would want one, as would every pet shop, and most aquarists. Universities and field researchers that deal with water would get them, marine biologists, health departments, etc, the list is endless.

You could even make 2 probes, one that does the basic fish stuff, and another that identifies poisons or hazardous substances (including micro-organisms) in the water. If you can't get poisons and micro-organisms on one probe, then make 3 probes, one for water quality and chemistry, one for micro-organisms, and one for harmful chemicals/ substances in the water.

Sell them individually or as a set of 3 probes in a nice little case. Make them good quality so they last. And you become a rich man

The chemical probe is the issue. I want to start out with simply measuring the color in the tubes and providing a digital readout rather than interpolating and dealing with source light temperature. Color sensors have advanced lately so that should not be too hard.

 

[Oblio]

Something like this for reading test kit samples:

AS7341 11-Channel Multi-Spectral Digital Sensor

A breakout board (for prototyping) to connect to a cheap microcontroller is only about $15 USD. I already have some of those and OLED displays so I can get one 'working' in a day. Longer to get it calibrated.

 

[Oblio]

Side benefit is that it could be used to calibrate your tank lights for LED variances and aging.

 

[phishshis]

Share pic of your aquarium

 

[Oblio]

Share pic of your aquarium

Need some better pics and the tank is a work in progress.
A few Kleiner Bar Swords (testing the live plant rabbit hole) and a long shot with sunset with my new NICREWs.

 

[Oblio]

I reckon I should transition to a Tank Journal, but until then ...

Water params (avg):

Ammonia - 0.14
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 8.9
pH - 6.9

So, since I had a lone Tetra Glofish and dumped a bunch of new friends in, I assumed that I overloaded the small BB colony. I did add two bags of Nitra-Zorb 72 hrs ago which seemed to reduce the Ammonia (0.1->0) but Nitrates climbed from 7->15. I had no idea of the condition of the HOB filter (It's been running with one Tetra in 125 G for the past year so how bad could it be, did I clean it after the last of the Goldfish died ??? )

Raining today, so I didn't want to do a WC, but I did clean the filter and it was fairly clean with no gunk. Rinsed with tank water and left the Nitra-Zorb to do it's thing. I'll do a water change and clean the substrate assuming it's not raining tomorrow.

 

[Rocky998]

There is a market for that and there have been a few around but if you can make a good one, then you could make some money.

Years ago (1980s) there was an electronic probe you connected to a computer via cable. The probe went into a water sample and the computer told you what was in the water. It was good but hideously expensive and cumbersome to carry. About 20 years later another digital probe came out and was cheaper but still pricey, and it didn't identify many items in the water.

If you could make a digital probe that gave a complete analysis of the water, and have it link to a smart phone or laptop via wifi, and make it affordable, you would have a winner.

Things you want it to test include: ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, phosphate, pH, GH, KH, salinity, chlorine, chloramine, and anything else you can think of. Have the results appear on your smart phone, tablet or laptop by wifi, and market the hell out of it.

Every water company around the world would want one, as would every pet shop, and most aquarists. Universities and field researchers that deal with water would get them, marine biologists, health departments, etc, the list is endless.

You could even make 2 probes, one that does the basic fish stuff, and another that identifies poisons or hazardous substances (including micro-organisms) in the water. If you can't get poisons and micro-organisms on one probe, then make 3 probes, one for water quality and chemistry, one for micro-organisms, and one for harmful chemicals/ substances in the water.

Sell them individually or as a set of 3 probes in a nice little case. Make them good quality so they last. And you become a rich man

I would buy that!

 

[Rocky998]

Maybe you can get on Shark Tank!

Not good if your on shark tank... That means you need more money because your product isn't doing so hot.

 

[Sgooosh]

Dang, Dude, you are light years ahead of me on these things!

haha "light" years ahead!

 

[Uberhoust]

I was considering something similar to do an assessment on the water based tests. I was going to use an Arduino micro controller that illuminated the water sample with an RGB led with a photocell on the opposite side of the test tube. The test tube would be in a blacked out container. The assessment procedure would be to turn on each color channel individually then review the feedback from the photocell. Still haven't fully worked out the process for calibration and assessment for the results. I stalled when I considered that the RGB led misses the majority of the spectra that could be causing the color we see, and so would likely not work well.

With the 7341 chip you mentioned you could illuminate the sample with a high quality white LED, with a high CRI, then look at the absorption spectra generated by the 7341 sensor. The chip is already available on a breakout board from Adafruit. Calibration would likely be reasonably simple as well because it would be based on a single reading.

Not being an electrically engineer my design wouldn't get off the breadboard. But with your back ground you might be able to do something quite useful.

There are optical readers for liquid tests available but all the ones I have seen are specific to a particular test and to get the ones you need could be pricy. The system could be referenced to the various liquid test kits.

 

[ClownLurch]

Another welcome for the OP.
If it doesnt work turn it off then back on is the extent of my electrical knowledge tbh. It works with both our microwave and oven!
At school I couldnt get my head around why the very first proton or neutron jumped to the next atom and started the whole process up. Let’s move on Eh people?

 

[Oblio]

With the 7341 chip you mentioned you could illuminate the sample with a high quality white LED, with a high CRI, then look at the absorption spectra generated by the 7341 sensor. The chip is already available on a breakout board from Adafruit. Calibration would likely be reasonably simple as well because it would be based on a single reading.

Not being an electrically engineer my design wouldn't get off the breadboard. But with your back ground you might be able to do something quite useful.

There are optical readers for liquid tests available but all the ones I have seen are specific to a particular test and to get the ones you need could be pricy. The system could be referenced to the various liquid test kits.

Adafruit is how I got to the datasheet There is a huge array of tiny microcontrollers that are super cheap (Arduino is too expensive and bulky). I was doing a bit of lightweight research and found that some ions (at least Nitrate) absorb UV light and that opens up the possibility of using UV LEDs and sensors. They also don't need periodic recalibration like the much more expensive membrane probes. I may do some more research in this area.

 

[Uberhoust]

Arduino is too expensive and bulky

Would have to agree with you on the Arduino, but I own a couple, a bread board, and a whole slew of various devices I have ordered over the years. I am good at software but not so good at electrical engineering so my creations exist for a time but haven't yet got beyond the prototyping stage.

An area I have considered is creating a self illuminating capsule for the camera that connects to the camera of a cell phone, then develop a program that would connect to the camera and use the RGB values for an approximation of the absorption spectra. The 7341 would do a better job I would expect.

I like the idea of using the UV absorption, I will have to look that up. Then you could directly measure the Nitrate UV absorption. Its kind of the opposite of some work I did doing some dye tracing to track water sources in a karst, except in the dye tracing we are using UV to cause the dye to florescence after being extracted from a carbon trap. There are a lot of things that release florescent materials so if you are looking at the absorption of UV you might need to add a filter to the photocell to filter the visible light.

 

[Oblio]

Would have to agree with you on the Arduino, but I own a couple, a bread board, and a whole slew of various devices I have ordered over the years. I am good at software but not so good at electrical engineering so my creations exist for a time but haven't yet got beyond the prototyping stage.

With many of the breakout boards there are JST connectors, internal I2C pullups etc., so it is almost plug and play. Besides C/C++, many of the micros have Circuit or Micro Python, those not as ideal if you need interrupt processing. I suspect that skills needed would be more towards systems and S/W engineering rather than EE, and in this case perhaps chemistry/chemical engineering and a smattering of optics.

An area I have considered is creating a self illuminating capsule for the camera that connects to the camera of a cell phone, then develop a program that would connect to the camera and use the RGB values for an approximation of the absorption spectra. The 7341 would do a better job I would expect.

I like the idea of using the UV absorption, I will have to look that up. Then you could directly measure the Nitrate UV absorption. Its kind of the opposite of some work I did doing some dye tracing to track water sources in a karst, except in the dye tracing we are using UV to cause the dye to florescence after being extracted from a carbon trap. There are a lot of things that release florescent materials so if you are looking at the absorption of UV you might need to add a filter to the photocell to filter the visible light.

This link gives a basic overview. Looks like a prime candidate for a DIY project. I think I may look around for components to create a sensor, I'm sure a COTS UV sensor is too expensive (and not as fun )

Nitrate Measurement