🚀 go-pugleaf

>First, for reliability, you definitely need multiple sensors.  Three
>should be sufficient.  These will each be monitored by separate
>microcontrollers and the results sent to a master contoller via a duplexed
>serial link.  Some more work will have to be done to determine the optimal
>protocol for the link and so on.  Most probably have to develop an entirely
>new one.
>
>There is obviously still quite a bit of design to do here, but this is just
>a start.  Any other ideas would be appreciated. ;)

Kids these days got _no_ sense of proportion.

Why, in the old days, we didn't fiddle around with any of this
microcontroller nonsense.  We just glued a couple of 1" copper pipes in
the corners of the aquarium, clamped wires to them, and put them in
series with the motor power wire.  When the water level dropped below
the ends of the pipes, the current was cut off and the pump stopped.
A handful or two of salt in the water make it plenty conductive, and the
free chlorine electrolyzing off of the electrodes got rid of all that
algae.  Simple, crude, brute-force... and we liked it!


Obligatory smiley (;-) for the humor-impaired, and the disclaimer
required for survival in these lawyer-infested waters: THIS IS NOT A
GOOD IDEA, KIDS, DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME OR ANYWHERE ELSE!

[and a free congratulatory email message to the first person to identify
 the skit from which my first sentence above was lifted.]

-- 
Dave Platt                                                VOICE: (415) 813-8917
              Domain: dplatt@ntg.com      UUCP: ...netcomsv!ntg!dplatt
 USNAIL: New Technologies Group Inc. 2470 Embarcardero Way, Palo Alto CA 94303