Need feedback for potential new monitoring product

[BrendanH]

Hi All,
Some engineering buddies and I are thinking about building a new tank monitoring system and we could use your input on what you would like to see it do. Our goal is to provide a simple modular system that will connect wirelessly to a PC allowing varying levels of control over your tank(s). All kinds of cool stuff can be done with this but it'd be great to hear from the more experienced among you on what you think would be helpful. If successful we would aim to productize it and make it available at a very competitive price

Fire away !

Brendan.

[scubasteve]

hmm thats a pretty hot idea, im a junior studyin comp. engineering student at Steven's Institute in Jersey.

Well some stuff i think would be cool but don't know how expensive it would be to hook into would be to be able to measure the different levels (ph, ammonia,nitrite,nitrate etc) , temperaute wouldnt be hard to do, you could add a water level detector, so when the level drops beyond a certain point it sends a signal to remind you to fill up your tank.

[BrendanH]

Thanks scubasteve. Keep it coming folks !

Also - if any of you have suggestions on where to source parts for this project it's be good to hear form you. eg. Sensors capable of checking various water chems.

[fishfreek]

I have found for the uniniated wireless products can be a bit daunting.

[BrendanH]

Agreed, but we will make it as simple as possible to use. Plug 'n Play is a good catchphrase

[RogerMcAllen]

Check the chem department of a local university. During inorganic, we were always using probes that sound a lot like what you want. I know for a fact there are probes for pH, temp, and volume(based on a calibrated drop). These probes all hooked into a small unit which was run to an old (win 95 with not more than a 200mhz) computer.

[pecan2phat]

I currently use a temp monitor, PH monitor and a SG monitor. I use these items cause they are commercially available and are easier to monitor than to test or in the temp & SG area, inacurate readings from traditional guages.
What I think is a PIA to test for is CA, and that needs to be constantly monitored.