this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2023
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Home Automation

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Discussion about general home automation ideas and projects, home automation protocols like Z-wave, Zigbee, Matter, etc, and home automation software and hubs like HomeSeer, Home Assistant, OpenHAB, Homey.

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Use excess Solar to run your pool pump (Node-Red & Home Assistant) (blog.grieve.com.au)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by palitu@lemmy.perthchat.org to c/homeautomation@lemmy.world
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I am in the process of building this in my system. I want to add a couple of extra features. such as minimum run time, the ability to run a few minutes each hour over night (for skimming) and some other bits an pieces.

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[–] BathyFan@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I gotta say... Your documentation is really good. You definitely have more experience with node red than myself so I am not sure how one would improve upon your work so far. Plus most of my improvements would probably be a little advanced for the aim of your project as I tend to go down a rabbit hole whenever I automate something lol.

Mostly, my two cents are for if you want to go further towards a smart pump and getting more data into home assistant:

  • Look for a way to track the flow of water through the pump to watch for signs of blockage or pump failure.
  • Look at what options would you have for water quality sampling/intervention (if you do any maintenance for that).
[–] palitu@lemmy.perthchat.org 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

i need to say, this is not mine! i actually posted it as i didnt want to lose the page :-/

For pump flow, i would use power draw as a proxy for flow. if the power is really low, it equates to a low flow. I already have them on Athom smart plugs, which have power monitoring. I actually use this to auto-prime my bore pump, which will turn on-off as needed to get the flow through. I'll post it at some point.

I have at atlas scientific wifi pool monitor which does auto-sampling but there is a bunch of maths and a lack of motivation/time to implement! one day maybe!

[–] BathyFan@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago

Haha! Nothing wrong with keeping track of some inspiration.

Sounds like you already have the ideal setup for that part then. You could set an automation that loops with a timed delay to handle the night time pump circulation.

Would you need the pump to observe the same behavior with longer run times during the day? If so you can set it to check the time or sunrise/sunset and run the corresponding loop you need. That might solve the minimum runtime issue as you would be achieving your goal runtime by dividing it across the day.

[–] Bluetreefrog@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

I did something like this. I buy my electricity at wholesale prices, and the supplier has an API with price predictions, so I used node-red to compare insolation forecasts, and price forecasts to work out what time-blocks to run the pool pump (when solar high, or price low, or cheapest forecast times to achieve a minimum number of hours per day).

Not quite the same as home automation, but there's a home-made renewable energy system community too:

https://lemmy.world/c/hmres

!hmres@lemmy.world

Home Made Renewable Energy Systems