Home Automation Project

I have a fish tank at home and I want to be able to control lights, temp, etc from the interner. I have looked into X10 for the lights, but that doesn't seem reliable, but is very affordable. I've had some PLC training in the past and I'm wondering if there is anything out there that would let me control this stuff over the internet? Possibly a PLC with built in webserver or is their soemthing I can hook to a plc that will let me do this?

Right now I have a Dyndns account set up and I have made a webpage that shows my home network camera, but that is getting old and now I want to control lights and monitor temp of my fish tank on the website. Is a PLC the way to go for this? If not does anyone have idea on what I should be looking into? Thanks in advance!

It may be a little more money than you want to use for a home project, but an Omron NS5...V2 (HMI) with the latest firmware allows you to serve up the actual HMI pages as web pages.
Connected to a small Omron PLC (CP1L) would give you a system that you can access remotely.
I have this setup at my house for monitoring temperatures, some power control, etc.
Basically I have port forwarding on my router sending port 80 to the NS. The NS serves up the screens (pushbuttons, numeric entry, et ) and makes it accessible across the web.

The NS does need to be a V2 (version 2), as these units have more memory than previous versions, and this allows the web server to function.

Quicksilver2002 said:

I have a fish tank at home and I want to be able to control lights, temp, etc from the interner. I have looked into X10 for the lights, but that doesn't seem reliable, but is very affordable. I've had some PLC training in the past and I'm wondering if there is anything out there that would let me control this stuff over the internet? Possibly a PLC with built in webserver or is their soemthing I can hook to a plc that will let me do this?

Right now I have a Dyndns account set up and I have made a webpage that shows my home network camera, but that is getting old and now I want to control lights and monitor temp of my fish tank on the website. Is a PLC the way to go for this? If not does anyone have idea on what I should be looking into? Thanks in advance!

Click to expand...

If you have the system controlled by a PLC why do you need to control from the internet? The PLC would be the most reliable part of the system - your most problematic would be sensors and controlled devices ie heaters. Even with internet control you will still have the same sensor and controlled device problems. Seems redundant to me and extra cost to have both.
Am I not thinking of something??

Dan Bentler

Doing the same thing here.

I have an Automation Direct DL06 with a micro-graphic HMI. I have a RTD card for temp sensing.

The system will monitor the following (Salt water reef tank:
temperature (2 RTDs)
sump low water
sump high water
fresh water storage low water
fresh water storage high water
leak sensor
power fail

system will control:
main sump lift pump
main sump 12VDC emergency backup pump
skimmer pump
closed loop circ pump
wavemaker diverter valve
sump fill solenoid
fresh water storage fill solenoid (RO Filter)
primary submersion heater
backup heater
chiller
metal halide light
actinic fluorescent lights
moonlight LEDs
refuge lights
alarm sounder
alarm output to security system
calcium reactor

I went with a 12VDC PLC, I have a battery charging system built into the controls with a 36AH battery. if the power fails the PLC goes into emergency mode. It brings the 12V pump online at a 50% duty cycle (2min on,2 min off)to keep enough water moving so things dont die)

I was trying to do the web thing, but gave up on that feature due to cost.

There are purpose built tank controllers on the market, but I prefer the flexibility of rolling my own, If I can think it up, there is a way to make it work. Besides, it's fun.

I have the control cabinet built, hopfully it will get installed soon, spare time lolis permitting.