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.
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:
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that is cool. I have subbed to HMRES, but haven’t seen too much content in my feed yet. will ahve a browse.
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Are you using Amber Electric? Would you be willing to share your Node-Red flows? I’m trying to come up with some automation for the car charger based on price predictions but it’s been doing my head in…
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Do you have a solar system?
Not yet. The plan is to get solar and battery but the installers I’ve spoken to have been somewhat unhelpful. For now we’re just on the wholesale pricing.
Lemmy.world seems to be groaning under the load of new users. Did you get my DM with the first flow? It never confirmed that it sent.
No DM yet! In fact I can only see this comment in my Inbox, not in the main discussion thread. Teething trouble!
Sure, I’ll share them today.
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).
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!
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.
i think i want to try and run between the sunny hours, only off of solar. but at some point it will be obvious i wont get my minimum run time in, so i will need to run it anyway.
Shouldn’t be too hard to track the sun in the sky, and start the solar-powered run when it is above an angle, and move to a maximum time limited schedule when it is not possible to actually generate enough power to run the pump.
- track the time that the pump is running, and reset it to zero at the start of the day
- when the solar allows for it, run the pump
- when solar is not longer able to power the pump (ie max potential power is less than trigger), move to a timer based schedule
- if the pump run time is >required, stop the pump (and dont restart it)
