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Dramatic efficiency gained by installing vacuum boost system

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  • izhadano
    izhadano Member Posts: 90
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    Sailah said:

    >
    @Sailah

    > Our thermostatic steam traps operate from vacuum to 25PSIG for low pressure. We seal them under about 24" vacuum so they should work in your system. I know other manufacturers don't do this so not all traps are balanced pressure.

    >

    > I really wish I had a steam system. I could totally geek out with it. If I did I'd be focusing on a Raspberry Pi microcontroller with vacuum and solenoid actuators.

    >

    If you do decide to go with raspberry pi please let me know. I don't know where you are on the learning curve but I can probably speed you up with some of the work I've done and files I had my developer code up to run it all. I still have mine set up sorta.



    I would probably introduce you to my developer as well. He's very reasonable about these things and very knowledgeable. In fact he's working on something very similar for my boss with anther company. They redesigned the entire vari vac vacuum control system and built a discrete control using LoRaWAN radio to control large vacuum heating systems in public housing in NYC. Doing a single family unit using Pi I bet would be a snap.



    If you could give me how you envision the system working from a control standpoint I'll run it by him to see what would be involved.

    Thanks for the offer. My current DAQ is LabJack but it's not cheap and versatile. Ruspburry Pi is probably a better choice for data acquisition and especially for a quick system tune up. With 5-6 wireless temperature sensors and 1-2 pressure/vacuum sensors it would be easy to trace heat flows through the system and make adjustments. I've spend several years on testing network performance and coded in Java, Perl and TCL, never on Python though (which is Ruspburry Pi choice of language).
    It will be very helpful to see the working code for similar application , - would appreciate greatly. Do you use wireless sensors? - curious to learn how they communicate with RP. Any problems with signal transfer?
    My experience with check valves was not encouraging so I'm trying to minimize number of moving parts in the system. The only solenoid valve in a small/mid size system is backed up by thermostatic valve in case of failure. For bigger system will use several of such combos.
    Ed implemented simple and robust controls for vacuum boost system. Ideally, for bigger projects I'd like to develop monitoring system running on background, collecting data and checking performance consistency. The less complicated control is, the less problems can be expected. IoT is great when working but too much uncertainties/variables when it is down.

  • Sailah
    Sailah Member Posts: 826
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    Our raspberry Pi did not use wireless sensors. It was all hard wired into a bread board with a Pi breakout cable. Our new monitors were discrete circuits we had custom PCBs made. Those use LoRa radios as they are wireless. I'd think ZigBee would be an ideal wireless protocol or maybe even Bluetooth.

    My developer is pretty hip to all this and can code things quickly. Everything he has done so far has been very robust we haven't had a single failure in 1.5 years.
    Peter Owens
    SteamIQ
  • izhadano
    izhadano Member Posts: 90
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    Sailah said:

    Our raspberry Pi did not use wireless sensors. It was all hard wired into a bread board with a Pi breakout cable. Our new monitors were discrete circuits we had custom PCBs made. Those use LoRa radios as they are wireless. I'd think ZigBee would be an ideal wireless protocol or maybe even Bluetooth.

    My developer is pretty hip to all this and can code things quickly. Everything he has done so far has been very robust we haven't had a single failure in 1.5 years.

    To avoid possible control malfunctions, we're trying to simplify control concept and methods. Luckily, heat distribution in vacuum systems is kind of self adjusting - if radiator get hot then vapor is pulled more into other colder radiators where vacuum is higher and so on.
    So Ruspburry Pi with wireless sensors would be used as installers/maintenance tool mostly for initial system tune up and (if required) for troubleshooting. It seems to me that there is no need to build it into each system.

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