So as some of you know I picked up an old model KC-30 that had been lying around for a while but never used a few weeks ago and intended to use it for my parents pond rebuild (I've decided to move on to a profi-drum for my parents pond rebuild) but over the last few weeks I've had issues with the old style copper sensors on the unit and most recently a blown diode which made the drum stop spinning during a cleaning cycle. I've now decided to do a little DIY overhaul of this RDF and replace all of the electronics and sensor equipment in order to make it more reliable and some day be able to use it.
Today I spent the day basically tearing the kc-30 apart and managed to pull all of the wires as well as remove the drum motor. Finally I took the control panel off of the RDF so now I have all of the existing electronics and it's time to figure out how to replace all of the functionality.
After I managed to disconnect all of the sensors and power connectors and removed the entire electronics panel off of the RDF. I'm going to try to reuse the watertight boxes if possible.
This is the KC-30 motor. It's operates at 24v DC, 60 watts and I believe around 3 amps and is made in Korea.
And here is the KC-30 after stripping off a bunch of components from it.
So the plan is to try the following:
1. Use a simple AC to DC power supply to replace the onboard transformer. Something like this: https://www.automationdirect.com/adc...ount/PSS24-100
2. Use a two two-channel relay module that can be controlled by a raspberry pi or arduino module and can power both the AC-DC 24v power supply and a jet pump during a cleaning cycle. (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...=ATVPDKIKX0DER)
3. Try out different sensors to see which are most reliable. I've already got a 24vdc 18mm promixity sensor that I'm going to try but I'm also going to try a simple float swtch. As long as the sensor can trigger an event inside the pi/arduino we can process that signal and trigger the cleaning cycle. (https://www.automationdirect.com/adc...hes/FLS-HM-100)
4. Reuse the water-tight boxes that came with the KC-30 to protect the power supply and raspberry pi during operation.
Stretch goal #1: If I'm able to get this working with a raspberry pi or arduino that means we will have wireless capabilities so I might try to pull realtime events from the RDF and chart how often it's cleaning, have the RDF clean on a schedule or remotely enable the RDF to go through a cleaning cycle from the web or a native mobile app. Basically make an internet connected RDF. Probably the best use of this would be to send alerts if the RDF ever got into a bad state such as non-stop cleaning cycle or low water condition etc..
Stretch goal #2: If I can get all of the sensors and relay stuff working then I might try to get this working on a real micro controller for better reliability. I've never programmed a micro controller but with this kind of application I imagine you want something as simple and reliable as a PLC (programmable logic controller). This one looks pretty cool and it has wifi on-chip (https://www.adafruit.com/product/2821)
The goal here is to learn but also maybe come up with the world's most reliable wirelessly connected 1st gen KC-30. :-)