Posts in this project
AquaFlow - Blog #1 - Introduction
AquaFlow - Blog #2 - The coarse filter
AquaFlow - Blog #3 - The sedimentation tank
AquaFlow - Blog #4 - The reed bed
AquaFlow - Blog #5 - The storage tank
AquaFlow - Blog #6 - Conclusions
This is the last post of this project. I will talk about some latest changes and publish a video of the grey water treatment system
1. Latest change
I had to make some changes because the sonar did not work properly because the signal was reflected by the sides of the box. For this reason, I had to add a 3D printed cone to exclude reflections made by the box. However, the cone itself reflects the sonar signal, so I glued foam on the internal side of the cone itself
With the change, the sonar reading looks more precise and reliable
2. Bill of material
This is the list of items I used to build the AquaFlow
2.1 Coarse filter
| Qty | Description | Notes | Link |
| 1 | 5 litres bucket | ||
| 2 m | 30 mm plastic rigid pipe | ||
| Non-woven fabric | |||
| Volcanic stones | |||
| Sand | |||
| 1 | 3D-printed filter |  |
https://github.com/ambrogio-galbusera/aquaflow/blob/master/STL/Filter.stl |
| 1 | 3D-printed filter ring |  |
https://github.com/ambrogio-galbusera/aquaflow/blob/master/STL/FilterRing.stl |
2.2 Sedimentation tank
https://it.farnell.com/whale/gp1652/pompa-sommergibile-3m-3-8a/dp/3531309
2.3 Storage tank
All 3D-printed parts and source code is available here
3. Final demo
4. Conclusions and future work
This challenge has been quite physical, because a lot of hard work has been done to bury the tanks and create the reed bed. The result is quite satisfying, because I am going to recycle a lot of otherwise-wasted water. For sure, next summer will be very important to have a constant source of water for the garden.
This is the first time I used the Seeeduino XIAO board, and it has proved to be a very compact yet powerful for small projects. At first sight, it looks limited in the number of available I/O, but actually the compact size and the flexible configuration makes this platform perfect for a number of DIY projects.
However, some issues must be fixed
- the sonar reading is not very precise when tanks are almost full, so I need maybe to find a better position
- when tanks are almost full, the floating rod tend to get stuck. I hope this can be solved with a longer slide
I hope I will be able to fix these minor issues soon. In the meantime, I would like to thanks all my readers for reading this long, and Element14 for giving us the possibility to participate. See you at the next challenge!
