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Automatic Alk Monitoring


brian.srock

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that prototype looked like one pump w/ multiple valves. 12v vavles are cheap, that pump is cheep if chinese, the board cant be more that a raspberry pi power/price-wise. I;m still going w/ around 200 one assembly line is built out:)

EDIT: granted, the rollermat is still at 400 bux and would be MUCH cheaper to build than this alk monitor... so who knows!

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I believe someone has pointed out that his system mechanically is a clone of an automated chlorine dosing system that's used on pools. Which might explain the less expensive pumps he has to be using to keep the price down. I couldn't find anything online that looked like his setup though.

I think we'll see a solid $699 Apex ready entry price.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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that prototype looked like one pump w/ multiple valves. 12v vavles are cheap, that pump is cheep if chinese, the board cant be more that a raspberry pi power/price-wise. I;m still going w/ around 200 one assembly line is built out:)

EDIT: granted, the rollermat is still at 400 bux and would be MUCH cheaper to build than this alk monitor... so who knows!

I can tell from the video the pump uses a stepping motor, and a really high quality head, so at the least there's a pretty significant hard cost on the pump alone. The floor on those things for a most basic completely bare model, not counting the heads at all is $50 - $100 and that's probably in some significant bulk. If you look at any doser with stepping motors like the neptune DOS, Vertex Libra, they start at $300 for a 2 pump unit, and these companies are probably buying the pump units in the tens to hundreds of thousand. I tried to setup a dosing system with stepping motors and buying singly if I could even find them, they were more in the $75 - $200 range for each pump if I could even get someone to sell them singly.

I hope he patented this if it was patentable. This is like the golden goose for high end reef equipment.

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I've got personal experience with bringing a car tuning product that was "free" to the market. It was better than the $600 competition and it did more than the competitions product did. The problem I saw was that people think somehow "free" or "cheap" is bad in comparison to something that cost a lot of money. Many people associate the high cost of something with high quality. If I had to do it all over again I would have encouraged our developers to agree and charge a premium for the product because we'd probably be rolling in the expendable incomes by now if that were the case. The interest level for people with a lot of money to buy something that doesn't cost that much is just not there.

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that prototype looked like one pump w/ multiple valves. 12v vavles are cheap, that pump is cheep if chinese, the board cant be more that a raspberry pi power/price-wise. I;m still going w/ around 200 one assembly line is built out:)

EDIT: granted, the rollermat is still at 400 bux and would be MUCH cheaper to build than this alk monitor... so who knows!

I can tell from the video the pump uses a stepping motor, and a really high quality head, so at the least there's a pretty significant hard cost on the pump alone. The floor on those things for a most basic completely bare model, not counting the heads at all is $50 - $100 and that's probably in some significant bulk. If you look at any doser with stepping motors like the neptune DOS, Vertex Libra, they start at $300 for a 2 pump unit, and these companies are probably buying the pump units in the tens to hundreds of thousand. I tried to setup a dosing system with stepping motors and buying singly if I could even find them, they were more in the $75 - $200 range for each pump if I could even get someone to sell them singly.

I hope he patented this if it was patentable. This is like the golden goose for high end reef equipment.

The only thing he could hope to patent is the analytical method (which I kind of doubt). Automatic alk monitoring is already available in analytical chemistry, just not at the precision (and compatibility) needed for a reef tank.

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that prototype looked like one pump w/ multiple valves. 12v vavles are cheap, that pump is cheep if chinese, the board cant be more that a raspberry pi power/price-wise. I;m still going w/ around 200 one assembly line is built out:)

EDIT: granted, the rollermat is still at 400 bux and would be MUCH cheaper to build than this alk monitor... so who knows!

I can tell from the video the pump uses a stepping motor, and a really high quality head, so at the least there's a pretty significant hard cost on the pump alone. The floor on those things for a most basic completely bare model, not counting the heads at all is $50 - $100 and that's probably in some significant bulk. If you look at any doser with stepping motors like the neptune DOS, Vertex Libra, they start at $300 for a 2 pump unit, and these companies are probably buying the pump units in the tens to hundreds of thousand. I tried to setup a dosing system with stepping motors and buying singly if I could even find them, they were more in the $75 - $200 range for each pump if I could even get someone to sell them singly.

I hope he patented this if it was patentable. This is like the golden goose for high end reef equipment.

The only thing he could hope to patent is the analytical method (which I kind of doubt). Automatic alk monitoring is already available in analytical chemistry, just not at the precision (and compatibility) needed for a reef tank.

So basically,

He produces the first run at $300-800

He sells the rights to coral vue or the like so they can mass produce them and keep up with demand.

Within a year Jebao has a unit out for a third of the dollars and everyone who bought one first is in way too deep.

The lawsuits ensue.

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Well it takes a couple months to get the production line started and contacts in place for parts. They will have it reversed engineered in a afternoon.

I'd like to think the guy is pretty smart as he was able to pull it off I hope he has his coding and boards on lockdown as I'm sure that is the most important part.

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The problem with jebao and just about every other knock off product coming out of China is there's basically no avenue for legal protection. There are lawsuits but that's about it. Unless it's an enormously popular product there isn't really a mechanism to enforce a judgement from the US or other country, in China.

We had a legal issue and a significant 7 figure loss, with a company whose owners were in China, but the company was based in the US, and there's almost no legal remedy even in this case. Intellectual property suits are about a million times more complicated than what we were dealing with. I wouldn't be surprised if tunze and other companies whose designs were obviously violated don't sue at all because it's completely futile.

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guys, its a an automated hanna checker, with the output converted to a pH probe signal. the regent he's using... looks exactly like the hanna reagent.. hell, its probably using the guts from a hanna checker.

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  • 1 month later...

Indeed it does. And it's not cheap paying for all the shipping when you have to return items that aren't working and to fix EB8 outlets that stop responding....

Haha that also mean the price will be 30% higher now

Hey, it costs a lot of money to convert it to cheap plastic and paint it orange! [emoji12]
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Well at least we know Neptune has the capability to bring this to market and its not another case of the Mindstream.

As an Apex user I am happy that the tech ended up with Neptune, though I would not be very excited if I owned a controller from a different company.

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That is pretty cool but now that neptune is involved I could see pricing over 900. Alk is just as important as lighting and we see what people are willing to spend on the new leds.

I think we have enough smart people in Austin to make this and program it, lets get this organized!

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  • 4 weeks later...

Anyone see the news about GHL and their alk monitoring?

I just heard about Ca monitoring, where'd you see the alk monitoring?

They mention both Alk and Ca monitoring in this thread on R2R

http://www.reef2reef.com/threads/profilux-and-monitoring-alkalinity-and-other-things.272306/

Its been awhile since I read through that thread, but I don't think they had any details on it.

Also on the Apex's guys build thread on Reef2reef he mentions this about the automatic alk monitor:

"We believe that the methodology in this device is the best intersection of ease of use, accuracy, precision, and cost that will enable us to bring a great tool to the arsenal of the average reef hobbyist at less than the cost of one LED light fixture."

I'd guess he's not talking about a budget LED fixture. I wonder if they are aiming for a ~ $800 price point (the price of a Radion)?

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