Automating EcoSAT

This blog is a little long winded looking back on it now, but I figure that if you just wanted to get on with your automation, then you wouldn't be reading about it to find out more. So hopefully it isn't too bording.

Our very first automation job took place in central Northern Territory not too far from Alice Springs. Back then the the customer already had an EcoSAT and just wanted to turn the bore pump near by on and off. So we started looking at it for them and looking back on that job now, it actually wasn't very complicated, but none the less we were pretty proud to see it operate and it still operates today. Since then however we've added many more features into our automation. Some things added from lessons learnt and some from customer feedback which has been great.

Now I won't pretend that EcoSAT is some kind of crazy capable, automate anything all in one solution because there is no replacement for a high end controller, but I think it's safe to say that we've got the basics covered. And most pastroalists are really only after the basics

1) Is there water?

2) Get water!

Really the most complicated it gets is when the tank is some distance from the pump, bore river, whatever water source you are using. And that was the feature which came next. Our system already included the ability to communicate between the EcoSAT devices, that's where the EcoSAT GREEN came from. So we simply added on top of that the ability for one EcoSAT to read the sensors of another. Once we could do that, we could automate.

We are some time on from that now though and it hasn't got too much more complicated. We've made it more reliable and we've sorted out the bugs for sure, but these days what we are really concentrating on is giving the user the power to setup and adjust the automation themselves. Pages on our website like the one below allow you to setup, adjust and check on the automation settings.

At this point it's probably worth mentioning that some people shy away because of the cost, or the complexity and some engines are very old and do in fact cost a bit to get going on automation. However more and more pumps, gensets and even engines around the place come with an auto-start or auto-stop capability built in. If I had one I'd be automating it for sure because there isn't really a cost. If you've already got EcoSAT then adding an automatic start engine has no cost. Literally none. We are happy to supply the cable and the rest is just setup on the website. Our phone support staff are very experienced in dealing with these types of questions and are a great resource when you are getting going. Don't be afraid to lean on them to get you going.