Monitoring water softener salt tank

I finished building my test rig, it works perfectly, the Ocelot displays 3 different values depending on how many switches were activated, which is exactly what I wanted. I used the sample code Guy posted earlier in this thread, which works great, but this would load the data every time the Ocelot executes the program, is there a more efficient way? I posted some updated pictures of my water softener and test rig here:

http://www.mydotsoft.com/products/my.Gallery/?album=project
 
That looks great!

As far as the program goes I'm not sure what you are concerned about. The Ocelot scans many times per second and will check the "less than" status on each scan and load the variable. If it does this on each scan I don't think its any more or less efficient as far as the Ocelot is concerned.
 
That's right, there is no overhead in loading the variable on every pass since the bus routine independantly reads the analog value from the SECU16 input and the program gets whatever is the current value cached in the controller (ie: it doesn't physically request it from the module every time the program line is encountered).
 
that's exactly what I was concerned about, thanks for clearing that up guys. I will have to do some more testing, then I will mount it in my water softener tank.
 
Good deal E. Just to expand on this, the one main advantage of a PLC (Programmable Logic Controller) is its efficiency as well as its speed and simplicity. This is why industry relies on PLC's for critical applications. No moving parts and reliability.

The more functions you can assign to your PLC the more reliable your system will be. I use mine (Ocelot) for all critical applications and only use Homeseer for "ginger bread" items (voice announcements, headline news, etc...)
 
What about mounting with hot glue these hall effect sensors on the outside of the salt brine tank and have a floating shelf with a magnet mounted to it? The shelf would have to be "keyed" with the tank to keep it from rotating in the tank. The output of the hall effect sensor would be in a one transistor circuit to trigger an Ocelot or alarm panel.
http://www.goldmine-elec-products.com/prod...m=109&mitem=165

What if you mounted a rod with one of these round magnets in the brine tank and put a float on it?
http://www.goldmine-elec-products.com/prod...item=4&mitem=11
 
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