Areas of expertise, or what you would like to chip in with.

[DJ88©]

Well since I am horrible at coming up with names and such in a creative way, I figured lets get a specific list of where people feel thay can offer a source of input and expertise. Or where they are willing to lend a hand basically.

Seeing the high levels of programming and such, I'll bow out to the experts there. :) Unless someone needs some small bits of code written.

The areas I'll add my two bits in are;

PCB design, fabrication and manufacturing.
Testing/troubleshooting goes right along with my area of training(elex tech in the navy). I have access to test equipment as I am currently in school for an second engineering diploma.

I can also help with HTML and such. Graphics work.

Photography(not that I can fly all around the US to take pics :D)

[Hlothran]

Just a brief bit about what I do:

I work in the computer field as an IT Manager. Hobbies include, obviously reefs or I wouldn't be here, but also the study of Linux with embedded systems and the PC104 standard. I may be able to lend a hand in this area. I also have quite a bit of experience testing and documenting systems. I am very good at writing system documentation (even though my emails may not reflect that). :) I am more than willing to assist in the areas of documentation, web, design, testing and implementation. I can also sweep floors and take out the trash as necessary... :)

Hlothran

[DaveP]

I am an MBA student so I have access to a tremendous amount of info at my school. If anything needs to be researched, I am your man. :)
Also if anything business wise needs to be done I can provide the info for the group.
DaveP

[alligator]

Thanks for the information. I'm compiling a sheet with everyone's qualifications so we can assign them to specific "teams" once the project gets underway.

[Panda]

I'll do some graphics for it if need be. I also have a TON of free web space that I'd be willing to share. The site address could be something like http://www.captivebredreefs.com/automation or something like that. I'd also be willing to contribute to a web site design if need be.

Dave

[CleveYank]

once the decision of type and features and a design approach....will you guys need some hunting on the web for parts????

I can help with tracking down parts if I know what it is called what it does and voltage and resistance ratings needed and then go hunt for the lowest purchase/shipping costs to get items needed.

[BIG "G"]

If there is a need I'm a Product Designer

I have been a Designer / Detailer for over fifteen years and have a wide range of experience.

SKILLS:

2D & 3D Design
2D & 3D CAD Drafting
3D Modeling
Rapid Prototyping
3D Visualization & Rendering
3D Animation
Technical Illustrations
Patent Drawings
3D Multimedia
Web Page Design

I work from my home, and I'm allways availble
So let me if you need any help.


E-mail me (ghagberg@twcny.rr.com)

[gregr]

photography is what i love (well, i love my aquarium too...), and i am happy to share what i know. i am lucky to have several good local fish stores nearby so if there is a particular fish, coral, invert, etc. someone needs a photo of just ask. i'm building up quite a little library of photos so chances are i may already have it.
greg

[Afishianado]

Please count me in. My background is Electromechanical mostly. I have worked in design, manufacturing and Testing of all sorts of equipment from Apache helicopters to Particle Accelerators. I prefer mostly to work at a systems level, I am also a DIY kinda guy for my reef stuff, I just finished plumbing up all of the equipment for my new reef this weekend. I think that Reef ayuh and I would make a good team in testing and packaging the system. See if it really is something that can be built and used effectively and safely by other Reef people out there. Let me know what and when, I'm in.

Chris

[BSide]

I've actually worked on tank automation projects of my own design several times, and stalled for whatever reason (usually life got too hectic :-)) Anyhow, definitely interested in this. I'm a software developer, and have experience in the following areas:

- traditional software development (c/c++, perl, java, etc.)
- embedded sw & hw design (some exp. useful to this project like LCDs, RS232, I/O, A/D, Linux on PC104-compat SBCs, etc.)
- web design/hosting/database design/sysadmin skills/etc.

I also have collected a lot of equipment during my past attempts, such as a 486-compatible SBC development kit, a bunch of optically-isolated relays, LCD displays, etc. etc.

Personally, I'd prefer to build something MORE powerful, price being a bit less important... ie., I'd love it if it had ethernet support for webserver config/monitoring interface, webcam support, etc. in addition to full controller functionality.

I hope I can help out!
Ben

[sweeper]

Im from Australia,
It would be good to do on different voltages,eg Aus to you guys,I have made a good back up power system,[My reef 6,2,2 diy wave tanks algee turf tank,diy co2,diy skimer,hot soldering iron,

[Tomm]

I'd be interested in helping with the web site and writing the PC side of the applications. I've got lots of experiance with ASP, JS and HTML. I also have some experiance with programming for Macs, if you want to make a compatible client.

[marklp77]

I am a mid-level Visual Basic programmer that would love to help out. Let me know...

Mark

[MarkS]

As I stated in the "Brainstorming" thread, I would like to see this device connect to a PC by a USB port. This way I could connect it to a Mac.

I would be interested in TRYING to write the Mac driver software. While I have never even tried to write such software, the details, at least from a Mac's point of view are freely available from Apple's web site and platform independent USB driver info is available from www.USB.org.

I have 15+ years of computer programming experience (self taught), fluent in C, Pascal, BASIC, some Assembly (Motorola 68000) and some C++.

Mark

[iPEProjects.com]

I don't know if it is too late to add areas of expertise, but I am pretty good at PHP, MySQL and HTML. Most people listed web design; I can do some of the back end work (I am self taught in everything so I may need assistance from someone with more experience once in a while.

Anyways, I am very interested in this project and if you are thinking of a web front-end; I may be able to help.

Keep me updated (though I can always read it here).

Kevin

[Crystal_619]

I'm sure my husband and I both could help out some. We both have a degree in Electronics Engineering w/ Computer Networking. We also help to run a Web Design Shop. We can do just about anything with computers. My husband is currently teaching in the IT department at a University. We know PLC's and microcontrollers. We currently have a few 8086 microprocessors and a few motorola boards. We can also design and build custom circuits if the need arises. At the school, we have a machine to put a negative of a circuit on a board and etch it out. My husband is more into programming than I am though and is great at VB. He taught it last semester. He also knows C++. I learned BASIC back in the day but I'm sure that won't help much. We also have pspice were I could put circuit designs in. We also have our own apache web servers that we could perhaps utilize? Just let me know if you guys need us to chip in.

Crystal Bridges

[MKramer]

I came in late on this topic, but the small bit of info I've gathered on the intent here sounds interesting to me.

I am an embedded systems software developer. My expertise is more in high-performance real-time stuff (I work on defense projects), but I've done quite a bit of hobby work in smaller systems as well. Most of which has been designing data-logging computers and controllers for cars, but I'm currently working on an 8052-based controller for my aquarium. I have plans to make it much more flexible and modular than it currently is, but it's a good starting point.

My experience is primarily in C, C++, PowerPC Assembly, and Ada with a variety of embedded operating systems and monitors, mostly vxWorks, and RTLinux. Hardware experience includes custom processing logic (ASICs/FPGAs), PowerPCs, 68k, 8051.

If there's any way I can lend a hand, let me know.

[Slartibartfast]

I would like to volunteer my expertise as well.

I have a PhD in Artificial Intelligence :crazy1: so if we ever want to get advanced with fuzzy logic and stuff, I can help out there. I have programmed real-world projects in just about every language out there (C, C++, Java, VB, Lisp, Perl, C#) so I can help on the programming side.

A while back I built my own controller using a Basic stamp hooked up to an X-10 controller. It monitored sump and tank levels, and if either one got out of line it would turn off the sump. Since it was X-10, I was using the PC program 'homeseer', which monitoried that particular X-10 signal and would send me a page if the pumps shut off. It even triggered once on vacation, and I was able to get the fishsitter over there to fix it. :) It was pretty basic (no pun intended), though, and it would be really cool to have something more sophisticated with logging and everything.

You can put together a cheap PC for just a couple of hundred dollars now, so it might be a good way to go.

[tide_ben]

I am willing to help as well... I am just now gathering stuff to set up our first aquarium in the next 5 months or so...

My profession is a controls engineer, and I have done quite a few projects using sensors and feedback to react to changing conditions, using mainly PLC's. I have done some work with VB and having it interact with an OPC server to collect data from a device... that seems to be where the entire industry is heading right now. I would love to participate in this project... let me know if there is anything I can do to help.

[catfish41]

Hi, I think I put my fist post in the wrong area. Anyway I would like to help also. Right now looking at a 48 channel I/O board with a relay set-up using a PC to control. have some VB programing skills and also play around with web page building and graphic design. Let me know if you can use me.

Thanks

Brad

[Oppsea]

Catfish,
What I/O board have you found?
I had a post on here asking about an I/O borad for a PC and no one responded.

[catfish41]

here is a link that I found after extensive searching. Let me know what you think. EAGLE Technology Product Detail PCI-836A-C - 24-40 Channel Digital Input-Output.htm

[Doug]

Hi Brad,

Is the the link that you were refering to?

http://www.eagle.co.za/display_prod.php?product_id=852

I hope this project keeps going. It could be very interesting.

Doug

[skearse]

Hi guys,

Came in real late but would like to help out if possible-my areas of experience is chemical process control-instrumentation, automation, PLC programming, HMI developnment, communications, etc. Hope there is some way that I may be able to help?

[Dazz]

Hey guys, I'm in here late too, but I want to help if I can. I have over 7 years of c/c++ programming experience, and plenty of Win32, vb, vb.net etc for interfaces in windows. I am currently a game programmer at a division of Ubisoft.

Slartibartfast: I really enjoy doing AI in games. I havnt done anything very advanced yet, but am currently working on a project that is going to have very advanced AI.

[Dazz]

Holy crap... I just saw that this post is from 2002