Water Buddy

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Submitted by danght1 on Fri, 09/30/2016 - 11:45

Topic:

Idea source:

Team Name:

         Team ULTRA

Team's Mentor: Michael Klofer - CalPlug 

Team Members:

         Hugh Dang - Computer Science and Engineering (Team Lead)

                          https://www.linkedin.com/in/hugh-hung-dang-13315497

         Binh Nguyen- Computer Science and Engineering (Software Desinger and Programmer)

                         https://www.linkedin.com/in/binh-edward-nguyen

         Duy Nguyen - Electrical Engineenring (Hardware Designer)

                        https://www.linkedin.com/in/duy-nguyen-12584ab5

         Phat Quach - Electrical Engineering (Circuit Designer)

                         https://www.linkedin.com/in/phat-quach-48678b107

Project's plan:

Energy Star is a symbol for energy efficiency that approved by government,Environment Protection Agency(EPA). These products will help the consumer save money and protect the environment. In order for a product achieve this, it need to meet the energy efficiency requirements set forth Energy Star product specifications. These are list specification that establish by EPA:

  • Product categories must contribute significant energy savings nationwide.

  • Certified products must deliver the features and performance demanded by consumers, in addition to increased energy efficiency.

  • If the certified product costs more than a conventional, less-efficient counterpart, purchasers will recover their investment in increased energy efficiency through utility bill savings, within a reasonable period of time.

  • Energy efficiency can be achieved through broadly available, non-proprietary technologies offered by more than one manufacturer.

  • Product energy consumption and performance can be measured and verified with testing.

  • Labeling would effectively differentiate products and be visible for purchasers.

Moreover, the product doesn’t just have to reach the requirements, also it has to pass the test. The testing method EPA used is apply for water source(bottle, point of use(POU)), delivery temperature, storage method. The test method can be find at this link: https://www.energystar.gov/sites/default/files/specs//Final%20Water%20Cooler%20Test%20Method.pdf

Our group main focus today is Water Cooler product. To meet the Energy Star requirements, the water cooler need to have the maximum energy consumption below certain amount. However, the threshold is depended on types of water cooler and the table below will show the maximum power of each type.

Our water cooler that will be use in research is VW 210 ES, it is the storage type using bottled-top load water source. From the research, The energy use of the VW 210 ES is about 0.43 kW/day (on mode, with no water draw), which is already lower than the requirement for the storage type. The water cooler that we will remodel the one in the Calit2 is similar to the one called on demand type, which will use less than 0.18 kW/day when it is on and no water draw to meet the requirement of energy star for water cooler.

Approximately, we can save 0.69 kW/day or 251.85kW/year. Using current tier 1 energy rate which is 16.5 cents/kW, we can save at least $42/year. Although this amount of money is not an attractive number, it may mean a lot if we add up all the household in our states .Also, saving $42 is a significant amount of money in undeveloped countries where the electricity rate is high. Also, using less energy will help preventing climate change which is a hot topic in recent years. It is a win-win situation; however, the drawback is the inconvenience that users have to wait for the heating process. To save energy while reducing the inconvenience are the main goals of our project.

We  are intend to modify the water dispenser to make it more efficient,.We have research the common mechanism from water dispenser in order to help us understand how it work. Also, by understanding the mechanism behind it, will give us an advantage to come up with simple strategy before we go deeply into it.  

 

  1. Parts:

    1. A tank (or two)- to store the water to be heated or cooled prior to dispensing.

    2. A water heater- to heat the water

    3. A refrigerating system- to cool the water.

    4. A tap or spigot- to release water

    5. A button or knob- for users to dispense water

    6. A collar- which holds the water bottle in a downward position, and allows water to channel into the tank(s.

    7. Electricity is required, if the dispenser has the option to cool and heat water.

 

  1. Cooling:

There are two main ways of cooling the water: using a refrigerant or using thermoelectricity.

 

Refrigerant:

The refrigerant system works in almost exactly the same way as your fridge at home. A compressor compresses a gas, this causes the temperature of the gas to rise, the gas is then passed to a condenser where the heat from the gas dissipates and the gas cools down until it becomes a liquid. Once the gas is cold it is forced through an expansion valve which causes it to drop in pressure and become even colder. At this point the gas is present in the evaporator which absorbs the heat from the water held in the reservoir. This then heats the refrigerant which then starts the cycle again. The cycle is kept going using electricity to drive a pump.

 

Thermoelectricity:

The thermoelectric method of cooling the water relies on the Peltier effect a Peltier device uses a thermoelectric effect, this means that when electricity passes through the Peltier device heat is transported from one side of the device to the other. This results in cooling on one side of the device and this is used to cool the water inside your water cooler.

 

  1. Heating:

The water in the alternate hot tap is generally heated with a heating element and stored in a hot tank. Incoming water travels through the body of the spout and into the tank, where it’s heated by an electric coil.

 

From the design we have known, we are planning to create a heat water circuit that can heat it immediately instead of keeping water heat.  If we know our model using thermoelectricity, we maybe can use the heat produced from the cold water to help with heating process.  

Process Update:

The picture shows our process to build a mixing system. Our idea is to use solenoid control the hot/cold water flow to directly output the water. We applied the Richmann’s calorimetric mixing formula:

m_{1}= \frac{m_{2}\cdot T_{2}- T_{m}\cdot m_{2}}{T_{m}-T_{1}}

 On the firmware section, we are able to control each sensor separate successfully. We are implementing the algorithm for the control system with the information received from sensors. When we were implementing, the big problem we interact was the limitation of digital pins. NodeMCU has limited number of pins. So we used GPIO extender from Sparkfun to solve the problem. The connection is SPI type.