Introduction

This program is an experimental timed-discharge adapter for a Vericom control panel used with an Orenco Systems AdvanTex® wastewater treatment system (sewage filtration system) marketed by Wastewater Technologies, Inc.

Although the Vericom firmware is capable of modification to provide timed-discharge capability by a firmware download via telephone, this adapter was just an experiment to prove out the concept of timed-discharge for my particular drainfield characteristics. This, I don't recommend this application for AdvanTex installations unless experimental and short-term in nature. This project is included simply as an example of a problem/solution using a PIC microprocessor.

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The problem

As delivered the control panel simply directs the final discharge pump to send water to the drain field as controlled by high and low float switches, with anywhere from 20 to 50 gallons of effluent at a time. Because the surface drain field accepts wasterwater at a very slow rate, anything not quickly absorbed into the soil generally runs down the slight incline in the drain field and seeps out from under the mounded soil.

The Vericom control panel does have the ability to be re-programmed for timed discharge instead of float-driven discharge, but the final discharge station needs to be large enough to handle peak flows, and my discharge station is not that large.

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The Solution

This unit activates the final discharge pump on a timed basis by driving the Vericom panel's PUMP-ON and PUMP-OFF float inputs to turn the pump on an off. The state of the high and low float switches in the discharge station serve as boundary conditions, for example, preventing activation of the pump if the low float switch indicates that there's no water to pump, or activating the pump anytime the high float says that the water level is high.

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Caveats

This unit has functional issues that confuses the Vericom panel and causes it to enter an alarm condition which ultimately phones out to the monitoring company. I never got to the point where I figured out exactly what the Vericom panels was confused about, but I suspect that it has to do with the fact that I turn on the low float for very few seconds before activating the high float, and to the Vericom panel that seems like very short cycles and high flows. The alarm conditions might have been mitigated by changing the data constants in the panel, but I never went that far...this unit proved out the concept of timed-discharge for my drainfield, and that was all I needed to know.

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Technical Reference

HARDWARE

• This

SOFTWARE

• This

CORRECTIONS OR UPDATES

• v1.0 - first release