Signature Generator..

[Ashlar]

What is it?
An application that I made that takes the statistics provided by your web enabled controller (AC Jr / 2 with AquaNotes, AC3/3Pro with ethernet, or Premium Aquatics LightHouse) and turns them into an image that you can use as a signature on your favorite reef keeping forum, emails, or even as an image on your web page.

How does it work?
A program on my server reaches out every five minutes to your controller and gathers data that you specify. Temperature, ph, ORP, device status- most any data that your controller displays on a web page- all of it can become part of your image. This data gets formatted in the way you want, either fancy or simple, and turned into an image.

How much does it cost?
Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zero. There are no ads, no pop-ups, no tracking cookies, or fees. This was just something cool that I came up with because I'm a reef geek. If you feel guilty about using it for free, then renew your membership to your local reef club, send a donation to MASNA, or give a newbie a frag of something and help spread the responsible reef keeping ethic.

Okay, cool, how to I get started?
Register for an account at reefchat.org (thanks go to Steve for hosting it for me), and once you're logged in, click 'Extras' then 'Signature Generator' from the top menu. Help is available from every screen, and I've even put up a HOWTO with screenshots. I'd appreciate feedback on how to make it better, too.

The controllers the application supports can grow, too. If you have another controller that has a web interface, and it's not listed here, I'd love to work with you to make it compatible.

Here are a few sigs that our users have..


*edit: Yes, Brent needs to calibrate his ph probe *grin*

[wozza]

Man that is cool, but i dont have any kinda controler tho.

[Ashlar]

Man that is cool, but i dont have any kinda controler tho.

I love my AquaController II.. I got a great deal on one used locally.

This is what happens when a programmer gets into marine aquariums.

[wozza]

what tank set-up do you have?

[Ashlar]

I have a 175g main tank, and then to the left of it is a 55g refugium, and to the left of that is a 45g corner tank set up to propgate zoas and palythoa. All three tanks dump into the same oversized sump.

[Ashlar]

Oh! I added a new feature.. since I'm collecting folks stats every 5 minutes, why not graph em?
graph..

[wozza]

now that is super usefull, sure has got me wanting a AquaController

[jgiordano]

I am considering getting the Lighthouse Controller, do you screenscrape or telnet in.

[Ashlar]

The LightHouse provides a special page just for applications like this.. http://<ip of lighthouse>/data.htm will give you a hash table like page with name=value pairs of all kinds of data.

http://www.mcuresearch.com/bin/dataformat.pdf

[jgiordano]

The LightHouse provides a special page just for applications like this.. http://<ip of lighthouse>/data.htm will give you a hash table like page with name=value pairs of all kinds of data.

http://www.mcuresearch.com/bin/dataformat.pdf

Great job; Just out of curiosity which controller do you recommend?

[Ashlar]

You know, that's like saying DSB, SSB, or BB.. the answer is 'depends'.

Ranked by budget, you have the AC Jr, the LightHouse, AC II (used), AC III / Pro (big $$)

If I had my dream controller, it would be an AC3 Pro with DC8 and DC4HD, expansion module, extra ph / temp probes, and digital inputs for water on floor sensor, float valve, etc etc.

[Ashlar]

Oh, I added a new feature.. since I'm grabbing everyone's stats, why not graph them?
Click mine to view my stats for today..

[jgiordano]

Oh, I added a new feature.. since I'm grabbing everyone's stats, why not graph them?
Click mine to view my stats for today..

can this signature work on any forum?

[Ashlar]

can this signature work on any forum?

Only if the administrator of the forum allows images in signatures.

[Reefland]

Pretty cool...might do something similar for our Aquarium Log. Although it wouldn't be real time (updated when the user updates their log) it could contain more information such as most recent fish added, etc.

[Ashlar]

That does sound cool. Hrmm.. next project? hehe

[Ashlar]

I added another new feature. You can get your stats in XML (for integration into your own web pages) as well.

Time

Like here:
CarlosReef.com

[Ashlar]

*bump*

I've added support for a few more controllers- Neptune Apex, Profilux, and RKE with net module.

[Ashlar]

*bump* I've added support for the new Profilux 3, as well as options for different fonts and font sizes.