Along the beautiful Pacific shoreline south of San Francisco lies a place called the Costanoa Lodge. This beautiful eco-adventure resort is known for beautiful sunsets, serene beaches, amazing stargazing and is a peace of nature.
In 2021, Fluidyne was contacted to help them upgrade their outdated SBR system. Our engineers worked to meet their stringent effluent requirements and designed a control system upgrade to help them retrofit their existing SBR system that was installed 23 years ago.
The old PLC, operator interface terminal, and other obsolete control system hardware were removed from the existing control panel and replaced with a new PLC, Color Touchscreen and Remote Access Interface that was installed in the existing control panel. The new control system included both primary level transducer control and secondary backup float control of the SBR tanks, influent EQ/filter recycle tank and final effluent tank. The new control system also added new dissolved oxygen sensors with SBR advanced biological nutrient removal utilizing dissolved oxygen aeration control along with backup timer control of the aerobic/anoxic mixing cycles. The filters were modified with automatic and/or manual filter back washing integrated into the SBR system. A new chlorine analyzer, influent filter turbidity and final effluent turbidity were integrated into the new control system. All of the analog signals including tank levels, effluent flow, chlorine residual, effluent turbidity, and dissolved oxygen are trended on the new PanelView display along with SBR cycles and sub-cycles for process optimization.
During the demo of the old hardware and installation of the new hardware, the team worked on finishing installation of the filter valves, decant vent valves, decant effluent valves, SBR influent valves, EQ/Bypass valve, decanters, auto dialer, turbidimeter, chlorine analyzer and DO equipment.
The new field equipment was installed, and operation was verified for the following devices:
a) Filter effluent valves & backwash valves
b) SBR DO controller & sensors
c) SBR level transducers
d) Effluent tank level transducer
e) Recycle tank level transducer
f) SBR decant vent valves
g) SBR effluent valves
h) SBR influent valves
i) EQ/Recycle Bypass valve
j) Auto dialer was configured and tested with control system.
k) Future filter bypass valve control circuit and logic were tested.
l) Future decant recycle pump control circuit and logic were tested.
m) Existing Auger screen circuit and logic was tested.
n) Future Emergency tank intermediate & high-level floats PLC inputs and programming were tested.
o) Future filter backwash pump control circuit and logic were tested.
p) Effluent flow meter, filter inlet/effluent turbidimeter, and chlorine analyzer analog inputs and control circuit was tested.
After a few days of training and testing of all of the process set points and functions, the system was up and running with smiles and high fives.