Project Logs

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• ...Progress.

  vwphan • 03/20/2014 at 00:15 • 0 comments

  I took a little time off. It's the end of the ski season here, and between skiing with friends, and everything else, I  dealt with it as is. 
  
  Finally I've gotten back into the coding spirit, and have added a few new features, in addition to new software.  For upgrades, I added a Real-Time Clock, and an LCD Screen.  Both were from Sparkfun.  The real time clock ensures that the time is always correct, regardless of how many times the Arduino is restarted.  The LCD screen was serial enabled, and allows me to see the status of the device at all times.
  
  Code is still evolving, version 3 will be out shortly.
  

• Clean Up!

  vwphan • 02/26/2014 at 23:14 • 0 comments

  Now that everything works roughly the way that it's supposed to, it's time to solder it all up and make it look nice.  I'll be using an additional shield I've got around.  Photos to follow.​

• Testing, testing, 123...

  vwphan • 02/26/2014 at 19:11 • 0 comments

  I'm still testing my code.  I'm discovering that I haven't implemented the alarms for the ​light correctly, so it never turns off/on properly...

  I have installed a small 12V Fan , cutting a hole for it out of the top of the container. I also drilled a corresponding ammount of inlet vent holes at the opposite end of the enclosure.
  
  So long as the lamp is on, the enclosure will always remain fairly warm, and the fan will run intermittently.  I've found it take 15-30 seconds for the fan to cool the enclosure from 25C back to 24C.  It may take less, eventually I'm going to put a very sensitive temperature sensor at the fan outlet to ensure it shuts off when the exhaust temperature is the at the bottom of the set point.
  
  About saftey: I've set the fault temperature in my code to be 30C.  In my experience most wire insulation is good to about 60C.  Additionally, the relay is rated for 240VAC at 25A (That's 6000W), and I'm using 120VAC at <=5A (600W.)
  

• Code

  vwphan • 02/25/2014 at 14:51 • 0 comments

  I've been struggling through the code.  I got it all working finally. It's not perfect, but when theres a fault, it fault's to a safe state.  The fault doesn't run as perfectly as I'd like, but that's ok.​

• More Temperature Testing

  vwphan • 02/20/2014 at 14:26 • 0 comments

  After 4 Hours with only the light on the chamber hit ~29C.  This is ok cause the target temperature range is 22-25C.

  Performing a second test that uses the same code, but electrifies the heating pad, without the lamp.
  
  My hunch is that with the lights on, I'll not need to also have the heating pad on to maintain a good temperature range.​

• Initial Temperature Testing

  vwphan • 02/20/2014 at 00:16 • 0 comments

  Coding is my weak point.  As such, when I approach projects as such​, I start with the BARE MINIMUM necessary to get the thing to show functionality as quickly as possible.
  
  For initial testing, I am simply running the light in the growing enclosure, and measuring the temperature over time.  The program that I wrote spits back over serial, comma separated strings of the temperature readings.

  
  

  To log the data, I'm using the logging feature of putty, saving the entire session to  a .CSV file, while putty simply listens to the arduino at 9600 baud.  If you have a computer available, this is about the easiest way to store output from your Arduino.
  

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