Hello there
I think that it is finally time to show what I’ve been working on now for ages – On and off when I had some additional time available.
For my automated irrigation system I need a HMI or a human machine interface. I started off by first purchasing a 5″ TFT LCD from ebay with a shield for my Arduino Mega to be able to interface with the display.
Hello Everyone
Its been ages again. Happy New Year and all the best for the year to come. I personally hope to be able to do a bit more posts this year in comparison to the previous one.
So as mentioned in the previous two posts, I am busy creating a NRF24L01 network to be used for automated farm irrigation system. The problem with farm irrigation is that the valves tend to be pretty far away from the farm house which is where the base station will have to be. To overcome this you will have to relay the signal through relay nodes to which ever node you which to send it to be able to open or close a specific irrigation valve at that specific node.
This lead me to decide to make use of the NRF24L01+PA+LNA (NRF24L01+Power Amplifier+Low Noise Amplifier) which has a proclaimed range of 1000 m or 1 km. However looking at the range tests that iforce2d did (See first test here and second test here) it seems that a safe maximum distance is around 715 m which is perfectly fine for my application.
Hello everyone
It feels like it has been forever since my previous post. My apologies for that, but I am really a bit busy at this stage and for the foreseeable future. I have however started working on my projects again although it is going extremely slowly.
As listed previously, I want to develop an NRF24L01 network based on the RF24 library from Maniacbug. The problem for me was that I simply weren’t getting any communication between the modules. I’ve read up on multiple websites to try and resolve this problem.
So my crowd funding campaign didn’t go too well. O well, you win some and you lose some. I will be selling the left over units either through a local supplier or alternatively through Tindie. I will decide once I have feedback from the local supplier in South Africa. If there is additional interest let me know.
I’ve started with my next project. It is a wireless NRF24L01 node that I wish to use for irrigation purposes. I’ve not made any real progress with it as such except for the node boards which I’ve completed. The boards still needs some revisions as well.
Hello everyone
I finally managed to get everything in order and launched my crowd funding campaign. So if your interested in a Reflow Master Shield, go check it out. Click on the campaign card below to be redirected to the campaign.
Let me know if you have any questions or comments. Remember that you’ll need to make up a relay connected power cord to switch your toaster on and off. This is so that you don’t have to hack apart your toaster oven. Check out the previous post on it.
Hello everyone
I just had to put together a little guide to show how easy it would be to use the Reflow Master Shield with your toaster oven without having to hack your toaster oven apart. You’ll need to make up a extension cord cable which is connected to the relay which will effectively switch power through the cable.
Hello Everyone
I know that it has been a while again. My apologies for the delayed post. There were some glitches in the firmware which I’ve discovered and I had to resolve these over the past month and a bit. I have also created a separate firmware package for the Arduino MEGA. There’s more progam space available so I could add some more features in the running cycle of the device. All of this have now been finalized.
Over and above resolving the glitches, I’ve experimented with my reflow curve and have finalized a curve that reflows the solder very nicely. I’ve created a little video for you guys that shows the assembly process of a unit, not using the hysteresis functionality vs. using the hysteresis functionality, the Arduino UNO firmware, the Arduino MEGA firmware and the actual reflow process in action.
Hello everyone
So as I’ve mentioned, I’m currently focusing on getting the shield version of the reflow oven controller going before I’m off to Canada. I’ve collected the PCBs I had made on Friday and I’ve received the displays today. The PCBs looks stunning and the artwork came out really nice. The picture of my wife on the back also came out really well. On Saturday evening I had some time and I reflowed a board to get a test board going. The initial reflowing didn’t go to well as it seems that my reflow curve that I’ve “perfected” isn’t working so well and the “gradual process” isn’t really so gradual.
So I required a little breadboard PSU to prototype some 3.3V units that I’m working with. I had some LM317 units lying around so I’ve decided to make a little breadboard PSU. I’ve made it to be switchable between 5V and 3.3V by means of switching a jumper between two positions. If you do decide to make this circuit, please don’t remove the jumper whilst powered up since the voltage will then spike to the input voltage whilst the jumper is removed. This is due to the adjustment leg going open loop. Other than that there shouldn’t be any issues.
Hello everyone
Things seem to be speeding up on this side. I had a bit of time to test the reflow oven again over this weekend after creating some new test boards in the week. So first things first, I had to setup my testing area:
Paladin Enabling Technologies 