Another completely non-moto, very geeky post. This afternoon (Friday), my Amazon order of Arduino pieces came in and within 15 minutes, I had them incorporated into my latest project. The blue object installed on the breadboard top/center in the picture is a digital temperature and humidity sensor and just to the right is the ultrasonic distance sensor. The temperature/humidity sensor will simply be monitoring the air temperature inside of the utility room in the hut. The intent is to mount the ultrasonic "ping" sensor near the top of the fresh water tank and measuring the level of the water. I did test the the sensor will get a reasonable reflection from the surface of water by just taking the unit outside while being powered off of a 9v battery. It even gets a good reflection from snow. I can think of all sorts of application for this sensor.
Another item that I was really looking forward to trying out was this board. It is also an Arduino Uno R3 board but has integrated Ethernet, PoE (Power over Ethernet) and SD card storage. This is in addition to the 5 analog and 8 digital inputs. With this board, 5 of the digital inputs are being used by the Ethernet and SD interfaces. The PoE will allow me to run an ethernet cable from the PoE switches that I have installed in all of the residential huts and use it for both power and data.
Much of the afternoon was spent trying to get the web server code running reliably and I will be taking one of these with me on my upcoming business trip. I don't think that I'll be playing with it on the flight but it may end up consuming my evenings. I can think of worse ways to spend my time. I personally find this stuff incredibly interesting and have been looking for a way to learn how to use these microprocessors.
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Whew! I'd say there's not much you are not interested in and not much you can't tackle!
ReplyDeleteFor more of a moto application, I was thinking of using thermistors to measure cylinder head temperature, measure ambient air temperature and humidity for an "ice alarm". There is also a GPS module that would sit in the top box and could use for just collecting tracks.
DeletePretty cool devices.
Cool stuff RichardM, beyond my skill levels but cool...
ReplyDeleteThis stuff is pretty straight forward. Kind of like the old electronic kits though upgraded with microprocessors. No more radios or power supplies. Now it's sensors and servos...
DeleteCool! My brother and I have been kicking around an idea for building a weather station using the Arduino and a few conveniently available shields. It's amazing all the work one doesn't have to do when it comes to Arduino.
ReplyDeleteI also gave my brother a Raspberry Pi for Xmas. He's been having far too much fun with it.
The online community really does make it easy to make things with the Arduino. I have a couple of Raspberry Pi's but I use them for XBMC servers in Barrow. I haven't played too much with them at all.
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