Thursday, May 21, 2020

Day 106 - More D1 Mini

A little bit better installation. At least there isn't any duct tape involved. I'm still using the breadboard as I'm thinking of adding another sensor and possibly a relay to this board. There is a thermostatically controlled fan installed above the refrigerator coils and a small switch to turn it off completely. I'm thinking of using a relay to turn it on if the outside temperature is warm in case the manual switch is still turned off. Also, if the refrigerator is off, the fan circuit will also be off. (That's not the way it's powered now)

This circuit board is powered by 12VDC from the control board so when the refrigerator is powered off, so is the monitoring board.

I have been using this small OLED display on the DMR hotspot but thought about using one like it with this project. It is 128x64 pixels and I'm thinking of just mounting the tiny display into a cutout on the refrigerator control panel. The display only uses two of the digital I/O pins on the D1 Mini and you have full control of font, size, and location of the text. It is a blue monochrome display and the upper 16 rows are yellow. I'm displaying the time on the top row which it retrieves from the Home Assistant server. Note that this D1 Mini is retrieving the temperatures from the network as it is not the same one that is collecting the data.

Obviously, we aren't really doing much else. This is giving me something to do besides watching YouTube videos.

4 comments:

  1. ...something to do besides watching YouTube videos... I hear you Richard. No duct tape involved? I didn't even think that is even an option when fixing stuff.

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    1. Yep, been watching a lot of YouTube videos. Other people’s travels, how to use all of the different “smart home” software. And hot all of the bits and pieces tie together. Duct tape really is a useful item. In my case, I’m using Gorilla tape. Much stronger than regular duct tape.

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  2. But RichardM, duct tape holds the universe together! ;)

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    1. I used some more Gorilla tape this morning to temporarily "mount" another circuit board in the wet bay to monitor tank and valve temperatures.

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