Monday, April 12, 2010

WiFi Chicken Coop Door Opener in a Drill

Not much time to write at the moment, put the pictures should tell most of it...

Wifi enabled arduino clone "BlackWidow 1.0", combined with a polulu MC33887-based 2.5A speed controller. I was going to build my own, but we need to finish the project. The hens wait for no one. Well, right now, they wait for us. Well, Pam, mainly. :-)

Overview:


View of speed-controller, motor, and trigger-button wiring (why not use the trigger and fwd/lock/reverse switches as inputs?):


Close-up of pull-up and pull-down resistors to drive analog inputs with three possible states, 0v, 2.5v, and 5v, giving appropriate values around 0, 512, and 1023.



I love re-using PC cables, and this one will work perfectly as a header cable for the Black Widow board. I have a Seeeduino in place to show how completely lucky I got... The board fits where the batteries were!

I'll then just use the DC charge jack as the main power input from the solar-charged gel-cell:



A close-up of the Black Widow with wifi board:

That's all for now.

What's next?

Hardware: temporary install plugging fanout wires into BlackWidow headers. Will be permanently soldered after beta code version.

Hardware: USB socket for field reprogramming. Unfortunately, I don't think the BlackWidow can program itself via wireless (yet). USB Will be it.

Coding: onboard webpage for manual controls, atomic-time retrieval, and time-based scheduling.

Coding: drill trigger/direction UI for manual operation


BTW, I came up with this idea on my own and then Pam discovered like minds. I like their design for its simplicity, but it won't have soft-start PWM speed control!

3 comments:

Shavez Chavez said...

Slinky=

I am so impresesed by your designs. I am very interested in these types of projects, but need to start at a more beginner level to understand the circuitry you're using. I have a good grasp of electrical engineering, but have very little experience on circuit boards. I want to know this stuff. Is there a good book or site you'd recommend to begin this journey?

Anonymous said...

Wow that is incredible. I want to make a similar system for my A level project at school. Is it worth making it able to be controlled via the internet as well as timed in your opinion. I wouldnt have the fogiest idea how to start it and which circuit board to use to make it especially with the computer side to it too.

Jasper said...

Now that you have a working design would you consider making it for "customers?"