Projects in process

water control project

little app to communicate between browser/app and microcontroller to run a small waterfall

We have two little ponds in the yard fed by the rainwater from the roof. They are at the base of a big outcropping of roxbury pudding stone. Water is pumped from the lower pond to the upper pond and from the upper pond up the side of the ledge.

There is an app, "cascada" that starts the pumps and energizes the circuits to turn on the waterfall and control the level of the lower pond.

If it hasn't rained in a while, over time water evaporates and leaks out. The level of the pond is controlled using a $10 lawn sprinkler valve to inject water into the pond when the falls below a certain level. Water gets added while the pumps are on until it reaches the max level then it goes off. If you turn on the pumps again it doesn't continue filling but waits to inject water til the water falls to the low water sensor.

The water level control is independent of the pond timer, is located in its own circuit box on the porch and is activated whenever the waterfall is on.

The other circuit is connected to the house ethernet and contains a server, relays and timers to turn the system on and off. Its microcontroller is connected to an Enc28j60 chip that implements a server capable of delivering GET string variables to the microcontroller.

The app is written in HTML5/javascript, resides on http://cascada.sitebuilt.net and uses $.get to send a string to a php script on the that server which transfers it by curl to the external Enc28j60 server located in the house. It does this via a http://www.noip.com/ since the home network's IP can change. It tells the controller which circuit it wants on and for how long. more info...More

online heating system control project

description

The most advanced and easy to use user interface these days is probably the one contained in your smartphone or tablet. Apps are easy to use, interactive and readily update-able. The interface on your programmable thermostat probably wouldn't be high on that list. And if you have more than one heating zone then the difficulty is multiplied.

Replace those thermostats with temperature sensors and control the whole house from one interface. Slip a microcontroller device between the thermostat connections and the heating/cooling system. Connect it to the home network and you are ready to go. From 1 zone to 8 zones, it will monitor and control them all.

Start collecting data on your energy use. Which zone calls for heat the most? Which takes longest to heat up? How much would it cost to be a little warmer? How much is setting back the thermostat saving me in my house? Optimize your hydronic system by running the boiler at a lower temperature on a warmer day.

Overriding any zones program is easy and can be done remotely from any connected device, phone tablet or browser.

An Avr microcontroller takes in temperature readings from multiple locations. At the control room the AVR hub polls temperature and for each zone knows the set temperature, the default temperature and whether or not a zone is ON and how long it has been on. If it doesn't hear from the (linux) scheduler then it falls back to act as a multi-zone thermostat set at the default temperatures.

The scheduler would take temperature data from the AVR client and would know the schedule. Whenever a schedule change point would come up, it would notify the AVR and instruct it to change the set point.

The controller would on the client probably an HTML5/javascript client. Here you can read the temperatures and view the schedule. You can override or change the schedule....More