Iot Incubator

About the project

Industrial IoT Terminal for monitoring/ control based on decisions taken in the cloud

Microchip IoT Contest WinnerMicrochip IoT contest winner

Project info

Difficulty: Difficult

Platforms: Microchip

Estimated time: 2 weeks

License: GNU General Public License, version 3 or later (GPL3+)

Items used in this project

Hardware components

ARDUINO KIT BREADBOARD W/ WIRES ARDUINO KIT BREADBOARD W/ WIRES x 1
Gravity: I2C LCD1602 Arduino LCD Display Module (Blue) Gravity: I2C LCD1602 Arduino LCD Display Module (Blue) x 1
DHT11 Basic Temp Humidity Sensor DHT11 Basic Temp Humidity Sensor x 1
10A-250VAC, 10A-30VDC, Power Relay Gadgeteer module 10A-250VAC, 10A-30VDC, Power Relay Gadgeteer module x 1
40 Pin Male Headers 10 pcs 40 Pin Male Headers 10 pcs x 1
USB Type A Female Breakout Board USB Type A Female Breakout Board x 1
Mini ultrasonic humidifier Mini ultrasonic humidifier x 1
E27 25w ligth bulb E27 25w ligth bulb x 1
Lamp power cord cable Lamp power cord cable x 1
Avr-iot Wg Evaluation Board Avr-iot Wg Evaluation Board x 1
500 mAh LiPo battery 500 mAh LiPo battery x 1
USB A/Micro Cable - 2m USB A/Micro Cable - 2m x 1
5V 1A USB Port Power Supply 5V 1A USB Port Power Supply x 1

View all

Software apps and online services

Atmel Studio 7.0 Atmel Studio 7.0
Tera Term Tera Term

Hand tools and fabrication machines

Soldering Iron Soldering Iron x 1
Soldering tin Soldering tin x 1
Screwdrivers, thermoretractable gaine, pliers, scissors... Screwdrivers, thermoretractable gaine, pliers, scissors... x 1

Story

The argument that I have decided to use when i applied to this contest was "Industrial IoT Terminal for monitoring/ control based on decisions taken in the cloud". And to keep loyal to my idea I will elaborate a project that will show all the capabilities (or at least the most important) of the AVR IoT WG development board.

While I was thinking what to do as a project I'd been testing the development board finding out that the temperature sensor works good but, in some conditions, the temperature sensor included in the board could be influenced by the heat generated by rest of components (mainly the WifFi) in the board. Also to measure the temperature in hard environments (very hot or very humid) could be harmful for our development board.

Once started gathering all the electronics components that I used for another projects,I decided to use for this project the next main hardware to enhance the capabilities of the AVR IoT WG developent board:

- AVR IoT WG development board

- 2 Relays board.

- 1 DHT11 humidity and temperature sensor.

- I2C 16x2 Liquid Cristal Display

- 1 500mA LiPo battery

Having this hardware related with environment measurements I have decided to make a environment controller device, an incubator!

There is not a new stuff, you can find it everywhere, specially in industrial environments, such a farms, laboratories or hospitals, but we have got a great opportunity to make it IoT!

You can see the general connection diagram below.

As you can see in the diagram above one 5V power supply will feed  a permanent 5V USB fan, the humidifier and the relays . That's because we want to isolate the AVR IoT development board from the relays in order to avoid noise because of the switching. Also to make the board could run under batery we need to reduce power consumption.

Relay 1 will be connected to CS ping in the board, Relay 2 to the RST pin and the DHT11 sensor to the RX pin.

In order to make all this connections I will use a bread board and to connect the AVR IoT WG development board to the breadboard I've soldered male pin headers to the mikroBUS socket. It looks like that. Please note also that there is a short soldered in the R204 resistor, this is made to bring to the breadboard 5 Volts from the AVR IoT WG development board.

In order to start doing the AVR IoT WG development board programming and tests I've connected just the basic stuff, the LCD, the DHT11 humidity and temperature sensor and the relays, (on the last stage I will mount the rest stuff in the incubator box) see the image below.

To program the board open Atmel Studio and open Atmel Start Example project.

On the browser, search filter write AVR IoT and select AVR IoT Node.

In the dash board select WiFi middelware.

And set up your default WiFi credentials.

On the left side, click on the PINMUX button (the chip icon under the dashboard button). And configure the RX, CX and RST pins as pefipheral IO RX pin, and as digital output CX and RST. 

 Please be aware to use the same names if you are going to use the code that I've uploaded to GitHub.

Take a good cardboard box.

Shells the interior with aluminum, it will isolate the cardboard from the humidity, you can also build the incubator with another materials, for example using a plastic box.

On this case I'm using a 75W light bulb as a heater element, and a 5V USB fan it will be enough for that size of incubator, don't forget to make enough holes to let fresh air get it to avoid the CO2 levels increase.

I'm using a mini ultrasonic humidifier to set up the humidity, it works incredibly good.

Once we have set in place the sensor, heating element, the fan and the humidifier we can make the connections and finish building the incubator. And this is final result.

Would you like to see it working? Have a look on this video

Schematics, diagrams and documents

General connection diagram

Code

IoT Incubator

This repository contains the next files: LICENSE README.md dht11.c dht11.h display_all_data.c display_all_data.h i2c_lcd.c i2c_lcd.h main.c Create a project using Atmel Studio and Atmel Sart Example project, then add this files.

Credits

Photo of mojitech

mojitech

Born is Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain. Telecommunications engineer passionate about electrical, electronics, IT, telecommunications and science. Check my Youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCazAcFmSpTWDhPQKGWb4PwA And GitHub profile https://github.com/Moji14

   

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