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Home Brew Bin Controller 3
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tedbear
Posted 1/12/2020 13:48 (#7968752 - in reply to #7968101)
Subject: RE: Home Brew Bin Controller 3


Near Intersection of I-35 & I-90 Southern Mn.
I thought of you this morning when I happened across a You Tube video on the You Tube channel of my DISH satellite TV system. This series is called dronebotworkshop and is hosted by a guy named Bill from Canada. It does an excellent job and I've watched many of his videos.

The video I watched this morning dealt with LCD displays at the beginning and then progresses to using one with a temp/humidity sensor. Towards the end he works with an LCD Shield with push buttons on it. This looks very much like yours.

You have gotten into this quite aways but you may learn some tips from the link. He did not get into any output control. He does mention that the shield might make it a bit difficult to get to some of the unused output pins which you would want to control the low voltage relay(s) that ultimately run the fan(s).

As far as what the set points for the temperature and humidity should be to run your fans, I don't know and the video does not address anything like that as I suspect Bill doesn't know much about running fans in a grain bin. I would assume you would have a high and low point for the temperature and humidity. The Arduino can easily make decisions based on one or the other or both readings. Deciding what they should be might be difficult.

The link I have is not the video but is the "still" version of it. I think the sketch(es) can be downloaded from this but I didn't look into that much.

https://dronebotworkshop.com/lcd-displays-arduino/

Here's a picture of an external four relay board that I've used for some projects. These relays are rated at 10 AMPS so they couldn't run the fan motors directly but could control other devices that can. This board uses opto isolators for good separation between the Arduino and the higher voltage that the relays are controlling. The board is setup to be active LOW so you just do a digitalwrite LOW to the pin that you are using with the relay. Doing a digitalwrite HIGH will cause the relay to de energize. It has small LEDs on board which can be handy for prototyping and troubleshooting.

Keep us informed. Looking beyond what you already have in mind. I'm thinking that a future expansion might involve communication between the setup on the bin and the internet. This is beyond me but i"m thinking it should be possible to have this setup so the set points and operating status could be observed and/or changed by a Smartphone. I have a Shield that does some of this but uses Bluetooth so the range is limited.



Edited by tedbear 1/12/2020 14:06




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