Monitoring Laser (or Your Home) Temperatures & Upcoming Class

bpamplin · March 23, 2018, 4:14am

I temporarily installed temperature sensors on the Blitzen chiller lines. This is a proof of concept test. If successful, it may be expanded to a system with an LED display that also keeps up with usage and dollars to be paid,… Results can be seen on the following links:
5 minutes - https://thingspeak.com/apps/matlab_visualizations/218536
30 minutes - https://thingspeak.com/apps/matlab_visualizations/218508
6 hours - https://thingspeak.com/apps/matlab_visualizations/218518
24 hours - https://thingspeak.com/apps/matlab_visualizations/218521

You can see the microcontroller taped to the handle of the chiller unit. The sensors are taped to the lines. The one on the left with the dab of lime color is Sensor 1. It is connected to the “Outlet” port of the chiller. (Is that the outlet of laser or outlet of chiller?)

Results are interesting but a bit mysterious. Sensor 2 tends to lead in time but is generally half a degree F cooler. Specs of the DS18B20 sensor call for a accuracy of +/-0.5C. I’m inclined ot think Sensor 2 should be calibrated by adding half a degree F. (We don’t need to be concerned about absolute accuracy as much as the difference in the two temperatures. Differerence of a few degrees should not be a concern either.) (The anomoly at 8:20PM Thurday was caused by me holding Sensor 1 to verify which is which.)

I’m using ThingSpeak which allows eight fields to be sent every fifteen seconds for over a year on a free account. It provides the plot capability which is easy but I’m not real happy with it.

HELP WANTED! If we move forward with this, a web developer who speaks .json could be a big help. Sample input:
https://api.thingspeak.com/channels/343517/feeds.json?results=3

UPCOMING CLASS: @nickWebb and I will be presenting a class in about a month where students will build up a circuit with a Wemos D1 Mini microcontroller and a DS18B20 temperature sensor sending temperatures off into ThingSpeak in the cloud. Same as my other electronics classes: Free, beginners welcome and I furnish everything except a laptop. We will cover everything in the above project and how to send a tweet if the temperature exceeds some specific temperature. You will then be ready to acquire a Wemos D1 Mini, a DS18B20 microcontroller, a resistor and two capacitors to build a module. If you have a phone charger with a micro plug, parts will cost about $10.00.

Paging @Team_Laser

srini · March 23, 2018, 5:20am

Could you please help me with the names of the parts that you use in the class. I am interested in acquiring a set of project boards that you have for my personal projects. I will be at DMS tomorrow morning and would want to visit Tanner to buy those stuff.

Bill · March 23, 2018, 10:26am

Python has libraries to parse json

srini · March 23, 2018, 1:29pm

For parsing just JSON you can use ReactJS. Contact any student of @Kirk_Keeter taught classes. They should be able to provide the help.

bpamplin · March 23, 2018, 2:36pm

@srini My Tuesday Blynk into the Internet of Things class uses all the same parts with a different cloud platform. I’ll be discussing this some. There are openings.

Total parts list:

Wemos D1 Mini (other ESP8266 will work as well)
DS18B20 temperature sensor - I like the EBay ones on a one meter cable for my projects.
! - 4.7K quarter watt resistor
2 - 0.1uF cap
Old wall wart with Micro plug - common with Android phones

I just solder the parts to the little board and put a few inches of shrink wrap around it.

If no one volunteers based on this posting, I’ll put out a Help Wanted post.

srini · March 23, 2018, 3:11pm

Could you please give the list if other sensors too.

bpamplin
March 23 |

@srini My Tuesday Blynk into the Internet of Things class uses all the same parts with a different cloud platform. I’ll be discussing this some. There are openings.

Total parts list:

Wemos D1 Mini (other ESP8266 will work as well)
DS18B20 temperature sensor - I like the EBay ones on a one meter cable for my projects.
! - 4.7K quarter watt resistor
2 - 0.1uF cap
Old wall wart with Micro plug - common with Android phones

I just solder the parts to the little board and put a few inches of shrink wrap around it.

If no one volunteers based on this posting, I’ll put out a Help Wanted post.

Visit Topic or reply to this email to respond.

In Reply To

Bill Makerspace Member
March 23 |

Python has libraries to parse json
Visit Topic or reply to this email to respond.

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bpamplin · March 23, 2018, 7:36pm

Files for my classes are at the following link. The pdf files for the Sensors and the Blynk classes have the full parts list.
http://pamplin.com/dms/

bpamplin · March 23, 2018, 10:34pm

The live links in the original post here are boring because the sensors are on Blitzen which has not been in use. Here is activity when I was doing some cutting last night. Most were around seven minutes. It will be interesting if someone does some heavy work.

https://thingspeak.com/apps/matlab_visualizations/218922

kbraby · March 24, 2018, 3:08am

A current sensor on the chiller power lead could also be interesting. If the chiller is correctly sized, you might get a better track on load from the chiller run time than temperature rise.

bpamplin · March 24, 2018, 3:06pm

That’s a great idea. I chose chiller lines because it was quick, easy and non-intrusive. Thunder would have been a better choice because of its workload but I chose Blitzen because I did not want to get my clumsy feet into such a crowded space.

This started off as an idea to call more attention to the fun and practical aspects of Arduino-ish microcontrollers and maybe pull in a few folks to my classes. In a discussion with @heyheymama and @motopilot, several ideas came up. The one that I like the most is having an LCD display with a reset button. When you start a project push the reset. The display will show time used and cost. Other ideas were more involved with such things as RFID, logging and even a Help button that would send a discord message that someone needs help.

I have completed Phase 1 of my plan. I have thrown the idea against the wall! Will it stick? Its up to the @Team_Laser If there is no interest I will offer the MCU and sensors to Science Committee.

bpamplin · March 24, 2018, 5:09pm

My previous reply ends with what sounds like an ultimatum more than I intended. Over the next month I would welcome comment on whether this concept is interesting to the Laser Committee.

My observations on results of Proof of Concept Phase:

$10.00 modules with two sensors can be easily built which can read the sensors, connect to DMS WiFI and upload data to an IoT platform as often as every 15 seconds.
A free ThingSpeak account is great for receiving, archiving and distributing data via .json.
ThingSpeak plot capabilities leave much to be desired. This can be resolved by developing our own web page to display the results. I think we could easily find a volunteer in our member base considering the interest in Python and Ruby on Rails classes. I have not reached out since we have not defined an interest.
The temperature ranges are actually quite boring. I interpret this as meaning that the chiller is doing a great job. The goal of this phase is not to measure temperatures. The goal is to verify that it is feasible to sense and report measurable attributes. (Yeah. A secondary goal is to cause people to think, “I could go to Brady’s class and learn to build my own to monitor my home/fish tank/farm/whatever.”)
@StanSimmons WiFi coverage is awesome. The microcontroller w/ antenna is about one fourth the size of a credit card and half an inch think. It does not miss a beat hitting WiFi. The space between the lasers is not as bad as some areas of the shop but I suspect there is a lot of RFI present.

tomthm · March 25, 2018, 2:43am

I’m a member of the Laser Committee and interested in learning about this. I know very little about any of what you posted, but will watch for the classes you mentioned.

bpamplin · March 25, 2018, 3:07am

Responded by PM. 54321

bpamplin · March 25, 2018, 1:49pm

How much was Blitzen used in the last 24 hours? Without zooming in it looks like a session of 30 minutes and another of an hour. (I need to correct the name in the title.) Hoping for activity on the plots, I checked the camera a number of times yesterday. All lasers seemed to have surprisingly low activity for a Saturday.

eric24 · March 26, 2018, 3:36am

@bpamplin - Hi Brady–
Very interesting. If you’re not tied to ThingSpeak, I’d be happy to provide free service for this on ObjectSpectrum, as well as volunteer to handle all the server-side work.
–Eric

bpamplin · March 26, 2018, 11:51am

Awesome! Your message is exactly what I was hoping for - especially “all” server-side. I am definitely not tied to ThingSpeak.

Be aware that there is not a real project at this point. I am retired and thought that a WiFi MCU could offer a lot to the laser area like a display with total time used and cost for a user, temperatures, plot of usage over a day or a week,… The chiller tube temperature was a first target because it was non-intrusive and required no approval process. I think the laser committee will define a project and I would certainly appreciate help.

I have a somewhat related class tomorrow night you might find interesting. Its been full but has had a cancellation. If you want to come and its full, just sent me a note and come on in. I have an extra parts kit.
https://calendar.dallasmakerspace.org/events/view/5516

Let me know when you will be at the space and I’ll come over if possible.

tomthm · March 28, 2018, 11:56am

Brady,

Thanks for the great Arduino class last night. It was general enough that a novice like me could hang in there, but also had several exercises that accomplished specific tasks.