Planet Arduino

Here at Hackaday we are big fans of the TV show, “How It’s Made”. It’s not much of a stretch to assume that, as somebody who is currently reading this site, you’ve probably seen it yourself. While it’s always interesting to see the behind the scenes process to create everyday products, one of the most fascinating aspects of the show is seeing how hard it is to make things. Seriously, it’s enough to make you wonder how companies are turning a profit on some of these products when you see just how much technology and manual work is required to produce them.

That’s precisely the feeling we got when browsing through this absolutely incredible overview of how [HDC3] makes his maple syrup. If that’s not a sentence you ever thought you’d see on Hackaday, you aren’t alone. But this isn’t a rusty old pail hanging off of a tap, this is a high-tech automated system that’s capable of draining 100’s of gallons of sap from whole groves of trees. We’ll never look at a bottle of syrup in the store the same away again.

It all starts with hundreds of tiny taps that are drilled into the trees and connected to a network of flexible hoses. The plumbing arrangement is so complex that, in certain, areas high tension support wires are necessary to hold up the weight of the hoses and their sweet contents. The main hose leads to an Arduino-powered collection station which maintains a 100 kPa (29 inHg) vacuum throughout the entire system.

The sap is temporarily held in a 250 gallon container, but at this point it’s still just that: sap. It needs to be refined into something suitable for putting on your pancakes. The first step of that process utilizes a reverse osmosis filtration system to pull the water out of the sap and increase its sugar concentration. [HDC3] says the filtration system is built from eBay scores and parts from the home improvement store, and it certainly looks the part of something that would be under a kitchen sink. This system is able to increase the sugar concentration of the sap from around 2% as it comes out of the trees to 8%. But it’s still a far way off from being ready to use.

Interestingly enough, the last steps of the process are about as old-school as they come. The semi-concentrated sap is placed in a long low metal pan, and heated over a wood fire to drive off more of the water. This process continues until the sap is roughly 60% sugar, at which point it is filtered and moved into the house to finish boiling on the stove.

All told, the syrup is boiled for eight hours to bring its sugar content up to 66%. Even with the improvements [HDC3] has made to the system, he reveals that all this hard work only results in slightly more than a half-gallon of final syrup. Talk about dedication.

It probably comes as no surprise that this is the first time Hackaday has ever run a story about producing maple syrup. However we’ve seen a number of automated beer brewing systems that seem to have been tackled with similar zeal. There’s probably a conclusion to be drawn there about the average hacker’s diet, but that’s a bit outside our wheelhouse.

[via /r/DIY]

There’s nothing quite like building out a shop filled with tools, but even that enviable task has a lot of boring work that goes into it. You’ve got to run power, you’ve got to build benches, and you need to build a dust collection system. That last one is usually just fitting a bunch of pipe and tubes together and adding in a few blast gates to direct the sucking of your dust collection system to various tools around the shop.

For most shops with a handful of tools and dust collection ports, manually opening and closing each blast gate is an annoying if necessary task. What if all of this was automated, though? That’s what [Bob] over on I Like To Make Stuff did. He automated his dust collection system. When a tool turns on, so does the vacuum, and the right blast gate opens up automatically.

The first part of this build is exactly what you would expect for installing a dust collection system in a shop. The main line is PVC sewer pipe tied to the rafters. Yes, this pipe is grounded, and s otherwise not very interesting at all. The real fun comes with the bits of electronics. [Bob] modified standard blast gates to be servo-actuated. Each individual tool was wired up to a current sensor at the plug, and all of this was connected to an Arduino. With a big ‘ol relay attached to the dust collection system, the only thing standing in the way of complete automation was a bit of code.

This project is a continuation of [Bob]’s earlier Arduinofication of his dust collection system where all the blast gates were controlled by servos, an Arduino, and a numeric keypad. That’s an exceptionally functional system that gets around the whole ‘leaning over a machine to open a gate’ problem, but it’s still not idiot-proof – someone has to press a button to open a gate. This new system is, for the most part, completely automatic and doesn’t really require any thought on the part of the operator. It’s neat stuff, and a great application of cheap Arduinos to make shop life a bit easier.

It’s 2017 and even GoPro cameras now come with voice activation. Budding videographers, rest assured, nothing will look more professional than repeatedly yelling at your camera on a big shoot. Hackaday alumnus [Jeremy Cook] heard about this and instead of seeing an annoying gimmick, saw possibilities. Could they automate their GoPro using Arduino-spoken voice commands?

It’s an original way to do automation, for sure. In many ways, it makes sense – rather than mucking around with trying to make your own version of the GoPro mobile app (software written by surfers; horribly buggy) or official WiFi remote, stick with what you know. [Jeremy] decided to pair an Arduino Nano with the ISD1820 voice playback module. This was then combined with a servo-based panning fixture – [Jeremy] wants the GoPro to pan, take a photo, and repeat. The Arduino sets the servo position, then commands the ISD1820 to playback the voice command to take a picture, before rotating again.

[Jeremy] reports that it’s just a prototype at this stage, and works only inconsistently. This could perhaps be an issue of intelligibility of the recorded speech, or perhaps a volume issue. It’s hard to argue that a voice control system will ever be as robust as remote controlling a camera over WiFi, but it just goes to show – there’s never just one way to get the job done. We’ve seen people go deeper into GoPro hacking though – check out this comprehensive guide on how to pwn your GoPro.

Industrial hardware needs to be reliable, tough, and interoperable. For this reason, there are a series of standards used for command & control connections between equipment. One of the more widespread standards is ModBus, an open protocol using a master-slave architecture, usually delivered over RS-485 serial. It’s readily found being used with PLCs, HMIs, VFDs, and all manner of other industrial equipment that comes with a TLA (three letter acronym).

[Absolutelyautomation] decided to leverage ModBus to control garden variety digital cameras, of the type found cluttering up drawers now that smartphones have come so far. This involves getting old-school, by simply soldering wires to the buttons of the camera, and using an Arduino Nano to control the camera while talking to the ModBus network.

This system could prove handy for integrating a camera into an industrial production process to monitor for faults or defective parts. The article demonstrates simple control of the camera with off-the-shelf commercial PLC hardware. Generally, industrial cameras are very expensive, so this hack may be useful where there isn’t the budget for a proper solution. Will it stand up to industrial conditions for 10 years without missing a beat? No, but it could definitely save the day in the short term for a throwaway price. One shortfall is that the camera as installed will only save pictures to its local memory card. There’s a lot to be said for serving the images right to the engineer’s desk over a network.

We’ve seen [Absolutelyautomation]’s work before – check out this implementation of Pong on an industrial controller.

[mfaust] wakes up in the morning like a regular person, goes to work like a regular person, types in tedious commands for his software versioning utilities like a regular person, and then, as a reward, gets his coffee, just like rest of us. However, what if there was a way to shorten the steps, bringing us all closer to the wonderful coffee step, without all those inconvenient delays? Well, global industry is trying its best to blot out the sun, so mornings are covered there. [Elon Musk’s] thinktank proposed the hyperloop, which should help with the second step. [mfaust] built a control station for his versioning software. Raise your cup of joe high for this man’s innovative spirit.

He first laid out all the buttons, LED lights, and knobs he’d like on a panel to automate away his daily tasks. Using photoshop he ended up with a nice template. He laminated it to the top of a regular project box and did his best to drill holes in the right places without a workshop at his command. It’s pretty good looking!

Since this is the sort of thing an Arduino is best at he, in a mere two tries, wired everything up in such a way that it would all cram into the box. With everything blinking satisfactorily and all the buttons showing up on the serial out, he was ready for the final step.

Being a proficient and prolific enough developer to need a control panel in the first place, like a sort of software DJ, he wrote a nice interface for it all. The Arduino sits and waits for serial input while occasionally spitting out a packet of data describing its switch status. A Java daemon runs in the background of his computer. When the right bits are witnessed, a very nicely executed on screen display reports on the progress of his various scripts.

Now he can arrive at the hyperloop terminal during the appropriate work time slot in Earth’s perpetual night. After which he simply walks up to his computer, flips a few switches, glances quickly at the display for verification, and goes to drink some nice, hydroponically grown, coffee. Just like the rest of us.

[mfaust] wakes up in the morning like a regular person, goes to work like a regular person, types in tedious commands for his software versioning utilities like a regular person, and then, as a reward, gets his coffee, just like rest of us. However, what if there was a way to shorten the steps, bringing us all closer to the wonderful coffee step, without all those inconvenient delays? Well, global industry is trying its best to blot out the sun, so mornings are covered there. [Elon Musk’s] thinktank proposed the hyperloop, which should help with the second step. [mfaust] built a control station for his versioning software. Raise your cup of joe high for this man’s innovative spirit.

He first laid out all the buttons, LED lights, and knobs he’d like on a panel to automate away his daily tasks. Using photoshop he ended up with a nice template. He laminated it to the top of a regular project box and did his best to drill holes in the right places without a workshop at his command. It’s pretty good looking!

Since this is the sort of thing an Arduino is best at he, in a mere two tries, wired everything up in such a way that it would all cram into the box. With everything blinking satisfactorily and all the buttons showing up on the serial out, he was ready for the final step.

Being a proficient and prolific enough developer to need a control panel in the first place, like a sort of software DJ, he wrote a nice interface for it all. The Arduino sits and waits for serial input while occasionally spitting out a packet of data describing its switch status. A Java daemon runs in the background of his computer. When the right bits are witnessed, a very nicely executed on screen display reports on the progress of his various scripts.

Now he can arrive at the hyperloop terminal during the appropriate work time slot in Earth’s perpetual night. After which he simply walks up to his computer, flips a few switches, glances quickly at the display for verification, and goes to drink some nice, hydroponically grown, coffee. Just like the rest of us.

[mfaust] wakes up in the morning like a regular person, goes to work like a regular person, types in tedious commands for his software versioning utilities like a regular person, and then, as a reward, gets his coffee, just like rest of us. However, what if there was a way to shorten the steps, bringing us all closer to the wonderful coffee step, without all those inconvenient delays? Well, global industry is trying its best to blot out the sun, so mornings are covered there. [Elon Musk’s] thinktank proposed the hyperloop, which should help with the second step. [mfaust] built a control station for his versioning software. Raise your cup of joe high for this man’s innovative spirit.

He first laid out all the buttons, LED lights, and knobs he’d like on a panel to automate away his daily tasks. Using photoshop he ended up with a nice template. He laminated it to the top of a regular project box and did his best to drill holes in the right places without a workshop at his command. It’s pretty good looking!

Since this is the sort of thing an Arduino is best at he, in a mere two tries, wired everything up in such a way that it would all cram into the box. With everything blinking satisfactorily and all the buttons showing up on the serial out, he was ready for the final step.

Being a proficient and prolific enough developer to need a control panel in the first place, like a sort of software DJ, he wrote a nice interface for it all. The Arduino sits and waits for serial input while occasionally spitting out a packet of data describing its switch status. A Java daemon runs in the background of his computer. When the right bits are witnessed, a very nicely executed on screen display reports on the progress of his various scripts.

Now he can arrive at the hyperloop terminal during the appropriate work time slot in Earth’s perpetual night. After which he simply walks up to his computer, flips a few switches, glances quickly at the display for verification, and goes to drink some nice, hydroponically grown, coffee. Just like the rest of us.

Anyone who owns their own pool knows it’s not as simple as filling it up with water and jumping in whenever you want. There’s pool covers to deal with, regular cleaning with the pool vacuum and skimmers, and of course, all of the chemicals that have to be added to keep the water safe. While there are automatic vacuums, there aren’t a whole lot of options for automating the pool chemicals. [Clément] decided to tackle this problem, eliminating one more task from the maintenance of his home. (Google Translate from French.)

The problem isn’t as simple as adding a set amount of chemicals at a predetermined time. The amount of chemicals that a pool owner has to add are dependent on the properties of the water, and the amount of time that’s elapsed since the previous chemical treatment, and the number of people who have been using the water, and whether or not the pool cover is in use. To manage all of this, [Clément] used an ORP/Redox probe and a pH probe, and installed both in the filtration system. The two probes are wired to an Arduino with an ethernet shield. The Arduino controls electrically actuated chemical delivery systems that apply the required amount of chemicals to the pool, keeping it at a nice, healthy balance.

[Clément] has all of the Arduino code available on his project page, as well as information about all of the various sensors he used. This should make this project re-createable for anyone who is tired of dealing with their own pool or paying a pool maintenance company to do it for them. [Clément] is no stranger to home automation projects, either, and we look forward to his next (often unconventional) project to automate something we might not have thought of before.

Take three NRF24L0+ radios, two Arduino Nanos, and a Raspberry Pi. Add a bored student and a dorm room at Rice University. What you get is the RRAD: Rice Ridiculously Automated Dorm. [Jordan Poles] built a modular system inspired by BRAD (the Berkeley Ridiculously Automated Dorm).

RRAD has three types of nodes:

• Actuation nodes – Allows external actuators like relays or solenoids
• Sensory nodes – Reports data from sensors (light, temperature, motion)
• Hub nodes – Hosts control panel, records data, provides external data interfaces

The hub also allows [Jordan] to control things with his Android phone with Tasker. He has the Arduino and Raspberry Pi code on GitHub if you want to ridiculously automate something of your own. You’d probably want to adapt it to your dorm room, house, or RV, though.

[Jordan] continues to work on the project and promises to have voice recognition and other features, soon. We cover a lot of home automation projects including some others described as ridiculous. The video below shows BRAD, the inspiration for RRAD.

Thinking about using Arduino to automate your home? Do it easily with our compatible board!

The Automation Board is 100% compatible with the Arduino Uno. This way it allows the enjoyment of all the easy programming and libraries that Arduino provides. It’s a strong and versatile board, with multiples resources to develop a fully automation system. The Automation Board dispenses the use of power sources.

Automation Board – [Link]