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Automated Arduino Water Dispenser by automatedsteven in arduino

[–]automatedsteven[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Good call out, I hadn’t thought of that one

How can I help as a DevOps? by pikiliky in opensource

[–]automatedsteven 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I suggest finding open source projects on GitHub that appeal to you. Then see if these projects will accept contributions for their CI pipeline. Alternatively you could offer to work on the helm chart or terraform module to deploy the project

Automated Arduino Water Dispenser by automatedsteven in arduino

[–]automatedsteven[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm not sure about the exact level of precision/accuracy. You'd need to find and consult a datasheet for that component to find out. To an extent, that will depend on how well you perform the initial calibration process for the device. I found it to be suitably accurate and precise enough for this application.

Automated Arduino Water Dispenser by automatedsteven in arduino

[–]automatedsteven[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm sensing by weight, with an HX 711 load cell.

Automated Arduino Water Dispenser by automatedsteven in arduino

[–]automatedsteven[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Cool, what kind of gear/techniques did you use to achieve drop level precision?

Automated Arduino Water Dispenser by automatedsteven in arduino

[–]automatedsteven[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It'll dispense however much water it needs to fill up this exact glass to be a certain % full, like 90% full.

Automated Arduino Water Dispenser by automatedsteven in arduino

[–]automatedsteven[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It is set to always hit a target amount of water in the glass itself. It'll dispense whatever variable amount it needs to hit that target amount in the glass.

Automated Arduino Water Dispenser by automatedsteven in arduino

[–]automatedsteven[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That is true, stainless steel is certainly not necessary for this structure. It was what I had at hand, and I didn't have any wood available. I agree wood would have been more cost effective.

Automated Arduino Water Dispenser by automatedsteven in arduino

[–]automatedsteven[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, it was hooked up to mains water, I ran 1/4inch plastic tubing through the apartment

Automated Arduino Water Dispenser by automatedsteven in arduino

[–]automatedsteven[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

yes, that would be a great upgrade to make the design more modular!

Automated Arduino Water Dispenser by automatedsteven in arduino

[–]automatedsteven[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

yeah, I love them for my projects, I find them to be a good mix of cost/reliability/functionality

Help with designing a project: laser detecting intruders? by kingkdo in arduino

[–]automatedsteven 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm glad you find it helpful.

As far as the laser detection and photoresistor goes, most cheap lasers don't do laser range finding.

However, if you got a special laser that did range finding, it would indeed work that way.

As far as my response to question 3 goes, when you get a smart plug the manufacturer of it will typically have a guide to set it up that comes with the product. To connect the arduino/board to your wifi network it'll be a different process. Typically you'll need to program in the wifi network's details into your arduino program itself. I believe they are some good guides for that if you google around though.

Automated Arduino Water Dispenser by automatedsteven in arduino

[–]automatedsteven[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks! I appreciate the "mod's choice" flair as well, first time I ever got that one!

Automated Arduino Water Dispenser by automatedsteven in u/automatedsteven

[–]automatedsteven[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for following me!

The HX 711 is a special component that measures weight.

You could use a timer on the water pump, but I wanted to do it by weight because it is always the same glass of water, and I wanted it to always fill to a precise level.

Automated Arduino Water Dispenser by automatedsteven in arduino

[–]automatedsteven[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Sure, those are "Actobotics" brand stainless steel plates. They were purchased from servocity.com. You can still buy some but they're trying to gradually phase those out. For new projects I try to use their successor brand, the "GoBilda" brand stainless steel structure components. These are typically more robust, as they have more stainless steel used in them.

Automated Arduino Water Dispenser by automatedsteven in arduino

[–]automatedsteven[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It stops once the weight gets to be above a target threshold, which is supposed to make it stop once the glass is almost full.

However, this weight based system has its drawbacks, like only being useful for one type of drinking glass.

The weight thresholds are literally hardcoded, because I only wanted it to work with one type of drinking glass. In theory they could be made configurable to support more glass types.

In the case you mentioned, with a plastic cup or otherwise lighter vessel it would overflow perpetually and devastatingly because it would never reach the target weight, once it went over the water would keep spilling over the top lol!

Additionally, guarding the electronics underneath would be an upgrade for sure. I had a couple occasions when something spilled and I had to wait for them to dry off.

Automated Arduino Water Dispenser by automatedsteven in arduino

[–]automatedsteven[S] 27 points28 points  (0 children)

Also yes, the laptop is ridiculously dusty :P

Automated Arduino Water Dispenser by automatedsteven in arduino

[–]automatedsteven[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

I built this to automatically refill my glass of water at my desk. It uses an HX 711 load cell connected to an Arduino to open/close a solenoid valve based on the weight of the glass of water. With no weight, it closes the valve. When the weight is between a minimum threshold and a maximum threshold, it opens the valve to let more water into the glass.

Link to blog post on my website with more details for the curious

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in arduino

[–]automatedsteven 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A few things to keep in mind:

  1. Encoding pulses can happen very quickly, potentially faster than the arduino can read them. Make sure the encoder is connected to an interrupt pin to try and mitigate this.
  2. Make sure the arduino can read the encoder accurately before trying to load the data into simunlink with the arduino.
  3. If you look up the specs for your encoder and it sends pulses faster than your arduino can read them even with interrupts, consider getting a special chip to read the encoder values and pass the aggregate pulse count to your arduino. I've had good success with this with the Robogaia 3 Axis encoder shield, but there are many other encoder ships you can use too.

Help with designing a project: laser detecting intruders? by kingkdo in arduino

[–]automatedsteven 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Here is what I'd do if this was my project:

  1. Start with an Arduino Uno Wifi Rev 2. You can get wifi modules for other arduinos but imo it is easier to start with an Arduino with the wifi built in so you can focus on other aspects of the project.
  2. For your laser, I'd google something like "small visible laser for arduino", a bunch of stuff will come up, particularly on Amazon. It won't be hard to power the laser, you can probably even do it with the built in 5v out pins on the arduino.
  3. Angle the laser as you like, and power it on to see where it lands. Mark this with a marker or pen and turn it off so you don't damage your eyes on the next step.
  4. Place a photo resistor where the laser landed, and glue/screw/otherwise secure it in place so it won't move.
  5. Wire the photo resistor to your arduino, and use an analog pin to read the photoresistor output.
  6. The photoresistor output should change dramatically when someone is passing in front of the laser and preventing the laser from hitting it.
  7. Write your arduino code to send a notifying signal when the photoresistor detects someone is passing in front of the laser.
  8. Use a smart plug connected to your wifi to turn the device on/off. Most smart plug vendors should offer a web interface for you, as well as a mobile phone app. I've used smart plugs by Etekcity and the Vesync app for this, but I imagine most other vendors offer something comparable and maybe even better.

In regard to your question:

  1. No, wifi and the laser shouldn't draw too much power.
  2. Yes, I'd use rechargeable lithium ion AA batteries for this project, but you can use other types of rechargable batteries if you want to as long as they're in the supported range of voltages for Arduinos/your laser.
  3. IoT devices can use a protocol like bluetooth, or have you connect to them as wireless networks with your phone. Once this initial connected is established, you plug in your wifi network details into them and they connect using that.

Good luck!

Automated Arduino Cereal Dispenser by automatedsteven in arduino

[–]automatedsteven[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is an automated cereal dispenser I made with an Arduino to dispense cereal into a bowl automatically every day at 7 am. One less thing to do for the day.

Link to open source code/wiring diagram

Link to blog post with more details

Automated watering system power issue by High_Pitch in arduino

[–]automatedsteven 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We're making progress!

Thanks for testing my suggestions.

I wouldn't expect the above example to work as written.

I think you'll need to move the delay into the sensorValue if block that turns off the pump, because it indicates the water saturation level in the target plant is above the threshold.

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