I built a basic stand out of black iron pipe. It's cheap, flexible (in terms of design), and it seems to go well with the BBQ smoker aesthetic. And the weight will help to ensure QPID stays put despite wind gusts and rambunctious beagles. The design is also stable when the unit is laid on its back, with makes hooking up the connectors underneath breeze.
The housing itself is made from 1/2" poplar. This part is still a work in progress, and I'll be adding additional panels on the top and side to shield things from the elements. Once everything's done I'll paint/seal it with a textured metallic paint to keep with the overall look.
For the LEDs, I may cover the front with a thin sheet of clear plastic and leave the indicators unpainted or maybe white. The other option is to find some clear plastic plugs or dowels and secure them in the holes with a waterproof sealant.
Hey Mark, I just wanted to thank you for sharing this project. While I am a smoker enthusiast and will probably look into building my own QPID at some point, your code is what led me to drop a comment.
ReplyDeleteI have been working on a web-enabled chicken coop door controller, and my first go at building it from the ground-up, while it worked, it was extremely inefficient and really taxed the Arduino. Once I got the Blackwidow card, lost all the memory and pins to the WiFi, I really had to scramble to figure out how I was going to make it work. I stumbled across your project, and was able to adapt the QPID code to my needs. Instead of a fan, I am dealing with a door, and instead of hot and cold, I have open and closed. I had to add some other logic (garage door style stuff), but your core code has become the heart of my controller.
Interestingly (frustratingly), once I fork-lifted my logic and refactored QPID for my needs, it was a total dog again. But I have isolated the performance issues to the LCD display libraries.
if you ever consider adding an LCD display to your unit (which would be pretty slick), I have been working around a number of issues.
One of the nicest aspects of the LCD unit I am using is that it only uses 2 pins (I2C), and second to that, it also has a 3x4 keypad interface built into it. I have Matrix Orbital LK162-12 displays, and apart from being slow to manipulate, the flexibility is very handy.
All that to say, if you go the LCD route, I might be able to share my struggles and triumphs with you, should you go there.
Cheers, and thanks again! brian at thebrumfields dot com
I have also based my controller design on another design, which looks like it is based on your QPID design. The project incorporates an LCD, a WiShield webserver, and a 2MB dataflash chip for storing web pages. I've put some of my notes up on my blog but I thought you might be interested that you were the inspiration to my inspiration
ReplyDeleteMy blog on the 'HeaterMeter' project: http://capnbry.net/blog/?cat=11