Anyone else interesting programming hardware? Just starting into it wish list of projects to build Arduino Quad Chopper with MPU-6050, barometer, and magno. Automated weed curing station L/C Meter to measure inductors based on PIC 16F628 My own version of a Roomba RFID lock system for the house
AVR vs PIC in my opinion. Since you know what a PIC is, you are way beyond an arduino and the PIC will do just fine. Cool project, lot of online references to help out. I'm an AVR guy myself.
Lot more support of AVR over PIC, and a lot more easier to understand/program. Not real strong with C+, but willing to learn. I just got my MPU-6050 from china today. $12.34 for the breakout board. The chip is a combo accelerometer, and gyroscope. It will be neat to see how this works. I got the DHT-22 temp and humidity sensor working like a charm with the Arduino uno. On order I have a stepper motor, and a peltier thermoelectric cooler to play with in the near future.
Will by happy to help with any AVR questions you have. Have some real neat tutorials bookmarked. I have experience with AVR Studio 6 which is nice (and free).
I'll have to look into AVR studio 6! Full production run on the project, or just a one off? Tell more...
Well actually 200 boards, and power supplies. Then realized I had miscalculated how much heat my LM317 vreg would emit...which royally screwed my temp sensitive project.
propellers by parallax are also pretty cool, they have 8 core processors and can do a variety of different tasks. the chips are $7 and they're pretty easy to program.
i really like the PIC 12F683. i built a vaporizer with that PIC and using a MAX6675 to read a type-K thermocouple -- the Bud Toaster. Assembly language programming for optimal use of program memory. Amazingly drop-dead simple to get 1F temperature stability. Long construction thread on fuckcombusion . com and video of operation on YouTube. source code is posted on my SkyDrive public folder.
Hippie - I read through your outstanding thread. How do you make the glass pieces? I really like the design. It is portable, high powered, all glass against the herb, and simple to use. For the display, I saw a discussion regarding the lack of pinouts from the PIC12F683 to drive a display. On the perfect cube you have a thermometer to display the temp but it is only a dummy thermometer, right? To overcome the pinout problem, did you consider using a shift register (serial to parallel) to display the set temp and k junction temps? Did you consider using the AD594/595 or the MA1855, which are both cold junction compensated? The AD594 is compatible with a J TC. I thought I read that the J is more accurate than the K, any downside that you see to it? Did you consider using an AVR like the Arduino instead of a PIC? I've never used a vap, but it seems like you could burn your fingers by touching the heating area, or taking out a vial that is unknowingly hot... ect.. Is this true, or just a poor assumption. Thank you for sharing. I'll give you some gurple rep - sorry not enough bars for real +rep.
the thermometer is an independent readout of the actual temperature of the glass oven. This is a BBQ thermometer that can read up to 300C. Its probe is physically touching the glass of the oven tube. The MAX6675 is also cold junction compensated. Its type-K probe is in contact with the heater coil, so it is a bit more instanteous to the PIC than the value shown by the BBQ thermometer which is more of an average temperature. The MAX6675 is no longer in production so the next iteration of the vape will have to be a redesign. The direct replacement is a lower voltage chip, so that may be a further complication. There are pictures in the thread that show the arrangement of the probes. i.e. the thermometer is no dummy. this totally solves the problem of showing the temperature without any fancy programming or hardware. And, i can't find a serial LCD display that is small enough to suit my design anyway. i haven't looked at the Arduino processor. PIC does everything i need to do for this design. Also, i've been doing software engineering for over 47 years ... i just don't get off on learning new processors anymore. The only part of the vape that is too hot to touch is where the oven tube sticks up through the top of the cube. i use tweezers to grab the vial and extract from the oven. it is cool enough to hold in about 2 minutes. Oh, yeah ... glass pieces. i use a standard 1/2 dram (12mm diameter x 38mm long) borosilicate vial and drill four 0.75mm holes in the bottom with a dremel and diamond drill bit. The oven tube is a 15mm x 150mm borosilicate culture tube that is chopped down to 38mm long. My preferred draw tube is a 16mm x 150mm borosilicate culture tube that has seven 0.75mm holes drilled in the end. i use a 12mm x 100mm draw tube for oil and hash, that has a hole in the side instead of the end -- this replaces the vial: insert to heat the oil, then withdraw to toke.