JUN24

Current projects and news

Since I didn't post anything for almost a year, it would be good idea to introduce you with some of my previous and current projects that I am working on.

Project 1: Vehicle Inductive Loop Detector. This device is used to detect presence of vehicles above the wire-loop buried in road. It took me few months to perfect this project and current version of this device is v2.1 (third).
Project 2: Word Clock v2. Front panel is now looking much better because I used a car tinting foil to darken not-illuminated letters. You can see the effect of this foil in the photos later. Electronics are also replaced, new PCBs were designed and factory made.
Project 3: Vehicle-activated sign - a road sign that displays current vehicle's speed by using Doppler radar technology and 7-segment display. This project is currently on hold until Project 4 is done.
Project 4: This project doesn't have an official name yet, but it is used to control home appliances over the Internet.

More details about these projects

Project 1 - Vehicle Inductive Loop Detector - ILD (single channel)
This sensor is usually used in automatic road barriers, controlling traffic lights, car parks, etc. It works by detecting a change in inductance of the loop, and it does that by detecting a change in frequency of oscillator that powers that loop. It can also be used to measure passing vehicle's speed if two devices are used or one dual-channel. I am still not sure whether I am going to publish source file for this project or even HEX file. I used PIC16F877A microcontroller and firmware is written in HI-TECH C.

The first version (v1) of this device was done with PIC16F628A but it wasn't designed very well particularly because of the way supply voltage was regulated. I used linear voltage stabilizer LM317 and it produced excessive heat which caused problems with the on-board oscillator which was very close to it on PCB.

Inductive Loop Detector v1

After that came second version v2 where I used PIC16F877A and step-down regulator TPS5405. This version works pretty well with one drawback - maximum supply voltage was 28V DC. This made it impossible to power the device from 24V AC (when rectivied this results in 34V DC). This had to be fixed.

Inductive Loop Detector v2

Inductive Loop Detector v2 - bottom PCB side

In third version (v2.1) I replaced TPS5405 IC with the one that can withstand supply voltages of up to 40V DC. This made it possible to connect the device to 24V AC.

Inductive Loop Detector v2.1 - assembly

Inductive Loop Detector v2.1 - done

Testing - on desk

Testing - with vehicle

Project 2: We are back on Word Clock project. As mentioned, front panel is now looking much better as you can see in the photos bellow. PCBs for electronics are redesigned and factory made.

Word Clock v2

Word Clock v2

Main PCB top and bottom side

Touch sensor PCBs top and bottom side

Project 3: Vehicle-activated sign - a road sign that displays current vehicle's speed by using Doppler radar technology and 7-segment display. This project is currently on hold until Project 4 is done.

Project 4: A project that still doesn't have an official name but it will be used for controlling home appliances over the Internet. It is in active development and it should be done very soon. The idea is to connect a "Base Station" to ADSL modem (or a router with Internet access) that will be used to control remote "RF Modules" spread all over the house. Communication between Base Station and RF Modules is done by nRF24L01+ wireless 2.4GHz modems. Microcontroller used in Base Station is ATmega328P and connection to Internet is accomplished by ENC28J60 with TCP/IP Stack from Tuxgraphics.

Base Station

Module Type 1 - top side

Module Type 1 - bottom side

Module Type 1 - TESTING in water heater

[ Source: Trax ]

Projekti u zadnjih godinu dana Link Comments (7)

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