bill.french's Content

#6235 netduino+ Sous Vide Test Egg 1

Posted by bill.french on 19 December 2010 - 05:49 AM in Project Showcase

Can you post your PID code? What form are you using? (Ideal, parallel, etc)

LOL WUT?**

I am basically using a variation of this:
http://www.codeproje...ecipes/PID.aspx

...with the variation being for the integral i only remember the last 20 readings. At this point only P and I are doing much of anything, since the heating process is pretty slow, D doesn't really come into play very much with how I have it tuned currently.

**If you could direct me to a web page that explains pids and whatever ideal and parallel is, I would love to read it. Everything I've found (and there's quite a bit of it out there) seems to use technical vocabulary that I am not comfortable with. I feel like I've figured the essence of PIDs out, but it was a tough journey to wrap my mind around it since everything I was reading was not very approachable in my opinion.

#6198 netduino+ Sous Vide Test Egg 1

Posted by bill.french on 18 December 2010 - 03:23 AM in Project Showcase

Of course! Thursdays are the "open hack nights" so there's usually some folks there doing something interesting for guests. Let me know when you're coming, I'll netduino up some steaks and print you a netduino t-shirt on our silkscreen press! We'll use bottle openers printed on our makerbot to open some Fubrew.

#6196 netduino+ Sous Vide Test Egg 1

Posted by bill.french on 18 December 2010 - 03:01 AM in Project Showcase

After a long journey trying to get reliable temperature readings using thermistors, I was finally able to test out my Sous Vide project using actual food last night using a Dallas DS18B20 OneWire temperature sensor and a onewire controller.

The basic setup at this point uses a netduino+, the onewire controller, the DS18B20 for reading the temperature, a PowerSwitchTail controlling a cheapo walmart electric pot and an electric motor for agitating the water. What will be kind of a unique feature of my setup (besides network control and monitoring, which is in and of itself very cool) is that I can us this setup to manage up to 6 Sous Vide devices, so that there could be a meat, veggies, sides, dessert, and even the next days meat all going at once.

I still need to tune the PID algorithm, but looking at the graph, I am very close to a very stable temperature (it was set to 173F):
Posted Image

The goal was a (very) hardboiled egg, without any green on the yolk, and I was successful:
Posted Image

This is a picture of the setup, taken at Fubar Labs, my local hackerspace.
Posted Image

Next up: Chicken Breasts!

#6267 netduino+ Sous Vide Test Egg 1

Posted by bill.french on 20 December 2010 - 01:36 AM in Project Showcase

Water circulation is definitely necessary. I didn't believe it at first, but the temperature differential between top,bottom, and middle of the water can be significant, as much as 5 degrees I was noticing, which is a big deal apparently, with hots spots at the bottom from the element, and a hot spot up top where the hot water rises. Also, the pot will set up pretty solid water currents from the convection, which now makes hot and cold spots horizontally. I do need to do something with the motor. I keep forgetting about that part of the project. Right now it's just a motor with the wand part of a baby bottle stirrer stuck on the end. It's super effective, too effective, really - it keeps moving the food around and sucks it into a votex and into the blades. An air bubbler would be easier, i think. I'm not quite at "version 1" yet, it's more proof of concept. I am going to now work pretty steadily towards etching my own PCB and get it into a shield form factor so that it will actually be usable and not require and hour of setup. Also, a lcd and interface are needed. Right now, changing the target temperature requires visual studio. I definitely want it to be easily multi-channel, as that's about all that really differentiates it from a $35 pid controller. I also need to test and build in some kind of safety so it doesn't burn my house down. Ultimate end-goal would be a professional produced "shield" product. I've always wanted to make and sell a product -- if one person buys it, that would be awesome and a check on my bucket list. The key for that is going to be getting it arduino compatible, and probably also make it useful for other things, such as environmental controls. It is basically a sophisticated thermostat. Once the netduino supports onewire out of the box, the game changes quite a bit. Thanks for asking, by the way. My family camps up in Alfred, ME pretty much every year. I'll have to invite you over for sous vide steaks finished on a camp fire.

#6813 SerialPort Class not in System.IO.Ports

Posted by bill.french on 02 January 2011 - 04:15 AM in General Discussion

Hmm... I've been powering everything off the netduino, it works for me with either an external power supply or just usb.

#8087 1-WIRE

Posted by bill.french on 22 January 2011 - 02:27 AM in Netduino Plus 2 (and Netduino Plus 1)

I have had very good luck with this unit: http://www.phanderso...mp/onewire.html

#7506 SparkFun LCD Backpack

Posted by bill.french on 12 January 2011 - 11:10 AM in General Discussion

Do you have code you can post, or you're not sure even how to start with code? I'm thinking it is going to work fine w/o 5v ttl -- the "5v tolerant" means the netduino can tolerate 5V *input* -- output is going to be 3.3v. Check out the code attached to this post: http://forums.netdui...ch__1#entry5962 ...it's the best I have for serial communication.

#6822 SerialPort Class not in System.IO.Ports

Posted by bill.french on 02 January 2011 - 05:55 AM in General Discussion

i posted my circuit layouts in another thread, might help out here: http://forums.netdui...rst-shield-pcb/

#5873 Part Suggestions?

Posted by bill.french on 07 December 2010 - 07:55 PM in General Discussion

my first instinct is to google pinball machine replacement parts, they tend to have lots of inexpensive solenoids...

#5874 Part Suggestions?

Posted by bill.french on 07 December 2010 - 07:55 PM in General Discussion

actually a netduino driven pinball machine would be a pretty cool project!! TO THE LAB!!

#4169 Deadmau5 mask

Posted by bill.french on 24 October 2010 - 01:01 PM in Project Showcase

I am guessing he's using the phone simply as a source of music, so yes, in a sense, he is controlling the colors from the phone, although fairly indirectly.

#4449 Deadmau5 mask

Posted by bill.french on 03 November 2010 - 09:10 PM in Project Showcase

So.... How did the costume work out??

#4901 Speed and turning control with Ardumoto - Motor Driver Shield

Posted by bill.french on 14 November 2010 - 12:41 PM in General Discussion

I didn't catch this the first time, but I think PWM is only supported on pins 5,6,9,10 -- not 3 and 11. Specs are here: http://www.netduino....duino/specs.htm digital i/o features ● all 20 digital and analog pins: GPIO ● digital pins 0-1: UART 1 RX, TX ● digital pins 2-3: UART 2 RX, TX ● digital pins 5-6: PWM, PWM ● digital pins 7-8: UART 2 RTS, CTS ● digital pins 9-10: PWM, PWM ● digital pins 11-13: SPI MOSI, MISO, SPCK ● analog pins 4-5: I2C SDA, SCL

#4904 Speed and turning control with Ardumoto - Motor Driver Shield

Posted by bill.french on 14 November 2010 - 02:31 PM in General Discussion

Sorry I didn't notice originally! Just FYI, the "outofrange" exception made me think you were trying to access some capability outside of the range where it was possible.

#8419 Help a wife buy a present

Posted by bill.french on 25 January 2011 - 09:44 PM in Netduino 2 (and Netduino 1)

we used google docs this year, so that edits (mostly additions!) could be made and she would always have the most up-to-date information.

#8314 RS485 between two Netduinos

Posted by bill.french on 24 January 2011 - 06:41 PM in Netduino Plus 2 (and Netduino Plus 1)

You could also test it without events with something like this:

while(true)
{            
while (_COMPORT.BytesToRead > 0)
            {
                byte[] buffer = new byte[1];
                _COMPORT.Read(buffer, 0, 1);
                Debug.Print(buffer[0].ToString());
            }
}

#4038 Forum Topic Text Color

Posted by bill.french on 20 October 2010 - 03:49 PM in General Discussion

I highlighted in red examples of what is rather hard for me to read, on pretty much any computer I use, even one with an Apple Cinema display... of course, if the forum is fine for you, the below image probably looks fine, too, and I sound crazy.

I'm fairly young, have healthy eyes, and use decent monitors, but it does annoy me slightly. The rest of the site is very attractive.

Posted Image

#8312 RS485 between two Netduinos

Posted by bill.french on 24 January 2011 - 06:37 PM in Netduino Plus 2 (and Netduino Plus 1)

check this out: http://forums.netdui...ch__1#entry6890 might have to do with adding the event before the port is open?

#7465 Graphing Data from Netduino over the network

Posted by bill.french on 11 January 2011 - 05:42 PM in Netduino Plus 2 (and Netduino Plus 1)

You know, I have not had the problem, since, so I have not turned my attention back to it. I really, really, want to get my head around sockets and threads in .net. I used to have a handle of it under Java, but that was too long ago. Are you having the issue with my code, or your own?

#4637 Graphing Data from Netduino over the network

Posted by bill.french on 08 November 2010 - 05:03 AM in Netduino Plus 2 (and Netduino Plus 1)

I've got my netduino plus talking to a windows forms application over the network, so that this code:

        public static void Main()
        {
            NetLog log1 = new NetLog();

            log1.Host = "192.168.1.12";
            log1.Port = 8000;

            log1.Print("100");
            Thread.Sleep(500);
            log1.Print("400");
            Thread.Sleep(500);
            log1.Print("200");
            Thread.Sleep(500);
            log1.Print("500");
            Thread.Sleep(500);
            log1.Print("300");
        }

...using the Microsoft Charting stuff, produces this graph:
Posted Image

Which makes me happy!

What is weird though is that sometimes, and only from initial boot or by pressing play is VS, the netduino never makes it past sending the first "100" and throws an exception for each of the subsequent sends:

#### Exception System.Net.Sockets.SocketException - CLR_E_FAIL (1) ####
    #### Message: 
    #### Microsoft.SPOT.Net.SocketNative::connect [IP: 0000] ####
    #### System.Net.Sockets.Socket::Connect [IP: 001d] ####
    #### NetLogger.NetLog::Print [IP: 0042] ####
    #### NDP_SocketSender1.Program::Main [IP: 002d] ####
    #### SocketException ErrorCode = 10053
    #### SocketException ErrorCode = 10053
A first chance exception of type 'System.Net.Sockets.SocketException' occurred in Microsoft.SPOT.Net.dll
    #### SocketException ErrorCode = 10053
    #### SocketException ErrorCode = 10053

When the netduino is unable to connect to the forms app, I am able still able to connect to my forms application using telnet, so I know it's still responding. I am on the latest posted firmware.

I'm sure my code is a train wreck, so any advice would be very much appreciated. I don't doubt I'm doing something fundamentally wrong. My next step is to have the act of sending the data spun off into it's own thread. Here are my solution files:

I've been working up the nerve to take a stab at this for a while, eventually to start graphing data from the analog inputs. I was motivated to action after seeing Corey's 2d motion tracker w/ excel graphs using data cut/pasted from the debugger output... I was hoping I'd end up with something slightly useful for his Avatar motion project!

Thanks! --Bill

#5405 12-Bit ADC Measurement using MCP320X chips and SPI

Posted by bill.french on 27 November 2010 - 02:19 PM in Project Showcase

Thanks for this, I have been playing with an MCP3204 -- i was wondering the "proper" way to combine the two bytes into the reading.. bitwise operators have always been mysterious to me. I got it working but my solution does not look nearly as smart as yours...

I have been having a ton of problems getting decent, stable readings, though. Do you have any sample circuits and pictures you could post?

Here are some premade boards i've been thinking about:
http://www.mikroe.co.../easyadc-board/
http://www.mikroe.co...dc-proto-board/

Posted Image

#3470 Pointless fun: Morse Code Interpreter

Posted by bill.french on 04 October 2010 - 04:29 PM in Project Showcase

if you've never seen this video, it's mildly entertaining -- Morse Code vs. Text Messaging:

#5095 How to tell Mini to auto start my app?

Posted by bill.french on 20 November 2010 - 01:33 PM in Netduino Mini

Are you sure you are powering it properly? Sounds like the mini is only running off the ftdi power, if that's even possible?

#4652 Graphing Data from Netduino over the network

Posted by bill.french on 08 November 2010 - 02:58 PM in Netduino Plus 2 (and Netduino Plus 1)

Hello! Both the computer and the ND+ are plugged into switchports on my FiOS actiontel router. The netduino is also plugged in and powered via usb. It mostly works, but when it fails, it's almost always under these scenarios, after opening my forms application: 1. Pressing "play" in VS, which reboots and deploys 2. Unplugging the ND+ and plugging it in My forms app receives the 100, and then the netduino throws exceptions for each of the subsequent transmissions (which I catch and send to output), after the timeout for each one. I know my forms app is still responding, as I can telnet into it and send data while the ND is waiting to time out. But, sometimes it works in #1 and #2. And, it always works when I hit the reset button.

#5460 12-Bit ADC Measurement using MCP320X chips and SPI

Posted by bill.french on 28 November 2010 - 02:33 PM in Project Showcase

If you don't mind me asking, what kind of project are you working on?

By content type

See this member's