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#59356 Netduino-Powered Wireless Pump Control Box for Homebrewing Beer (VB.NET)

Posted by GDSever on 23 July 2014 - 08:16 PM in Project Showcase

Hey! Thanks for your interest in the project.

 

Schematics are available in the Eagle files (as well as my PCB layouts) - available for download from my OneDrive:

 

https://onedrive.liv...FCDC3DBD261!366

 

I am not doing anything with solenoids / valves (don't really need to) but I turn the pumps on & off with a pair of 10A SSRs from Crydom. They are probably overkill, but better safe than sorry, as far as I am concerned.

 

Hope that helps!




#58957 Netduino-Powered Wireless Pump Control Box for Homebrewing Beer (VB.NET)

Posted by GDSever on 30 June 2014 - 11:12 AM in Project Showcase

I finished the second generation of technology aids for when I brew my own beer. It uses XBee wireless modems in End-Device mode to detect level switch states, which allow the Netduino to turn the pumps on and off.

 

https://www.youtube....h?v=DYasuzgusIY

 

Additional details are available on my blog:

 

http://brewznet.word...y/brewznet-2-0/

 

The VB.NET Code, Eagle files, and other stuff is available:

 

http://brewznet.word....com/downloads/

 

 

 




#55896 Netduino 1 - Random reboots?

Posted by GDSever on 06 February 2014 - 02:23 AM in Netduino 2 (and Netduino 1)

Well, after exhausting all of my other possibilities I finally did what you suggested, Chris, back on January 21. With the shield removed and jumper wires connecting the COM1 pins and 5V/GND to the shield, the Netduino does not reset (although the huge data packet is still sent to periodically, the code handles it without reset). 

 

I still need to track down why the COM1 "dump" occurs in the first place with the DIGI folks.




#55866 Netduino 1 - Random reboots?

Posted by GDSever on 04 February 2014 - 10:51 PM in Netduino 2 (and Netduino 1)

Well my wishful thinking was just that... My random reboot issue is not gone, it's still causing me headaches.

 

I did narrow it down to the routine that reads data from the SerialPort. There is a ton of data that comes in, apparently faster than the routine can process it, and at some point during that process it causes the Netduino to reboot.

 

My question is - can overloading the SerialPort cause a hardware reset, through overflow or otherwise?

 

I still need to contact Digi support to see if they can make any sense of the byte stream that is coming in and tell me if they see any potential reason / cause why the XBees would be doing this, but I thought I could at least see if there were some programmed failsafe that causes hardware reboots for SerialPort overflows...




#55814 VB Libraries - 24LCXX, MCP230XX, MicroLiquidCrystal, MFToolkit XBee

Posted by GDSever on 02 February 2014 - 06:14 PM in Visual Basic Support

I did find a small issue with the MCP23017LcdTransferProvider class related to the sequential write capabilities of the two banks. Whenever I wrote out to the LCD, it was messing up the I/O states for the other bank. The cause is one of the settings in the IOCON register. Adding the following to the end of the SetUpExpander subroutine resolves that:  

            ' In either case, you do not want the expander doing sequential writes...            lExpander.WriteRegister(MCP23017.Registers.IOCONA, MCP23017.IOCONBits.SEQOP)            lExpander.WriteRegister(MCP23017.Registers.IOCONB, MCP23017.IOCONBits.SEQOP)



#55813 What happened to the Bit Shift Operators?

Posted by GDSever on 02 February 2014 - 06:06 PM in Visual Basic Support

Not sure it helps, but I am using a Netduino 1 running 4.2 and VS2010 and I am using bit shifter operators in my VB code without any issue.




#55675 Netduino 1 - Random reboots?

Posted by GDSever on 27 January 2014 - 12:37 AM in Netduino 2 (and Netduino 1)

Well, I am not sure exactly what fixed it, but I haven't had the random reboot issue for a few days now. I put in a bunch of debug.print statements and managed to narrow it down to the thread that receives COM1 data from the XBee. I don't know if the debug.Print statements slowed things down enough that it stopped the error from occuring, or if one of my frantic coding tweaks (Like SyncLock-ing the serial port object) managed to fix it, but I'm not gonna fiddle with it more unless the problem creeps back up. Thank you all for the insight and assistance.

 

Best regards,




#55546 Netduino 1 - Random reboots?

Posted by GDSever on 22 January 2014 - 12:34 AM in Netduino 2 (and Netduino 1)

Hi Garrett, When you tied /RESET to Vdd, and the device stopped responding, did NETMF continue running on the mainboard? If so, then it's almost definitely an issue on the shield (something locking up on the shield that resets its IC which is connected to the /RESET line perhaps).

 

If I fail to track down the problem inside the code, I will certainly check into this. I am already thinking through how to ditch the shield and just tie COM1 to the XBee and see if that makes a difference... although I am thinking more and more that it is the ReceiveData routine in the MFToolkit class (which I translated into VB.NET, so I might have missed something critical in the process.) I have also been toying with the idea of overriding the method I translated and building an Escaped API mode routine from ground-up...

 

I will certainly let you know if I track this nasty gremlin down... or at least eliminate it by replacing the code.




#55543 Netduino 1 - Random reboots?

Posted by GDSever on 21 January 2014 - 08:52 PM in Netduino 2 (and Netduino 1)

Well I think I have tracked it down to the routine that reads the bytes from the serial port. It is in that routine (or one of the resulting events) that the error seems to occur.

 

It's not clear yet whether it is an Xbee issue, a serial port issue, or a code issue. I guess I will keep digging.




#55539 Netduino 1 - Random reboots?

Posted by GDSever on 21 January 2014 - 05:47 PM in Netduino 2 (and Netduino 1)

Chris, what sort of software-caused short circuit were you thinking? 

 

I have tried the debug.print statement route and couldn't locate what was going on. As I indicated, it doesn't seem to be tied to any particular action in the system - no buttons are pressed, no update to the LCD screen is occuring, nothing is being written to / from the I2C buffer.... I'll load it up with Debug.Print statements again including places I didn't try last time and see if I missed something.

 

I tied the /RESET pin to VCC, which seemed to keep it from resetting, however the device did stop responding - so even though it didn't reset, it probably wanted to at some point and couldn't.

 

I have also powered the circuit from a 1.5A 5V breadboard supply and still got the reboot - so I don't think brown-out is causing the issue.

 

Any insight you might have on the sorts of software-caused short circuits might be happening, I'd appreciate it.

 

Best regards,

-Garrett




#55519 Netduino 1 - Random reboots?

Posted by GDSever on 21 January 2014 - 12:15 AM in Netduino 2 (and Netduino 1)

If the board is rebooting, it's most likely that it's either a big surge in power by one of your components (which causes the brownout reset) or something is asserting the /RESET pin on your Netduino mainboard.

 

I have been powering the circuit by both the USB cable and a breadboard power supply from Sparkfun. In both cases the reboots occur, and I assumed the breadboard power supply would have more than enough juice to power things. To the best of my knowledge nothing is connected to the /RESET pin directly, unless the XBee shield is doing something it shouldn't. 

 

Thank you for the insight. I will continue to look at the power to see if that is the issue. In the meantime, could any of the following cause a reboot on a Netduino 1?

 

  • Collisions accessing variables / values between different threads?
  • Using up the available flash memory either through bad coding or bad garbage collection?
  • I2C Device collisions (although I am using the FusionWare I2CBus class)?

 

At this point I can't rule out software issues vs. hardware issues... but I don't know the Netduino platform well enough to say whether any of the above could cause a reboot.

 

I am also still trying to understand why the DOUT light goes nuts right before the reboot. I can't figure out why that would happen.

 

Best regards,




#55499 Netduino 1 - Random reboots?

Posted by GDSever on 20 January 2014 - 10:04 AM in Netduino 2 (and Netduino 1)

I have an issue that is difficult to track down. My project seems to run fine for several minutes (sometimes as many as 20), but at some point the device resets / reboots - and it seems to happen randomly.

 

Here's a brief description of the hardware setup:

 

  • Netduino 1 running 4.2 firmware & framework
  • Sparkfun XBee shield with a Series 2 Xbee running coordinator firmware
  • I2C connection to a MCP23017, a MCP23008, and a 24LC256
  • Interrupt from MCP23017 connected to D2

 

One thing I have noticed is that right before the Netduino resets there is a flurry of DOUT LED activity on the Xbee shield. Immediately following this the blue LED on the Netduino board flashes on, then off, and the device resets. Aside from the visual clues I described, the connected MCP23008 is driving a 20x4 LCD screen, so I also get that visual clue that the device reset.

 

I am not attempting to reset anything from either the hardware or code, and I have tried both USB and external power supplies, so I don't think it is a "brownout" condition.

 

  • What are the conditions that would cause a Netduino 1 to reset itself, particularly that might be tied to the DOUT LED on the Xbee shield, if any? 
  • If you were trying to diagnose a seemingly random reboot issue that occurs many minutes apart, what else might you try?

 

Best regards,

-Garrett




#55437 VB Libraries - 24LCXX, MCP230XX, MicroLiquidCrystal, MFToolkit XBee

Posted by GDSever on 17 January 2014 - 10:32 AM in Visual Basic Support

Attached is the VB Port of [color=rgb(40,40,40);font-family:helvetica, arial, sans-serif;]Szymon Kobalczyk's Micro Liquid Crystal library. I didn't include a test program, but if there is a need I can add one. [/color]

 

As in the original C# library, the classes use a MCP230XX digital I/O expander to interface with the LCD screen through I2C. There are some commercially available backpacks out there that use the MCP230XX chips, such as the Adafruit backpack, but you can just as easily use your own if you have some. The ShifterSetup class defines which functions are connected to which pins on the expander. You can either use the DefaultSetup values or define your own setup.

 

Some example code for initializing and setting up the device is shown below. 

Dim lcdProvider As MCP23008LcdTransferProviderDim aLcd As LcdDim anI2CBus as I2CBus' Address the digitial I/O expander chip on the I2C BuslcdProvider = New MCP23008LcdTransferProvider(anI2CBus, &H0)' Create the LCD interface using that provideraLcd = New Lcd(lcdProvider)' Initialize the display size - Using a 20x4 screen.aLcd.Begin(20, 4)' Set the cursor positionaLcd.SetCursorPosition(0,0)' Write out a stringaLcd.Write("This is a test.")

I have used the custom character function extensively in my project, so I know that works. If you make changes to the custom character definitions while one is displayed on the screen, it will change on the screen as well.

 

Attached Files




#55435 VB Libraries - 24LCXX, MCP230XX, MicroLiquidCrystal, MFToolkit XBee

Posted by GDSever on 17 January 2014 - 10:06 AM in Visual Basic Support

Attached is the code for the MCP230XX expanders, 24LCXX EEPROMs, and DS1307 digital clock I2C devices. All have been pretty thoroughly tested. The EEPROM class does not address the page write buffer size cited in this thread, although it could be easily incorporated.

 

Attached Files




#55418 VB Libraries - 24LCXX, MCP230XX, MicroLiquidCrystal, MFToolkit XBee

Posted by GDSever on 16 January 2014 - 11:11 AM in Visual Basic Support

Attached is the MFToolkit Xbee library  and associated test program. I will try to post the MicroLiquidCrystal and I2C Device libraries this evening / weekend.

 

Regards,

-Garrett

Attached Files




#55380 VB Libraries - 24LCXX, MCP230XX, MicroLiquidCrystal, MFToolkit XBee

Posted by GDSever on 14 January 2014 - 08:38 PM in Visual Basic Support

I haven't seen much activity on the VB forum recently, so I am not sure if folks are busy programming or if there is a general lack of interest in the Netduino / Micro Framework community for developing in VB... but I figured I'd throw this out there.

 

I'm working on an upgrade to my homebrewing (yes beer) pump control box by going wireless, implementing the Netduino platform, and a few other things, all in VB.NET, and have in the course of development ported over several libraries. These include:

 

  • I2C digital I/O expanders in the MCP230XX family (MCP23008, MCP23016, and MCP23017)
  • I2C EEPROMs in the 24LCXX class, such as 24LC16, 24LC32, 24LC256, etc.
  • The MicroLiquidCrystal library (by Szymon Kobalczyk) for connecting to LCD screens via I2C (such as the Adafruit backpack)
  • The XBee classes within the MFToolkit

I can't say they've been 100% tested top to bottom because as I find things that were incorrect (either in my porting to VB or in the original classes) I fix them, but the ones I have tested are functional.

 

If you are interested in following my project as it develops, I'm posting occasionally over at http://brewznet.wordpress.com/. I do intend on posting full source code & schematics for the project when it is complete. In the meantime, if there is interest in any of the above functionality, I'd be happy to post the relevant library here.





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