Harvest & Curing DIY automated Drying & Curing box

[Rapha El]

You always think you've got more time than you do. Today I emergency-harvested my Strawberry Cola because of maassive budrot on the white widow next o her. Of course the fridge electronics and software were nowhere ready for anything. All the pieces were laying around as I was writing the different classes for them.
Then this happened. So in the last 4 hours I assembled the hardware and tested it, only to find out the pwm to 0-10v converter only puts out 30ma. It's a control signal to talk to lights, fans, and the like. So nowhere near enough power to drive the dehumidifier. After a lot of rummaging, wiring and re-wiring i've now before me a setup using a relay to switch the stepped down voltage for the dehumidifier.
Notice that I keep saying dehumidifier and not tec or peltier element. That's because I just hotwired it inside it's original case and am now powering the whole thing, not just the tec from the controlled relay.
I would have loved to have finer control for my first run but such is life. I may put in a second step down and double-relay for 5v and have two modes for the dehumidifier that way.

Now I have to rewrite the software to a stepped/threshold function, implement the relays, take out all the debug/sim code and flash it onto the device. Not today tho. I am pooped.

 

[Rapha El]

I've rewritten what I needed too and by god I hope noone ever sees this because, well it had to be fast. It's a hard coded jumbled mess in there but I have to have this thing finished by this time tomorrow. This is definitely not a pace I enjoy.

In the hurry I completely forgot about the display and now I have to make a few new cables because power and the 2ic bus..

Got the breadbox and hot glue gun ready.. this is gonna be a pretty macGuyver implementation

 

[Rapha El]

okay, new idea. i've got myself a 75w dual h-bridge motor driver. with that i should be able to drive at least the dehumidifer at max and .. in both directions.

so i can just

and have a de-icing function. neat.

 

[Rapha El]

Here it is, the jankiest of solutions. One one hand it hurts my soul a little to have everything so rushed and cramped and basic, on the other, it is nice to finally test this whole thing.
For some reason I wasn't able to get the lcd display to be recognized as an i2c device, weird. Sooo now i've currently got no idea what it's sensing or doing which for me is a really awkward feeling so now i've got a new idea. i'm gonna host a webserver on it where you can read out the data and change settings. that way you don't need an app or stuff, just to type the ip of it into the browser and there it is.
I really like the integration aspects of ac infinity stuff but requiring a central server where your data is stored isn't really my ideal. Plus, what happens when the company goes belly up or they decide to deprecate certain products? Then you're stuck with an expensive brick. And that I really don't like. So this way the only requirement is a phone or computer with a browser, on the same wifi network. Will have to test if i get a good connection inside the big metal box.

And this is where the magic happens.

 

[Dankerson]

View attachment 1697751

Here it is, the jankiest of solutions. One one hand it hurts my soul a little to have everything so rushed and cramped and basic, on the other, it is nice to finally test this whole thing.
For some reason I wasn't able to get the lcd display to be recognized as an i2c device, weird. Sooo now i've currently got no idea what it's sensing or doing which for me is a really awkward feeling so now i've got a new idea. i'm gonna host a webserver on it where you can read out the data and change settings. that way you don't need an app or stuff, just to type the ip of it into the browser and there it is.
I really like the integration aspects of ac infinity stuff but requiring a central server where your data is stored isn't really my ideal. Plus, what happens when the company goes belly up or they decide to deprecate certain products? Then you're stuck with an expensive brick. And that I really don't like. So this way the only requirement is a phone or computer with a browser, on the same wifi network. Will have to test if i get a good connection inside the big metal box.

View attachment 1697750

And this is where the magic happens.

Always have time to clean it up and make it pretty later! The real proof is in the pudding so if it works that's the hardest part. Looking great man, let us know how the first dry/cure goes.

 

[Rapha El]

Always have time to clean it up and make it pretty later! The real proof is in the pudding so if it works that's the hardest part. Looking great man, let us know how the first dry/cure goes.

Unfortunately I missed the window on my Strawberry Cola, she's gonna be done dry in a day or so. I'm not too fussed about that anymore tho, the changes I made this weekend were awesome.
Yesterday I beat my head against the webserver part until 3 in the morning but I finally got it working the way I want to. It's very basic atm but.. it works \o/

To get it to work and not end up with a huge mess, I had to refactor half the project. Man, I love this; Just getting super high and coding the entire day.. best thing ever.

 

[Nannymouse]

I admire your determination and skills.

 

[Rapha El]

I admire your determination and skills.

Thanks
I have something even neater to show off:



Now we can get the data in realtime, hehe. So next up is to transmit all the data, then make the buttons actually do something. After that I gotta get started on the ability to change settings of the fridge from the website in case I want to change the vpd target or whatever while it's running.

 

[Rapha El]

Today I implemented storage and retrieval of settings and historical sensor data, which means it's going to continue where it left off after a power outage, no matter how long.
You have no idea how proud I am that this all works as well as it does. Before, you had to reload the page to get up to date values but now it's all happening via websockets and updated every second. Mind you, not everything is updated every second; Since the microcontroller is really low power it also doesn't have a lot of computing power or ram, so sending all the data every update would be a little overwhelming for the poor thing. So I partitioned it over time. First frame it sends the live values, second frame it sends the chart data for the last minute.. etc. Which leads to: Every 5 seconds the website shows the latest values for all it's fields and charts. I think for a humidor that's enough.

There are still a few things I can do first, to put it off.. but eventually I'll have to design a website that ideally looks not like it escaped 2004

 

[Rapha El]

What do we think about this? It's not functional yet, just a design based on the IBM Carbon design system

edit: well i kind of hit a wall.. i am running out of memory on the controller. what a bizarre problem to have, for someone coming from a desktop development background. so while i look for a model with more ram, i might quickly throw something together for an e-paper display