Padre always says to put our projects up here, so here goes

[G+_John Sullivan]

Padre always says to put our projects up here, so here goes.

 

Don't have air conditioning, have a "swamp cooler" on the roof. It works great, however, often too great. I often have to get up and shut down the water pump for a few minutes, and then later on, get up and turn it back on. This goes on all day.

 

Padre's GrowHow project on using Arduino to control a shutoff valve in a water supply line gave me an idea. After much thought, many changes and many trips to a local electronics store, I now have an Arduino that turns on / shuts off the water pump after a certain time period. It's controlled by a potentiometer with a dial with 0 - 10 increments.

 

First attempt was to "map" the pot to 60 seconds, i.e. 5 on the dial would have the pump run 30 secs. and be off for 30secs. That gave too great a temperature spread, so mapped it to 30 seconds. Still too great a spread. Now have it sent to 0 - 10 secs running (0 to 10 on the pot) out of every 30 secs. Will dial it in (no pun) further as time goes on, but it works!

[G+_Rico Cantrell]

Dude! That's awesome! If it's that efficient at getting rid of heat. Maybe you need more air through it. Great idea though.

[G+_Ben Reese]

Sounds awesome! It's great that you're doing this with an Arduino too.

[G+_Jason Perry]

It is great hearing the different applications people make from other people's projects

[G+_John Sullivan]

Thanks Jason

 

What project(s) are you working on / completed?

 

 

-----Original Message---

[G+_John Sullivan]

Thanks Ben

 

Which of Padre's projects are you working on / completed? So far, I 've just

done this one, and the 250 size quadcopter.

 

-----Original Message---

[G+_Ben Reese]

John Sullivan? even though I love the show, I have to admit that I haven't done any of his projects along with the show. The topics and ideas are great, though!

 

Outside of Padre and Bryan's show I've...

*Setup OpenVPN servers at home (Raspberry Pi and on Linux VM) and on remote virtual servers.

*Controlled relays with a Raspberry Pi through a web page.

*Setup live streaming from a video camera to YouTube.

*I think they showed off DD-WRT a while back and I've put that (or OpenWRT) on a few routers.

 

There are other projects I've thought of and I'll probably refer back to KH if I get around to those.

*If/when I get a 3D printer, I'd like to do the pan/tilt rig from a few months ago.

*When the Skreens box is finally available, I'd like to get one for the streaming I've already got setup.

*It's highly ambitious, but I'd love to create a map at church with programmable LEDs behind it and a screen to the side so we can play a missionaries video and have their section of the map light up. (I'm not sure this will ever happen.)

 

So, I like the show and the community is awesome. It's amazing that Padre and Bryan can have so much new content every week - I'm really not sure how some YouTubers/vlogers do it!

[G+_Jason Perry]

+John Sullivan, not as exciting as your project. Just putting up a new range hood

[G+_Ben Reese]

Jason Perry is it at least Arduino or Raspberry Pi controlled?

[G+_Jason Perry]

Ben Reese?, I try to wait for the newness of it to ware off before I hack it. It gives my wife one less thing to use against me. I do have the schematic for it and I will be keeping it in a safe place.

 

Any suggestions ??

There is a lot of empty space in there.

[G+_Jason Marsh]

John Sullivan You need to consider the effect of frequent on-off cycles on your pump. It would be best to let it over-run a little before shutting off, so that it doesn't start up again in just a minute or two.

 

We had a swamp cooler on our family's business when I was a kid, and it was controlled by a regular thermostat. Perhaps you could add a thermocouple as an input for the Arduino and run your pump and blower based on temperature, with minimum run times and minimum off times to prevent burning out the motors or the relays prematurely due to frequent cycling.