Thought I'd share the fruits of my labor from the last few weeks. As usual, I decided to drastically over-engineer something fairly simple, a stir plate.
Here's the plate a few months ago when I got started and decided to overengineer things. Its all breadboarded out with the microcontroller and LCD.
Here's the circuit board I had printed for the project:
In addition to the circuit board, I also used a laser cutter to have a case created for the project. I used translucent blue acryllic as the base material, here's the parts in the case:
The case has a nice CHAOS logo on the top as well :-). The LCD on the front shows the percent, and a nice bar showing the percentage as well. I tried to use a hall effect sensor to detect the RPMs, but never got it to fully work for several reasons so no RPM detection anymore.
And of course, since its translucent here's the obligatory photo showing all of the blue lights I put inside for extra awesome!
Haven't used it for a brew yet, but I will most certainly be doing so soon!
NERD!!! /Ogre
Seriously though, that's awesome. I assume the speed control is PWM rather than just a resistor, correct?
Correct, PWM all the way!
Oh... my... god. Why haven't we done this? http://thechive.com/2013/09/17/guys-rig-up-buddies-plumbing-with-beer-wh...
So I have a new version of the board that I put together and I'm probably going to put in an order for a few. Anyone interested in building some of these? If we wanted to we could also get the acrylic cut in bulk. If we don't want the logo, these will probably end up being about $50 a piece + labor to get them built. Let me know, I'd be happy to do a stir plate build day as a class where we can put them together.
Oh... my... god. Why haven't we done this? http://thechive.com/2013/09/17/guys-rig-up-buddies-plumbing-with-beer-wh...
I am definatley interested. I want the logo.
The emperor is not as forgiving as i am
Lucas, Do you think we can do a month long sign up and have the class post Cinco to get new members involved and have an additional selling point for the trial membership?
Sure, I think we could certainly do that if we wanted. People will still need to shell out the extra $$ for the nice stir plate if they wanted, but we could also include building cheap stir plates. If we do that, I'd just suggest we have them bring a box, a fan, and a power supply and we buy the plug jacks (like this: http://www.adafruit.com/adablog/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/window-2-16.j... the magnets since we can get a good deal on them in bulk. Thoughts?
Oh... my... god. Why haven't we done this? http://thechive.com/2013/09/17/guys-rig-up-buddies-plumbing-with-beer-wh...
I want one and/or to do a class to build one if it is on the weekend.