Building A Better PID Smoker Controller

October 11, 2012 by Mike Szczys 20 Comments

[Matt] wanted to have more control over his meat smoker so he built this advanced PID smoker controller. It uses the solid state relay seen in the bottom-right of this image to switch the smoker’s heating element. But all of the other goodies that are included add several features not usually found in these builds.

This is a replacement for the commercial PID unit he used on the original build. That monitored the temperature in the smoker, using predictive algorithms to maintain just the right heat level. But this time around [Matt] is looking for extra feedback with a second sensor to monitor meat temperature. Using an Arduino with an SD shield he is able to data log the smoking sessions, and his custom code allows him to specify temperature profiles for resting the meat after it has hit the target temperature. It kind of reminds us of a reflow oven controller… but for food.

Wii Nunchuck Controlled Robot Exhibits Rock Solid Balancing

September 25, 2012 by Mike Szczys 24 Comments

[Willy Wampa] is showing off his self-balancing robot. What strikes us about the build is how well tuned his feedback loop seems to be. In the video after the break you will see that there is absolutely no visible oscillation used to keep its balance.

The parts used are quite easy to obtain. The acrylic mounting plates are his wife’s design and were custom cut through the Pololu service. They were also the source of the gear motors. He’s using a SparkFun IMU with an Arduino and a motor shield. He first posted about the build about a month ago, but the new revision switches to a Pololu motor driver shield which he says works much better, and adds control via a wireless Wii Nunchuck.

The PID loop which gives it that remarkably solid upright stance is from a library written by [Brett Beauregard]. Once again the concept of open source lets us build great things by standing on the shoulders of others.

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Some Technical Improvements On [Alton Brown’s] Hacked Smoker

September 17, 2012 by Mike Szczys 6 Comments

Bringing that smoky goodness to your cooking is neither hard, nor is it expensive. [Alton Brown], who we consider to be the MacGyver of cooking, always seems to be able to build cooking contraptions from common items. The smoker he built from a flower pot was the inspiration for [Tom’s] own project. But [Tom] added in PID hardware to smoke at just the right temperature.

The enclosure hides a single electric burner at the bottom. A metal tray full of wood chips sits on top of it, smoldering as the burner gets hot. You could just set it and forget it, but it will take a lot of trial and error to figure out which setting achieves the best results. [Tom’s] additional hardware, housed in the grey electrical box, switches the burner with a solid state relay. The PID controller takes measurements from a temperature sensor inserted in the lid of the smoker, ensuring perfectly prepared food every time.

If you’re interested in making your own you could try building a heating element from toaster oven parts.

Building A Recirculating Infusion Mash System For Your Brewing Pleasure

September 12, 2012 by Mike Szczys 28 Comments

If you’re into all-grain brewing a little automation goes a long way. [Tom Hargrave] had his eye on a Recirculating Infusion Mash System (RIMS) but the price tag kept him from pulling the trigger. Recently he bit the bullet and built his own small and inexpensive RIMS for use with the 10 gallon cooler he uses as a mash tun.

Mashing is the part of brewing process that collects sugars from the milled grains. Water needs to move through the grain mash and should be kept within a narrow temperature window. This RIMS hardware does that automatically by combining a pump, the heating element from an electric water heater, and a temperature sensor. The wooden disc fits on the top of the mash tun and tubing lets the pump move the liquids as needed. The one thing missing from this build is the PID controller to automate the process. After the break we’ve embedded a video from a separate project that shows off how the PID control would work with a system like this one.

If you’re into automated home brewing you’ll also like this mini-batch brewing setup.

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Kalman Filter Keeps Your Bot Balanced

September 10, 2012 by Mike Szczys 19 Comments

If you’re looking to improve the stability of your self balancing robot you might use a ~~simple~~ horrifying equation like this one. It’s part of the journey [Lauszus] took when developing a sensor filtering algorithm for his balancing robot. He’s not breaking ground on new mathematical ideas, but trying to make it a bit easier for the next guy to use a Kalman filter. It’s one method of suppressing noise and averaging data from the sensors commonly used in robotic applications.

His robot uses a gyroscope and accelerometer to keep itself upright on just two wheels. The combination of these sensors presents an interesting problem in that accelerometer input is most accurate when sampled over longer periods, and a gyroscope is the opposite. This filter takes those quirks into account, while also factoring out sensor noise. Despite the daunting diagram above, [Lauszus] did a pretty go job of breaking down the larger function and showing us where to get the data and how to use it in microcontroller code.

Self Balancing Robot Uses Cascading PID Algorithms

July 20, 2012 by Mike Szczys 24 Comments

At this point we’re beginning to think that building a self-balancing robot is one of the rights of passage alongside blinking some LEDs and writing Hello World on an LCD screen. We’re not saying it’s easy to pull off a build like this one. But the project makes you learn a lot about a wide range of topics, and really pushes your skills to the next level. This latest offering comes from [Sebastian Nilsson]. He used three different microcontrollers to get the two-wheeler to stand on its own.

He used our favorite quick-fabrication materials of threaded rod and acrylic. The body is much taller than what we’re used to seeing and to help guard against the inevitable fall he used some foam packing material to protect the top level. Three different Arduino boards are working together. One monitors the speed and direction of each wheel. Another monitors the IMU board for position and motion feedback, and the final board combines data from the others and takes care of the balancing. Two PID algorithms provide predictive correction, first by analyzing the wheel motion, then feeding that data into the second which uses the IMU feedback. It balances very well, and can even be jostled without falling. See for yourself in the clip after the break.

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Salvaged Robot Arm Makes A Big 3d Printer

June 19, 2012 by Mike Szczys 34 Comments

Wow, building a precision 3d printer is amazingly easy if you can get your hands on an industrial-quality robot arm. [Dane] wrote in to tell us about this huge extruder printer made from an ’80s-era SCARA robot arm. It is capable of printing objects as large as 25″x12″x6.5″.

This 190 pound beast was acquired during a lab clean out. It was mechanically intact, but missing all of the control hardware. Building controllers was a bit of a challenge since the it’s designed with servo motors and precision feedback sensors. This is different from modern 3d printers which use stepper motors and no feedback sensors. A working controller was built up one component at a time, with a heated bed added to the mix to help prevent warping with large builds. We love the Frankenstein look of the controller hardware, which was mounted hodge-podge as each new module was brought online.

You can see some printing action in the clip after the break. A Linux box takes a design and spits out control instructions to the hardware.

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