I hope this is the right place to post this. I have no experience at all with Arduino and am a serious novice. That being said, I am looking for the best advise on which Arduino products to purchase, besides the starter kit to aid me in getting through this DIY project. Please remember I am a complete greenhorn when it comes to tech stuff. I will try to lay out my want’s as follows:
All DC in/outs base on 12.8 lithium Large battery packs
2 Enclosures (pvc):
1 larger distribution panel: contains 8-ch. mini relay board, high output relays, 2 current sensors.
5 ea. - 12V battery banks in
2 outputs – one 12V & other 48V (this one series inside panel) (switched)
48V charger input (switched)
Remote monitoring/switching station out (preferably 4-wire phone cable 15 ft. long).
1 small monitoring/switching station (15’ away or less)
2.8” or a little larger touch screen (color)
Power on/off button
Warning horn
Preferably again 4-wire phone cable jack (power in signal out)
This station would display all input voltages, output voltages, amperes, amp hours used basically a real-time battery status monitor for all of what’s going on in and out of the distribution panel.
Would also like to set low voltage warning/cut-off parameters for battery inputs.
This is basically a nice battery management system for lifepo4 batt packs and to get the best life span from them.
Links to these products you might recommend would be greatly appreciated and I thank you in advance any opinions you may offer me. Any more info you might want from me I will monitor daily to repost for you.
While you've specified a great number of IO requirements here, it will be possible to do this with the Arduino Uno. The reason is you can add IO capability using multiplexing once you've expanded to the point you've run out of on-board pins on the Arduino.
Check out this page which explains how to use the 4051 multiplexer. What it does is allows you to switch between inputs that a single analog pin on the Arduino is connected to.
Glad to see you are still making those 'sensor shields' available, they are the cat's meow.
''Sensor shields" are a real nice aid in wiring up projects, I have a couple of 328P versions and really should get a mega version. It gives you lots of extra ground and 5 volt pins to make project wiring much more simple. In many cases it can replace the whole messy solderless breadboard method.
The latest versions that allow easy connection of an external regulated +5vdc power source makes powering up multiple servos a simple task that otherwise can be a pain is the backside for many beginners, just add the external voltage and pull the jumper clip. Highly recommended.
I have had good experiences teaching Arduino with the 3-pin connections. I am always pushing the concept of the + 5V rail and Ground rail and everything happens in between, like this:
Is the 5 Volt in the 3 pin row connected to the 5Volt from the Arduino.
For servos it would be nice if you could connect it to external power for servos
The 5V on the 3-pin connectors is the same as the Vcc (usually 5V) supply for the Microcontroller chip.
This also is the same on the two regular Arduino-type Sensor Shields we have.
The MEGA type sensor shield does have the ability to connect a separate 5V supply for running many Servos etc.
I have suggested to the designer we collaborated with that this feature be added to a future design. There may be issues with PC Board Layout and the number of layers. We don't want to increase the cost. Right now this is a very nice product at the $17 price level.
Another feature that may be interesting is that this "YourDuinoRobo1" board has a separate 3.3V regulator which supplies up to 400ma or so. This can be used to power devices that need 3.3V power (Like the nRF24L01 radios) but are OK with 5V signals. OR the Atmel Microcontroller AND all those "+" pins on the 3-pin connectors can be run at 3.3V by moving a jumper.
In theory that jumper could be removed and an external supply could feed both the Microcontroller chip and those 3-pin connectors with +5V at 1 or 2 amps. I'll have to try that! I'll post those results on the product page and WIKI Info...
Hey.. we signed up for details when we started electronics, right??
Again: DISCLAIMER: Mentioned stuff from my own shop...
Thank you for your posts on this project. I can't tell you how much I appreciate it.
Now some more stupid questions. Would this mega board be installed in the main distribution panel where the high ouput relays and switching relay board is and serialed out to the monitoring/switching station containing the touch screen. If so I'm still confused on the best 2" X 4" compatable touch screen to get and whether a different board is needed to attach the display too when I serial between these 2 panels.