After your thoughts!

Projects General Guidance
1

Hello forum people.

I'm after a little advice with a project I'm working on.
I'm a machinist + furniture builder by trade, I have a reasonable amount of experience and skill working with electronics (mostly speaker/lighting systems etc) but this is my first real foray in to programming/arduino.

I'm in the process of making a complete coffee machine by hand- copper boiler, brass fittings, grouphead etc. There are a number of functions and bits of information that I'd like to display and in keeping with the theme- I thought I'd make a vintage style brass dial that would take care of it all in one spot.

My question is- can I use arduino + a step motor + relevant sensors and circuitry to:

•indicate temperature on 1/3 of the dial face
•pressure on another 1/3 of the dial face
(last 3rd of the face to have status leds etc)

Obviously the single needle can only point to one side at a time but that suits me fine- pressure displayed while coffee is pumping, temperature the rest of the time.

I'm also wondering whether the arduino system can take care of the other basic functions such as temp (PID) controller, status leds, pump relay etc. at the same time?

I guess I'm asking is:
A- whether it can be done,
B- is a newb like me going to be able to figure it out?

I understand that there are simpler, off the shelf solutions here but I've been interested in arduino for a while and I'd like to see what all the fuss is about.
I also like the idea of an old brass dial appearing to run by clockwork but then whizzing around and doing the impossible.

I know that a forum is not a place for others to fix your problem for you so I'm really just after your ideas on feasibility of this project.
If the responses are positive then I'll dive right in and start learning/designing.

Any advice, tips, pointers, etc very much appreciated!
Stew

2

A stepper motor similar to the kind used to indication car speed or engine speed could be used.

Maybe a light behind the part of the scale in question. When lit, the needle moves that that sectino and displays the relevant information,.

There are dual hand motors, clock stepper motors

so the display part can be done.

as for the rest of it, I think the answer is yes all around.

3

It's certainly feasible. Quite a tricky project for your first one though. As ever, you can eat that elephant a bite at a time.

I'd suggest you get a stepper and driver and a temperature sensor and see if you can get them to move a dial to correspond to room temperature. Use what you've learned there in the main project. Same thing with LEDs and pressure sensing (Not sure what's best for this part).

Safety's another concern: your code will not work first time (or second). Make sure by physical mechanisms that your bugs can't blow up a boiler or spray superheated steam out of a pipe.

4

That's certainly a nice stepper motor experiment, but I'd use a servo motor for a first project. No stepper drivers required, no stepper code...