I am a complete beginner to this forum and wonderd if a kind soul would be so good as to help me with some basic Arduio information. I have little or knowledge of C so excusd my poor " Programming" lol.
I have purchased a Arduino UNO and have installed it with no problems. The purpose of this venture was to create small module which will monitor a few sensors, display ther value and switch two relays on at given values and educate me as I go!
Basically am asking first of all,
can Arduino UNO handle multiple inputs, such as would be required in my example above. I hope to read a thermister value for coolant temp sensor, value for Pre Intercooler
Thermister and Post Intercooler Thermister. Utilising the sensors fitted to the project car. Thereafter covert the resistance value to a Temperature value and display this on a small
two or three line LCD.
Althought I am going to go away and do some digging and learning to accomplish the above does the following basic text sound like something a beginner can achieve with Arduino
A = Temp Sensor Pre Cooler (thermister)
B = Temp Sensor Post Cooler (thermister)
C = Coolant temp Sensor
d = Relay for FAN 1
e = Relay for fAN 2
f = Buzzer or LED
Read A , do the conversion/maths and Display A
Read B, do the conversion/maths and Display B
Read C, do the conversion/maths and Display C
If C => 87 then Apply Power/ Close relay D
Else Dont bother
If C=> 95 Then apply power/ Close relay E
Else dont bother
Yep, very well possible
just make sure you trigger the relays properly, using a transistor to drive them since an arduino pin can only sink/source 40ma
id suggest taking it on one step at a time, don't try to code it all at once, get the lcd working first with the lcd library, then the sensors, then relays wired and tested properly
then combine it all into the main project
and don't forget to get properly sized relays for your load
Thanks for replying so quickly. Its nice to know that what I am hoping to achieve is do-able! now to go away and have a go at completing the software side of things. Thanks for the advice an step by step sounds like decent advice to me. Getting ahead of myself already but if I can nail the above. Perhaphs then refine the process by adding a pot to vary and display the temp values for cutting in and out the fans. But hey I think I have plenty to be getting on with first
You may be interested in trying out the ds18b20 temperature sensor, you can have multiple sensors all connected to one data bus, so instead of you needing 3 separate analog inputs and doing the conversions all you need is one digital input and collect the temperatures which you can set from 9bit to 12bit,
you can find them pretty cheap on ebay, and with the dallas temperature library they are easy to use once you get the hang of it, if your up for the challenge of learning it
Its nice to know that what I am hoping to achieve is do-able!
Yes all do-able, quite simple in fact.
Rob
Well in my head I had convinvced myself of this also, but then I had a look at some code and thought, WOW!. Its been 15 years since I last saw programming code even then that was at very basic college leve!
