I'm a farmer located in France and we mostly grow vegetable that we sell locally.
I'm building small laboratory to be able to grow mushroom, produces preserves jars and biogaz.
I must tell you that i know pretty much nothing about Arduinos, but i'm eager to learn.
The project is pretty strait forward, i wanna build an automating system that can control a gaz burner for sterilisation/pasteurisation processes. It's basically a pressure cooker on top a gaz burner.
For this project i'll need with five basic parts :
a thermometer (to set a process value)
a proportional opening gaz valve (to be able to control the gaz flow has the temperature fluctuates during processing)
a lighting system (to be able to turn the gaz on and off has needed)
a display tactile screen to set variables (such has the processing temperature/time) and to check on them during processing.
I don't even know if this is feasible. I'm just posting this to get a some advice.
I dont know what type of parts/components i'll need for this project or where i could buy them. I'd be stocked if somebody had a few clues on where to begin.
Thanks you for the time input reading this or commentating.
Oh. You're aiming quite high.
Basic advice is to start playing with a controller, managing simple, silly tasks.
Then... Make the controller work with one external device, one at the time. Reading temperature, reading and controlling pressure etc.
When those parts are well known You can take on the integration of all the parts.
Don't ever think about building the entire project and then start trying to make it work
Welcome to the forum feroxfelis, we will do what we can to help. Your project is very doable but first and foremost what do you have in your plans for safety, if something fails you want it to fail in a safe way. Are you planning on operating the burner on natural gas, propane, or biogaz. You will need a temperature sensor (thermometer), what will it measure the product in the pressure cooker, the flame, ??? Proportional gas valves are relative available in t5he US, I don't know about france. For the screen there are many but I tend to use the LCD ones, 2X20 and 4v16, both are inexpensive and the arduino will drive them directly or via the I2C. Let us know how you do!
It is, but I have very serious reservations about this, to be honest.
Firstly, you mention you have little/no experience with Arduinos (and probably automated process control), and you want to work with a gas-burning stove. That's not a very safe combination to begin with.
Secondly, given the fact that you're trying to make an automatic control system implies that it will run unsupervised, even if only for short periods of time. This is a MAJOR safety risk.
Frankly, I'd stop here for now and start with automating other parts of your mushroom growing operation. Start with things like humidity control etc. that are inherently much safer to work on. Then, once you've thoroughly learned how a system like this works and needs to be engineered, perhaps move towards the gas-burning part.
Maybe I'm overly cautious, but I have quite a bit of experience with electronics and programming (as a benevolent amateur, not professionally), and to be honest I would be very hesitant to undertake your project. The impact of any accident would be unacceptably high.
PS: you might reach out to Butagaz (I bet you know them) and in particular their Gazatub lab. It's a long shot, but there's possibilities they might have been thinking about the kind of thing you're trying to do. I'm sure they would be interested in any case - although they'd also be quite alarmed at your plans, I imagine. Rightfully so.
