Dough Proofer

Using Arduino Project Guidance
1

Hi everyone

First post so if I am wrong just let me know.

Here is what happened, we have a proofing cabinet and electronic board is dead, the manufacterer of course does not want to give any data or wiring diagram to fix it, he just wants to change the dead computer board for a little fortune. For now we just pulled ou the dead board and placed a temperature controler and a humidity controler to be able to use it.

First project making a new board with arduino hope it is possible. So it has to be able to deal with....

2 input one for the temperature sensor and one for the humidity sensor
Must be able to adust temp and humidity
Must be able to show actual temp and humidity
Has to control relays for the heating, compresseur and fans (there is 2 fans one for the heating and one for the cooling)
Has to control the relay for the steam maker

Second project

Same as above but must be able to be programmed for cooling and a set time for dough ready like at 6AM for cooking, arduino will have to calculate what time overnight to sart the heating slowly and increasing temperature on a regular basis.

What is needed ???

Which arduino model (so many different)
which temperature sensor
which humidity sensor
which lcd display
which button switch
which relay card
real time clock (RTC)
where to buy

and all what I have forgot

Thank you for reading and helping the best you can

2

invitro59:
Hi everyone

First post so if I am wrong just let me know.

Here is what happened, we have a proofing cabinet and electronic board is dead, the manufacterer of course does not want to give any data or wiring diagram to fix it, he just wants to change the dead computer board for a little fortune. For now we just pulled ou the dead board and placed a temperature controler and a humidity controler to be able to use it.

First project making a new board with arduino hope it is possible. So it has to be able to deal with....

2 input one for the temperature sensor and one for the humidity sensor
Must be able to adust temp and humidity
Must be able to show actual temp and humidity
Has to control relays for the heating, compresseur and fans (there is 2 fans one for the heating and one for the cooling)
Has to control the relay for the steam maker

Second project

Same as above but must be able to be programmed for cooling and a set time for dough ready like at 6AM for cooking, arduino will have to calculate what time overnight to sart the heating slowly and increasing temperature on a regular basis.

What is needed ???

Which arduino model (so many different)
which temperature sensor
which humidity sensor
which lcd display
which button switch
which relay card
where to buy

and all what I have forgot

Thank you for reading and helping the best you can

I'm not an Arduino pro by any means. I'm still learning the ropes as well but seeing how no one has replied I'll give my two cents. I'm using the Arduino UNO SMD Edition. It's USB equipped so that makes it pretty easy to upload your code to it. The SMD edition as I'm told just means that it has a soldered on CPU instead of a replaceable one like the previous versions.

You want your Arduino to control 120v appliances right? (fan's, dehumidifers etc?) So you will be wanting to purchase relays that the Arduino can power (I think 5vDC is what it's capable of). Of course you could always just use servo's to physically press buttons on the actual appliances themselves (sure would look funny though lol). I'm in the same arena you are in at the moment. I'm trying to find what relays I can use in a similar project although I have no clue what a Dough Proofer is.

As for your temperature sensor. I have minimal experience with the TMP36 Temperature sensor and it is very very easy to use and works quite well. Other members on the forums feel that they are decent as well.

Unfortunately due to lack of experience I can't comment on the other areas of your project, but hopefully this gives you something to think about. Good luck. Keep us posted.

3

a set time for dough ready like at 6AM

Then you should probably add a real time clock (RTC) to your list.

Have a look at shieldlist.org, you might find a shield to do some of this, but I think you'll have to rig a lot of it up yourself.

I haven't counted up the IO you mentioned but I'd say any normal Arduino could to this.

There aren't many relays that an Arduino can directly power and of them I suspect none will have the grunt to control what you're talking about. That's the bad news, the good news it that it really doesn't matter, you can simply use a transistor to power a large relay.

As for which sensors/LCDs etc, have a trawl through the Arduino site and see what are already supported by libraries and probably use them as half the work is already done for you.

TIP: You can get serial LCDs that are very easy to control, you just need a serial port (hardware or software).

Rob

4

Hi

Thank's for replies, I add a real time clock to my list.

Relays is no problem I need a lot of power so I will trigger 3 of these : (what type of transistor will trigger one of these ???)

Here is what a dough proofer looks like : (to the admin : this is not the company of course that did not want to give diagram)

and the controller


OR

I found once on a website both sensors on one plate but cannot find it anymore or may be it was on eb.y

What I am asking myself is which arduino has enough power and memory to support a kind of complicated software and control all this.

5

Relays is no problem I need a lot of power so I will trigger 3 of these : (what type of transistor will trigger one of these ???)

Just about any transistor will throw a relay, but you need to work backwards, the power being switched determines the relay and that in turn determines the transistor (or driver chip if you have a few relays).

What I am asking myself is which arduino has enough power and memory to support a kind of complicated software and control all this.

There will be plenty of gotchas (there always is) but this doesn't look like a real complicated application.

I'd start by defining exactly the IO you need, if you spell it out exactly ie not "Must be able to adust temp and humidity" , more like

1 relay to control heater
1 relay to control humidifier
1 input for a temp sensor
1 input for a RH sensor
5 inputs for X, Y, Z, A and B buttons.

or whatever. (the number of pins needed does depend somewhat on the actual sensor but most use 1 pin)

Note at this point it doesn't matter how big the relay is, just that you need one.

Having done that we will know the number of IO pins required. At that point you may see that you need 40 IO pins in which case it's probably a no brainer, get a Mega.

However there are ways to expand what the smaller Arduinos can control as well.

As for the code size you may have trouble with a 328-based Arduino, but it only costs $30 for make a start and you can upgrade it the code gets too large.

Rob

6

Have you looked into using as many of the parts of the existing controller as you can? It probably already has relays hooked up to the components they control, it has switches or other input devices and a display that you may be able to program an arduino to interpret and control what's already there. Since all these interfaces are integrated into your proofer, replacing the dead controller with an arduino would be the most elegant and probably least expensive way to approach fixing it.

7

Thank's focussolar

Will make a picture of it and post it (recto-verso)

8

@focussolar and the others that like to help

Pictures of the Electronic Board

DSCF0117.JPG

DSCF0119.JPG

DSCF0120.JPG

DSCF0121.JPG

9

Pictures of temperature and humidity sensors

DSCF0122.JPG
DSCF0122.JPG456×600 45 KB

DSCF0125.JPG

10

Relay Board (that should be it)

DSCF0126.JPG
DSCF0126.JPG800×452 120 KB

11

The photos you posted show the parts that probably work the display, conditioning for sensors and what looks like two relative humidity sensors. If you can find the specification sheets of the actual display components, the RH sensors (or better yet - the input required and output specs on the board that conditions these signals) it would be straightforward for an Arduino to use them to control the display and the steam generator. I didn't see any temperature sensors (they may be mechanical thermostats that use a liquid or gas) or the relays that turn on and off the compressor, heater, or steam generator. The last photo shows the controller and it does have relays but their size indicates that they turn on small loads, like a larger relay.

Are there much larger relays located near the compressor, heater or steam generator that have larger wires?

Are there probes inside the proofer volume that transmit temperature?

12

This could certainly be done with an Arduino and some additional circuitry; it looks like an interesting project. It won't be easy though. Focussolar's point about reusing the existing components helps to reduce the difficulty, although you may find it easier to replace the various seven segment displays with a single LCD panel. Sensors are probably analog, but if they're not, identifying them and getting datasheets will be crucial.

However, it's not an easy project, especially if you don't have coding and electronics experience. Getting the code right will take time and consider how you're going to test it. You should certainly look at mocking it up with temperature sensors and relays that simply turn on lights, but eventually, you will need to hook it up to the real thing. FIrst though, I'd want to get identical sensors to the ones in the proofer, assuming you can get at them to identify them, and the same relays that you'll need to drive in the finished product & build a standalone version. You will need to prove that you can read the sensors correctly, but you'll also need a rig where you can use potentiometers to simulate them so that you can vary your inputs to test how the code reacts in all expected scenarios.

Lastly, this sounds potentially dangerous. Your arduino is going to be controlling steam, heat and powerful fans - I'm not sure what the compressor component is. Is it possible to damage the equipment if the code is buggy? For example, is there an overtemp sensor in there that should trigger an immediate shutdown? Could you over pressurize the proofer with steam to the point where it explodes? Even if you don't do serious damage or start a fire, it's likely that you will spoil a number of batches of dough getting it right and it will be difficult to debug, particularly if it's running a long time. You will likely need to send a lot of logging information and have a laptop attached to collect it for analysis so you can have a clue what the arduino did when you end up with a bunch of soggy dough.

This can be done, no doubt, but it isn't going to be quick or easy. Read some of the stuff in this forum and you'll see how folks have struggled getting even simple things working. This system has quite a number of inputs & outputs so it's complex. There is a great deal to be learned before you can hope to do it safely and effectively. There is the potential for injury, or at least an inability to use the proofer for a while - is it a business critical system? In the end, the manufacturer would have to be asking a gargantuan amount of money to make this worth it, at least for me. Since you have jury rigged it so it's usable, I'd be inclined to keep it that way if the replacement cost is unacceptable.

Good luck with it though, which ever way you decide to go.

13

Are there probes inside the proofer volume that transmit temperature?

I took them out as I could not make the temp sensor with my normal temperature controller, thats the one on the picture.
The sensors bord has both temp+humidity as two sets of wire were connected to it. The temp is not a PT100 that I am shure I tried it on the controller.

Are there much larger relays located near the compressor, heater or steam generator that have larger wires?

For the relays there are no others bigger relay (I found that strange too) on board relays shows 12A/220 volts the other 16A/220volts there is large wires going in the board and then out with fuses (as seen on relay board picture) and all component, hrating, fans, compressor, steam system were directly connected to this card through an external connector.

If you can find the specification sheets of the actual display components, the RH sensors (or better yet - the input required and output specs on the board that conditions these signals)

Finding data sheets of the chip on the board could that give us some hints ???

As I do not have any data and the manufacturer of course does not want to give them (does not even replies to my emails anymore)

@wildbill

Thank's for sharing your thoughts
Well it could be working with simply a temperature controller + a hygrostat controller or finding a used board on some specialised website such as eb.y etc...

But this is not very challenging, I do agree with software systems that in case of a bug it could be problematic. But making work such a system only using electronic components is even worse.

Unless there is a better solutions than arduino, I have also a Make Controller board laying around but never started to work with it, I started twice on it and each time there website was down.

But doing this will help for another project I have in mind, controlling a kitchen bread maker with arduino.

And this is just for fun as proofer is working with a temp controller and we bought another one (the brand of the pictures: KOMA at least the wiring diagram came in the electrical box) as of course when you have manufacturers that want to keep what they think is a secret they loose customers, that proofer is not old and I used to know proofer that last's for 20 years. But they did not have a computerized system, just change a sensor, a controller, a relay or a little light.

14

invitro59:
But doing this will help for another project I have in mind, controlling a kitchen bread maker with arduino.

And this is just for fun as proofer is working with a temp controller and we bought another one

Sounds like it'll be a ton of fun. You might even be able to invent a new proofing algorithm that makes better or cheaper bread :slight_smile:

15

In theory you can find the existing processor, pull it out, and make an adaptor so an Arduino can drive the socket as the old MCU did. This should work unless the old MCU had some weird hardware feature that's hard to replicate.

If however it is a CPU with external IO and memory then that's a different story.

All that wilbill said still applies though.

And of course this assumes that it's the MCU that's dead, it could be something else.

Rob

16

If I were you,I'd try to find out the broken part on that board. (seems hard but it's pretty easy,grab a multi and probe resistance accross a bunch of parts and if you find one that differs from the others,you might have a winner. Also for the ICs,lookup the datasheets and check the block diagram,if it's say: An array of 8 times the same transistor in a chip,well they should read the same on each pin tested,a loner would again,be a winner.

Usually the caps would die first on your kind of machine (humidity and temp variation) I think. So I'd check them out first. Then up for a broken trace or something and so on.

If you think you can't make it,well I'm willing to check it out for you if you wanna ship it to Quebec,CAN.

Happy fixing!

Also: An arduino is totally capable of running that machine and post tweets about how moist your dough is at the same time lol.

enjoy,
The BadWolf

17

Hi everyone

@Graynomad : I do not want to fix it for so many reason, manufacturer is not serious (even for a broken light they asked me to find it and replace it) of course they are soldered on the board and I am shure no repair guy in the company has the knowledge of unsoldering and soldering on the board, plus the price to change a light in workman hours would be crazy. They do not help and do not share information and bla bla bla .... why fixing something that on the next problem you are back from scratch.

If you think you can't make it,well I'm willing to check it out for you if you wanna ship it to Quebec,CAN

Well from France it would be kind of costly :wink:

An arduino is totally capable of running that machine and post tweets about how moist your dough is at the same time lol.

Well I'll go for that seems that it could take over a year but at least I will learn a lot on arduino. Then why not once it is working connecting a touchscreen or connect it to one of those small machines called cell phones, I do not even have a cell phone yet (no use for it) i know it seems strange.

Now that everything looks settled :

WHICH ARDUINO TO BUY ???

18

Well a Mega may be an overkill but then they are cheap enough so it doesn't really matter IMO. So I'd go for a Mega, you may not use half of the IO but it's nice to have it and the extra memory will certainly be useful.

Plus with the extra serial ports you can interface at high speed to a LCD touch panel in future.

I do not even have a cell phone yet

Yeah right :slight_smile:

Rob

19

@Greynomad

Yeah right

Funny that no one belives me.

20

Doing your project I'd go with:

Arduino Uno:

Temp sensor:

Humidity sensor:

Real time clock: (accurate timings over extended periods)

Then you need a soldering iron,some kind of perfboard/protoboard some wires and a DC supply with barrel jack for the arduino.
I guess you also need to control stuff happening,so a simple keypad would do,like this:

or

Or else you just plug it via usb to a computer and have a neat GUI made in Visual Basic^^
(I can help you all along if needed,just send me an email at warlordz_of_the_net at hotmail dot com)

G'luck