Hi, I know a little about electronics and need some guidance on what kind of stand alone controller I can use to complete this project. I'm hoping the Arduino can do this, if not let me know what can do this. I plan on hiring someone to program it for me. Maybe someone here would be interested. Anyway, below are the parameters I'm looking for.
The User Interface will be a small 9” or so touch screen.
There needs to be 6 inputs for RTD Temp Sensors or Thermocouples.
There needs to be 4 to 6 Outputs to control a stepper motor, probably a stepper with 525 oz./in. For this I can use outboard Gecko drives that the stand alone controller can control.
There needs to be 6 outputs for On/Off which will be used with a relay.
The stand alone controller must handle these things.
The screen will show all 6 temps at once and constantly refresh, probably every 1/4 second or whatever is reasonable.
There will be a screen with a touch screen slide to adjust the each stepper motors to a certain position or the stepper motor, which will in most likelihood be connected to a ball valve, can be controlled like a PID using one of the temperature probes. For example temperature probe 4 is measuring water temp that is regulated by a ball valve with a stepper motor connected to output 2 on the controller. I want that water temp to stay at 145F. So the controller will have a simple user interface to set these parameters.
The temperature display when touched will go to an individual screen where a timer can be set for either temp or time. So let’s say I want switch 1 to be turned on at 6:00 am and turn off when it reaches 150F.
If anyone has any ideas I'd appreciate it. Thanks.