Hi everyone, I was wondering whether this project is feasible to develop with arduino or not.
Outputs:
Activation of 3 different solenoid valves at 230vac.
Activation of 2 different 3ph contactors, coils at 230vac.
Inputs:
1 safety switch (on/off)
1 vaccum sensor
1 touch screen to control the whole system
I need to develop the control board + the touch screen.
The operation mode is quite simple; if the safety switch is active, and you select the option to start the operation from the touch screen, a vaccum pump is activated trough a contactor. Once the vaccum sensor reads certain value, the 3 solenoid valves and the remaining contactor get activated a certain amount of seconds. Finally, the operation finishes until "start" is newly selected.
The timing of the activation and deactivation of components depends on the model. Thus, I need somewhow the specify which model is being build. I think this can be easily done through a "config screen".
Main doubts are whether this is feasible with arduino or not, my main concern is the vaccum sensor. I have seen similar control boards with a vaccum sensor integrated in the board, in which you directly attach a vaccum hose to the board.
Does someone know if this can be developed using different ardunio components?
Background is LOTS of experience in PLC programming, some experience in Arduino development.
Any thoughts about the vaccum sensor and the recommend board to be used?
Thanks
consider future expansion, e.g. extra sensors, serial IO, WiFi, Bluetooth, etc
I would recommend ESP32 - buitlt in WiFi, Bluetooth Classic, BLE, Canbus (with external bus driver), I2C, SPI, plenty of Flash, RAM and IO - is supported by the Arduino IDE
if you have used PLCs you are probably already aware of electrical-standards-for-contactors-ac1-ac2-ac3-ac4-dc1-dc2-dc3
EDIT: try a web search for esp32 touch screen - you will get plenty of links
there are Touch screens with built in ESP32 microcontrollers which saves wired interconnections and possible poor connections etc
This is the more challenging part of the project in terms of the demands it puts on the controller you use. The rest is easy-peasy for any microcontroller and the simplest kind would do, but the touchscreen requirement boosts your project to the higher echelons of Arduino computing power. It'll also make the project overall more complex/demanding in terms of the programming effort. I'd suggest starting out with something much simpler, like a few push-buttons and a 1602 text display.
It should be pretty straightforward, but I agree with @rsmls that the configuration screen is likely to be the most complex part of the whole thing. If not for this, I would recommend a Start pushbutton instead of a virtual button on a screen. User interfaces are generally pretty time consuming to write.
