I have yet to embark on my Arduino journey. Before I disappear down the rabbit hole I was hoping I could get some advice on a real life project I would be interested in exploring.
I work for a manufacturing company using CNC machine tools. We run our CNC machines through the night unmanned. I was hoping there may be a way to get very basic notification on my phone when the status of the CNC changes.
The CNC machine already has a traffic light system, with green, yellow and red lights being illuminated when the machine status changes (tool breakage, machine has stopped etc).
Would it be possible to hijack the traffic light signals and forward the signal to my phone?
I am a total beginner, so apologizes for my ignorance.
Any advice, or suggested tutorials would be amazing.
I can imagine, but I am not certain, the traffic light will have a 12v supply?
The traffic light is visible in the pdf above.
I think I will need a direct connection, as I would need to distinguish between a solid green, solid yellow, flashing yellow, and solid red.
All advice welcome how I would undertake this type of project.
What preliminary investigation should I perform ahead of embarking on researching the details?
It could be anything really. It looks like it might be a multicolor LED though. Unless you can get more info from the supplier, you will need to take it apart and examine it.
Worth asking the supplier if there is already an external interface, it would be less intrusive to plug into a port somewhere.
A first project, which is not trivial and will drag you over learning stuff, some easy and some a little less so, would be to get an Arduino to illuminate three LEDs in exact synchrony with the traffic lights you have now.
Hijack, to use your, and the, term for it. Can you look into what is going on in the traffic light system? How do we feel about voiding warranties? It should be easy enough to accomplish without doing.
Forget for now about the whizzy end goal of being alerted on your cellphone at 3AM in the morning.
Or do that part first. Just program an Arduino to send you an email when you press a button.
That one is a different kind of fun.
By the time you've finished both half-projects, you'll prolly be far enough along to combine that progress.
I can't see the pdf because Firefox says the linked site has a revoked certificate. But it seems to me that three photo-transistors, with a red, green or yellow filter in front of each, would be able to detect the lights optically from a moderate distance away. It might even be possible to use regular red, green and yellow LEDs. While normally used to emit light, LEDs will also generate current when exposed to light - not as good as a real photodiode or transistor, but possibly well enough.
In the past I have also used phototransistors stuck into the end of soda straws and pointed directly to a light, which senses only one light. In that case, color doesn't matter.
Is there a place above the display or below it that would hold the Arduino circuit and let you place an LED directly on the front of each light, either hanging down from above or on stilts from below?
It just seems it would be better to avoid connecting into the display. I say that having just finished installing a circuit into my microwave to detect what it is displaying. But my microwave isn't a big, expensive CNC machine, and is already well out of warranty.
Anyway, I think this should be possible to do. You will need to be able to make a connection to your company's wifi router if they will allow that. Or I guess it could be done over cellular, but I don't know anything about that option. Maybe the first step would be to see if you can get an Arduino to detect one of the lights in some way.
Another vote for approach that doesn't invalidate warranty or violate safety regulations.
Photodiode/transistor is probably the best way, another "non invasive" method could be a current clamp sensor in a right spot. OP could use for example Shelly EM to measure AC current of some part of the device and get alerts without coding or DIY tinkering.
as @JohnLincoln stated the CD machine has RS232 and ethernet interfaces
you should be able to get information from the machine manufacturer on how to monitor the machine using these interfaces
some time ago I was involved in a similar project with two hundred + knitting machines
information was sent over ethernet to a central database server reporting operator, job status, faults, etc
It should be easy enough to accomplish without doing.
