Louis

Hi Jenna,

I just wanted to chime in and say that I've seen your previous tools and I like 'em! I realized that your temperature logger was intentionally a stripped down version compared to my Fido project and that idea struck a chord with me. A lot of the work that I'm trying to post-Fido is to try to make the communications part easier -- which is essentially what made Fido more complicated than your device.

Anyway, I just wanted to say, that I'd like to send you an Apitronics Bee to help you as a controller and as a charger for what you're doing (in reference to your italics Housing). Worst case, it's just a charge controller. But based on what I've seen of your previous hacks, you know how to write some Arduino code so you'll at least make a good local controller out of it. Plus, if I've done a good job, you'll also be able to figure out how to use the networking side of it and be able to monitor things remotely, but that'd be a bonus.

Amongst other things, the Bee might also help with food dispensing. If you could find some kind of motor or actuator to dump a ration, you could put it on a timer or on remote control. I've also used Bees to monitor water levels in tanks but that might not work with the buckets.

Let me know if you want to talk sensors or anything like that!

--Louis

Congratulations! My weather station project didn't get funded I'm afraid :(

Yes we're definitely working on integrating that onto the Apitronics platform - basically a browser based interface where you can choose any sensor, give it upper and lower bounds, and ask for text or email alerts based on that.

Also, a demo video for that is here (skip to 1:50)

Hi Katrina

My company, Apitronics, is an open-source platform for deploying wireless sensor and automation networks on farms. We are currently manufacturing our base unit, the Bee, a battery powered, solar rechargeable, wireless device, and our Weather Plug, which enables the Bee to become a weather station.

It's possible that we could come up with an application that we could collaborate on. Things we'd like to manufacture next are controllers for irrigation, greenhouse, aquaponic, what have you. We're designing our systems to communicate between nodes and to leverage the benefit of having everything networked. With a weather station AND a greenhouse controller, you could start coming up with some really interesting automation. Is it "too hot" but almost night fall and a cold night is coming up? A simple thermostat might release that heat, while a networked system could easily have the intelligence to capture that heat for the night.

Anyway, that's just an idea. We basically have a core of any wireless system and have designed everything to make it easy to prototype new ideas. So we could try out just about anything for this competition. We're already open-source and would have no problem maintaing that with you :)

--Louis
louis@apitronics.com

Hi isdale - welcome to the website! You can browse lots of projets in the Tools section :)

I just wanted to share a picture with everyone of the tools in the truck. It's kind of funny for me to see all those interesting tools loaded up like that.

Hi Jeff,

It's great to see that there are some standard being put into motion, both locally managed and with global connections!

It looks like the NEFKE is in development but how would I go about finding out the specifications so I could potentially export my data in that format? Are they still being developed? Will the exporting be periodic data-dumps or will the system be setup for dynamic data sharing?

This is something that I'm trying to position Apitronics to help with. Since many farms will have identical sensors deployed, the sensor specifications will be open of course, and the location will be paired with all the data being gathered, I think it could be a great component to the platform being proposed.

I would love to be part of this discussion and to hear what the research needs are. I will have my own practical uses for the data (primarily building physical models for simulations and automation) but I would love to know how to make the datasets more accessible to others.

The code is broken currently...?

I wonder if there is a kind of balance that can be had. I think a traditional licensing model could end up being more trouble than its worth. Companies like Apple spend more on legal fees than R&D!

One solution is that the developer try to maintain an online storefront, but to outsource actual production and fulfillment as much as possible. Perhaps this means a one month lead-time for these types of mechanical projects.

Granted that it takes more involvement than licensing, but it gives the developer a stronger "brand-name" helping them compete against possible knock-offs. It benefits the developer too because they have direct customer contact and feedback this way. Its certainly money well spent compared to legal fees.

Work could then still be released open-source, but periodically allowing the developer to arrange parternships for distribution. Openness for physical tools is less of a catalyst for parallel development since they have more barriers than that of software. Generating an identical build to someone else's is exceedingly difficult. On the other hand, providing kits so that co-developers can exist may be a revenue stream in itself.

So you're doing:
Panel -(1)-> 12V Battery -(2)-> 115V AC -(3)-> Appliances

Seems like you have (2) and (3) pretty well figured out. The inverter is definitely right I take it the bucket and base both have standard outlets for 115-120V AC.

I would wonder about (1) on the input side (the output to the battery makes sense). Specifically, what are the min and max voltage panel inputs it expects? Have you selected a panel that matches that?

Now that all the voltages line up, I would think about watts/current (remember, Watts = Current * Voltage). How often does the heater and pad need to be on? How many watts do they consume when they are on?

Given your charger, you can only draw 5W from the solar panels, regardless of voltage. If you always had 5W from solar panels and always had your appliances on, you would need to make sure you only drew 5W, not the 400W maximum that it is rated for.

But your panels aren't always on and I doubt your appliances draw THAT much current, so do the calculation of how much sun you can expect and how much current you will be drawing. You will probably want a timer so that you can switch the appliances on and off.

Also, just a thought, have you looked at solar water heaters? You might get away with more that way. The reason is, all this conversion of electricity gives you an efficiency drops. It's too bad that most appliances need 120V AC because they end up rectifying it and using DC locally. It would be nice to regulate the 12V DC another DC level rather than going DC-AC-DC.

That's a relief!

An Arduino could definitely be used to do something along these lines. The trick is figuring out how to sense the depth of your tank. Here's one of the first google results I came across which uses pressure sensors.

Then you have to find a way to get the 5V Arduino to actuate your pumps... Relays and such will probably be needed.

Sounds like you wouldn't require an SMS alarm system so you could make a cheaper and more simple system fairly easily. If you wanted to add an alarm though, following the Fido tutorial related to the phone may help.

If you don't know much about Arduinos or electronics, don't worry - it's easy to get started. Adafruit has a great learning system.