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Smarter Life Challenge Project

Kilohercas

Hello, i recently find out, that i was chosen for this challenge, and i just want to share idea for project. And see what element14 user think about this, is it too easy and i should do something more complex, or it should be one good project

 

As for this moment, i have idea to make reflow oven for electronics part soldering. Since at home i am working with 0201 resistors/capacitors and using FBGA package for processors, and FPGA designs, i really need something more than "hot air gun"

 

So for start, i should find nice looking oven with IR heating. Control mechanism should be flat, and it must have knob. I will remove all electronics from inside and make my own.

Now comes fun part:

 

I will use recently reversed engineered capacitive touchscreen with IPS LCD for user interface. So user could change all parameters about reflow process, preheating, heating, max temperature and so on. At the same time working in tandem with knob and touchscreen user could change time and temperature of each reflow process step ( because different IC's use different profiles, and profiles usually are at the bottom of datasheet). It will have animated reflow process graph to show temperature inside heating chamber, elapsed time, remaining time, start stop buttons and so on. You get the idea.

 

For temperature control, i will use PID controller programed on PSoC chip . Temperature will be sampled by two different thermocouples, so i have precise temperature measurement at all time. But i will use pwm for heating control, so i can get very fine temperature control without fluctuations caused by turning heater on/off.( I will not use simple relay approach as many people had used for this purpose). Also i will add high temp fans inside heating chamber, so i can improve heat transfer, and minimize temperature gradients inside heating chamber.

 

This is my idea, but for me it is a bit simple, i want to do something more complex (but this is what i need at the moment to get my life smarter)

  • Large LCD + Touch screen might be nice to develop on, but not so convenient to use.

    If nobs are out of question even dedicated touch buttons+sliders might be more user friendly.

     

    Anyway, seems like a great project and i'll be following it's progress image

     

    Sėkmės

  • in reply to Former Member

    This is why i need knob, for easy user input. since we talking about 300^C temperatures, and since reflow process has similar shape for all parts, user will need to adjust default parameters only or +-40^C or so, and with velocity factor enabled on encoder, it should be very easy to use, not to mention i will use capacitive touchscreen, not resistive

     

    It will have only on/off switch and nice LCD with touchscreen image.

     

    For now, arm cortex m4 running at 180MHz should help for user interface, i hope i can do that by using Cypress parts ( at least for user interface, i would use STM32F429i, but i don't know will it fit challenge rules )

     

    Ačiū už komentarus

  • Linas,

     

    dont forget that you have 2 PSoCs on the Pioneer Kit!

    Apart from the PSoC 4 (Cortex-M0) there's also the PSoC 5LP (Cortex-M3) that you could use.

    Either device could do a full touch interface, as they both have CapSense technology and can drive Segment LCD, or talk to serial LCDs.

     

    good luck, this is a very interesting project that I bet the hobbyist community is going to be looking a carefully!

  • in reply to cy.gul

    Hi, Thanks for information.

     

     

    I had lot of thinking, and decided to use SLCD or AMOLED screen for this project ( i will use AMOLED if i figure-out how to do that, since it has strange interface, and 25% about driving this AMOLED is still unknown, i can't get datasheet for it). They are from HTC Desire, just like touchscreen. That would be, from my point of view, best solution for user interface, but it comes with a price : screen is 800x480x16b, and where is no way i can get smooth UI by using Cypress PSoC 5 chip. But i going to use that for "control unit" since more speed can't hurt, right ?

     

    Solution i will use new STM32F429 running at 180MHz with integrated LTDC controller, supporting up to 800x600 (just what i need), but the least i can do is to use Cypress SRAM as frame buffer ( i hope it is not against the rules )

     

    It will also allow me to use Segger UI, and i already have code for it, just need to make new hardware with new screen, and so on.

  • in reply to Kilohercas

    Hey Linas,

     

    I think the oven is a good idea; at least you know what you're starting with, and what it should do at the very least. The control part might be good to show to 'newbies' if you're comfortable with that. Of course, the more processing power used in the PSOC, the better it is for this challenge image

    I guess that there are lots of ways to do this with purely the PSOC development kit, graphing and UI handling doesn't necessarily need a Cortex-M4 (or even M3), especially since you're dealing with slow temperature processes you'll have processor cycles out for grabs, I'd think. But maybe you've got a fancyer UI in mind than I have...