Any other automation junkies out there?! I have recently bought a PLC and touch panel to automate my house with! I have finally got the touch panel to communicate with the PLC, gonna have it turn my lights on and off depending on whether or not there is someone in the room, water plants based on soil moisture levels and even to make a security system. It's gonna be SWEET! Please tell me I'm not the only one who thinks this is awesome. My wife is pissed told me to "Stop ordering that dorky crap" but what can I say. Its what I do. I am, after all, an industrial electronics technician. Its what I love. Well, that and peppers.
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Automation!
- Thread starter xXA_HillbillyXx
- Start date
I thought Hillbilly automation was getting one of the kidds or wife to do it?
Lol
It's not as expensive as you might think. Gotta use eBay
nice, what plc did you get? how does the panel work? does it communicate through a regular rs232?
id love to see your plans if you have anything setup . ive seen plenty of overpriced equipment meant for automating irrigation... lighting green house ventilation functions... fertigation/chemigation.... all that could be done with a simple PLC system and some transmitters.
how are you going to monitor moisture levels in soil? please dont say a conductivity based sensor. i dont buy into those conductivity based solutions, theres far to many variables that effect simple electrical conductivity of soil. i have seen some sensors that incorporate electrodes that are cast inside a ceramic body that look promising, but id much rather have tensiometers doing the sensing for me. they are so simple and easy to work with that id consider them elegant.
id given some thought to converting the tropof blumat tips into digital tensiometers using some low pressure transducers that would output a 4-20ma signal. a cheeper solution would be to use those small pressure sensors made for pcb circuitry... i just dont know enough about EE to get a usefull signal out of one of those that i could send to a PLC or transmitter or w/e.
only problem is that the threads that thje blumats use are GL type i believe. ive not been able to find any equipment meant for tapping those threads into metals/ plastics. GL threads are used mostly for laboratory glassware, hence you can only get stuff made for glass blowing lathes.
are you well versed w/ industrial automation/control systems etc?
Wow
I bought a Mitsubishi FX-128mr-es/us Plc and a GOT1000 touch panel. It communicates with the Plc through the plcs rs422 programming port. I haven't figured out yet exactly how I'm going to monitor moisture levels yet, but as far as the house goes I allready have some laser sensors to detect when people walk throught a door way I have them arranged so that it knows if you have walked into or out of the room and it turns the lights on accordingly. I will post pics of the setup as soon as I can get back on my computer (on my phone now). Yes, I am well versed with industrial controlls and automation. It's what I do for a living. I work in maintenance for a local automotive manufacturing plant and am responsible for fixing machines or modifying machines wether it is mechanical, electrical, Plc programs, servo programs, robocylinder parameters and everything inbetween. If you ever have questions let me know and I will do my very best to help you! Happy to see how interested you are!
Here ya go, I figured out how to do it from my phone. This is a pic from the early stages. All of the outlets you see are all individually controlled by the Plc. I have 64 inputs and 64 outputs that I can use. That should be more than enough to do some cool stuff with. But if I need more I can buy I/O expansion cards for it.
Lol sorry
Lol sorry
yea, well I still have a bag phone!
so I have a serious question.... Instead of monitoring moisture with diodes and flex capacitors, couldn't you just do it with individual scales under the plants? That way you only watered the ones that needed it?
and I mean to hook up the scales to your canooter valve control box.....
so I have a serious question.... Instead of monitoring moisture with diodes and flex capacitors, couldn't you just do it with individual scales under the plants? That way you only watered the ones that needed it?
and I mean to hook up the scales to your canooter valve control box.....
Wow
I bought a Mitsubishi FX-128mr-es/us Plc and a GOT1000 touch panel. It communicates with the Plc through the plcs rs422 programming port. I haven't figured out yet exactly how I'm going to monitor moisture levels yet, but as far as the house goes I allready have some laser sensors to detect when people walk throught a door way I have them arranged so that it knows if you have walked into or out of the room and it turns the lights on accordingly. I will post pics of the setup as soon as I can get back on my computer (on my phone now). Yes, I am well versed with industrial controlls and automation. It's what I do for a living. I work in maintenance for a local automotive manufacturing plant and am responsible for fixing machines or modifying machines wether it is mechanical, electrical, Plc programs, servo programs, robocylinder parameters and everything inbetween. If you ever have questions let me know and I will do my very best to help you! Happy to see how interested you are!
thats so awsome, i picked up some old moeller plc a while back for like 25 bucks, problem is the cable is legacy, and they want like 100 bucks for it now...
i think im going to buy the click plc with the 2 analog inputs at some point. ill definatly have some questions for you big time. id like to be able to integrate a PLC into a fertigation controller im building useing a
EXA DC402, and a Hach GLI 53. id like to be able to have the PLC sorta sequence or interlock the two analyzers outputs, so i could for example ... have the plc hold the PH correction while the DC402 is dosing fertilziers. id also like to be able to like at the push of a button get the plc to dump the tanks,hold the outputs and light up a badass stacklight or something to show an error state. theres actually too much that id like to be able to mess with ...im not sure how much i can do and what have you with 0 experiance programming these things.
the GLI 53 actually has an optional HART communications output for temperature and PH, but i cant seem to find anyway to get that information into a PLC. ill definatly pm you if you dont mind, when i get to assembleing this... i have everything i need just need to finish another project first.
you are going to use some sort of laser/ photo sensor? sounds awsome, but i wonder if you could not just use some of those cheep PIR motion occupancy sensors u can get them for like 25 bucks if i remember right. Idk what they output tho...i bet they just tip over a relay or something.
You could use scales, but you would constantly have to recalibrate when they get water because you would have to account for different things like the plant weighing more as it grows and such. If you just measure the moisture content of the soil the size of the plant does not matter.
Feel free to ask for help anytime,... I will do my best to help ya out!
One word.......... JEALOUS!!!!
Nobody knows how to turn off lights around this house and good God if I had some way of taking care of the plants easier I would love it. I already have two kids à husband and a house to take care of. As well as I don't know how many plants..... Nice hillbilly nice!!!!!!
Nobody knows how to turn off lights around this house and good God if I had some way of taking care of the plants easier I would love it. I already have two kids à husband and a house to take care of. As well as I don't know how many plants..... Nice hillbilly nice!!!!!!
Automated hillbilly... LOL
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