The beginning!

Hi all!

This is mostly just a repeat of what I said over at the Arduino forum about my greenhouse automation project. I basically wanted to take some inputs from the physical world and use them to control some conditions and effect the outputs. I originally decided to use a Pi with the project but I turned that into a media center. I therefore decided to give the Arduino a go and I have to say I'm finding it to be a quality piece of kit.

I have myself an Uno and a few components. For the temperature sensor I decided to go with a AD22100STZ. Its quite user friendly, it does all the linearisation on the chip so all I have to use is an equation given by the manufacturer on the data-sheet. I get about 0.2 DegC sensitivity due to the -50 to 150 and 10bit ADC ranges. I have here a quite precise stand alone temperature probe that I am going to carry out some comparison tests with which I will post when I have the results. I may be able to tweak the equation to get better accuracy.

The code is coming along nicely with some variable integer and floats. I am communicating and printing through the serial port. I have some if statements based on my required temperature setpoints which are currently just controlling a digital output which I will soon change to a PWM output to my servomotor which I just need to sort a power supply out for.

The code for anyone interested:

//temperature readout code

int outputpin = 13;
int inputpin = 1;
int inputmemory = 0; //use for the serial read
float tempout = 0;  //use for temperature out
float setpointhigh = 26.00; //high temperature setpoint
float setpointlow = 25.00; //low temperature setpoint

void setup()
{
  Serial.begin(9600);
  pinMode(outputpin, OUTPUT);
}

void loop()

{
  inputmemory = analogRead(inputpin); //read analogue pin on pin 1
  
  tempout = ((inputmemory*(5.0 / 1024))- 1.375) / 0.0225;
  
  Serial.print ("Temperature: ");
  Serial.println(tempout); //print temperature value to serial
 
  Serial.print ("ADC value: ");
  Serial.println(inputmemory); //print ADC value to serial
  
  if (tempout >= setpointhigh) digitalWrite(outputpin, HIGH); //high setpoint
  
  if (tempout <= setpointlow) digitalWrite(outputpin, LOW); //low setpoint
  
  delay(1000); //delay 1 second before next read

}

And some photos:

The boards

Testing a digital output turning on/off when my set points are reached

The code and serial monitor