Project: Demand auto fish feeder with overfeeding limits

BullwinkleII

Outbackozzie wrote:

Is there a 'wait' command? Something that after all the timers are finished, it just waits until it receives an input from the feed lever?

There is a wait, and a sleep, and a pause, and a few others, but I think they put the system into a "do nothing for a bit" mode rather than a "keep an eye out for an interrupt" mode.

Basically, you are asking the wrong person

But I think that's what setint does

http://www.picaxe.com/docs/picaxe_manual2.pdf

page 215

but don't look at that link if you spook easily

its by far the most complex thing I've seen so far in my education.

If anyone following this thread knows anyone else who knows this stuff, can you invite them to drop in and become instant legends

You only have to know 3 or 4 facts to become the most knowledgeable person here

it's a once in a lifetime opportunity

BullwinkleII

I dont think the 8 pin chip supports the setint command, but it seems to work ok just to loop the program and keep checking

I'll write it properly and post some code

BullwinkleII

or not. The axepad software doesnt seem to behave the same way as the windows software in ...

if ... then loops

And my windows system died a few days ago (I was only running it for the PICAXE software.

anyone know how to write in axepad...

if pin1 high then

?

freoboy

Bully if you Manange to design it then your a bloody genius IMO. I'll buy the first one.

What a bout increasing the feed on a linear rate as the fish grow? Probably not worth it I guess

BullwinkleII

Well as it happens, I'm already a genius, but that has nothing to do with this

This stuff is a lot more achievable than I make it out to be. I'm building myself up.

For instance I just worked this out since my last msg.

Code:

Main:
   low 1                           ' sets pin 1 to 0 volts
   low 2                           ' sets pin 2 to 0 volts
   readadc 2, b1               ' reads the voltage from pin 2 and stores it in a variable b1

   if b1 > 0 then high 1    'if the stored value is bigger than nothing, it means I've crossed the wires and I'm send some voltage to pin 2 (this is faking a switch and a fish)
      
pause 500
      low 1
   end if

goto main

end

BullwinkleII

Well as it happens, I'm already a genius, but that has nothing to do with this

This stuff is a lot more achievable than I make it out to be. I'm building myself up.

For instance I just worked this out since my last msg.

Code:

Main:
   low 1                           ' sets pin 1 to 0 volts
   low 2                           ' sets pin 2 to 0 volts
   readadc 2, b1               ' reads the voltage from pin 2 and stores it in a variable b1

   if b1 > 0 then high 1    'if the stored value is bigger than nothing, it means I've      crossed the wires and I'm send some voltage to pin 2 (this is faking a switch and a fish)
      
pause 500  'wait for a bit with the voltage set to high on pin 1 so I can see the red light flash
      low 1 ' turn the red light off - the red light would really be the motor
   end if

goto main ' wait for a lever press and a fish again

end

BullwinkleII

I see everything twice

Privatteer

I'm not familiar with the particular language but something like the below would work in a lot of PLC's.

wait loop
If pin 15=high (goto feed: else goto wait loop)

100 %101 `Wait loop
101 $A15=T {%102:%100}
102 X1=T `Feed

BullwinkleII

freoboy wrote:

Bully if you Manange to design it then your a bloody genius IMO. I'll buy the first one.

What a bout increasing the feed on a linear rate as the fish grow? Probably not worth it I guess

That would be pretty easy to do, but could end in disaster if they didnt grow as per your instructions

But some kind of feed increase (and decrease) is an excellent idea.

I figured we would need a variable that stores ...

FeedsPerDay

and another that stores ...

FeedSize (in seconds of motor use or whatever)

so it would be simple enough to adjust + or - feed size or FeedsPerDay. Probably the safest way to do this would be with a button for + and a button for - , but hide them inside a box so you have to use a paper clip to poke them through a small hole or something. This way your kids or your cat cant accidentally double your dose every day

I can see cats and kids might like it if the fish get all all lazy and floaty. You can see them so much better when they float

Given that its all about your water tests, it would probably be safer to do it manually rather than automatically, but I like the idea, and will work it into the design one way or another.

Thanks for the input.

Keep it coming.

BullwinkleII

Privatteer wrote:

I'm not familiar with the particular language but something like the below would work in a lot of PLC's.

wait loop
If pin 15=high (goto feed: else goto wait loop)

100 %101 `Wait loop
101 $A15=T {%102:%100}
102 X1=T `Feed

is that the english translation?

Do you speak chip in some other brand?

If so would you be willing to translate once I have something up and running? It wont be very big or complex because my brain cant hold much, and doesn't work very well. So it shouldn't be that much of a challenge, but it might be nice to offer this in a different format if you know C or anything else so people don't need to rely on only PICAXE, and can use Arduino or whatever.

I'll be your best friend.

BullwinkleII

Earthbound, can you give me edit privileges so I can fix a few errors, (I cant spell Arduino in previous posts) I understand that msgs should never be deleted, because that makes threads stupid messes, but there are already a few errors that might cause somebody confusion down the track. I'll be good I promise.

BullwinkleII

Ok so I'm now pretty sure I know everything I need to to at least know where to find the bits I dont know.

I'll start the real code tomorrow and post nightly updates when I change anything.

Please, please, please, chip in if you know this stuff and pick a bit to work on, or fix anything I do wrong.

Also anyone who knows PICAXE might like to chime in with a prediction of what chip we might need to use.

It should be not one of the obsolete ones so it has some life left in it, and I dont think it matters that it might cost 3 dollars more.

I'm guessing anyone taking on this project would rather it worked with ease, required the minimum amount of other components, and perhaps even had a bit of room for expansion. Who knows where this will lead.

so ... chip recommendations anyone?

muffettsman

Taking it from a totally different direction in programming terms and K.I.S.S (keeping it simple stupid)

why not have an auto feeder with a pool style skimmer that will skim off slowly uneaten food and monitor temp vs food amount vs fish count = waste (collected in skimmer) and auto adjust accordingly - I could program the logic have no exp with the hardware side ofthings however

BullwinkleII

My feed sinks and I'd loose all my duckweed

But that could be a better solution if those things are not an issue

werdna

You could make a counter with a decade counter.
Every time the button is pressed on the feeder you can program a pulse out of the PIC to the counters clock pin, making it add one.
Every 24 hours you can send a pulse out to the reset pin to reset counting.
If you want to get really fancy you could use a counter and display decoder in one, such as a 4033 IC, so the number of feeds is displayed on a digital readout.
You could also have two displays, one showing yesterdays total feeds before reset and the one counting feeds today.

You can probably program all of this into your PIC chip, but the parts are cheap enough and really easy to wire.

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