• About Me
  • Contact
The Inventor's Workshop Ryan's blog of making awesome things

Tag Archives: Analytics Lounge

CNC Beer Part 3 – Fusion 360 and Waterjet Overkill

February 21, 2016 5:12 pm / Ryan

Waterjet cut box and panel insert
[Go back to Part 2…]

I had a plan for how to blog about this project, but I’m going to step out of order and talk about the latest development since it pertains to the last Fusion 360 Meetup. So to catch up in a hurry: I’ve already constructed a control box containing an Arduino Mega 2560 and a Raspberry Pi, power supplies, relays, etc. all mounted on DIN rails. This is the “brains” of the system, and the Pi runs an open source control framework called EPICS. The control box sits on a separate stand on wheels that I welded. In keeping with the “Beer Church” theme, I suppose this is the “Beer Pulpit”.

Beer control box and stand
I realized early on that the control box was out of room. I want this brewing system to be modular so that I can attach different equipment and reconfigure everything via software. To that end, each device needs to connect to the control box with its own sturdy, detachable connector. The original BrewTroller project (which isn’t online anymore) made use of XLR jacks. These are ideal. Nearly every device I’m interfacing with uses 3 or, in some cases, 2 wires. The OneWire serial bus, which is used for measuring temperatures, uses a 3 pin M12 connector; these are chained together using splitters. A few use cases need more than 3 wires: multiple pressure transducers on one board (used for fluid level sensors) and stepper motor drivers (used for controlling gas needle valves). For these, I’m using 8 pin mic connectors. But I don’t have enough panel space on the control box for all of these jacks, especially now that I’m considering adding a small touch screen. Nor do I have room inside the control box to mount a 120 V to 24 V transformer; 24 VAC is a HVAC standard, and the propane burner valves need it.

Read More →

Posted in: Projects / Tagged: Analytics Lounge, beer, CNC, Fusion 360, PS:One, waterjet

Recent Posts

  • CNC Beer Part 3 – Fusion 360 and Waterjet Overkill
  • CNC Beer Part 2 – System Design
  • CNC Beer Part 1 – Overview and Theory
  • 3D Printed Smallpipes – Part 1
  • Liquid Nitrogen – Part 1

Blogroll

  • Pumping Station: One
  • Rampant – Elizabeth Koprucki's Blog
  • Ryan's GitHub Repositories

Archives

  • February 2016
  • December 2015
  • December 2014
  • June 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • July 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013

Categories

  • Classes
  • Projects
  • Trips

Tags

3D printing Analytics Lounge beer blacksmithing chillmon CNC Eagle CAD EDX electronics Fusion 360 guitar Harp Laser liquid nitrogen Lockpicking machining Nuclear Tourism PS:One Sector67 SEM smallpipes Steampunk TOOOL tube amp waterjet

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org
© Copyright 2023 - The Inventor's Workshop
Infinity Theme by DesignCoral / WordPress