29 January 2018 - RC Lawn Mower

This project has been on the back burner for some time.  I have been slowly acquiring parts for this project.  I recently picked up a TDX SP wheel chair.  It has 4 pole DC motors with wheels.

30-31 October 2016 - FireStick

Ended up getting an amazon firestick.  That type of tech is extremely handy to have while traveling.

I have an "older" 42 plasma tv(non smart tv).  I bought an Amazon Firestick for when I travel.  I installed it on the 42" tv and was very impressed with the added functionality the Firestick adds to the TV.

Sprinkler Upgrade

I am considering adding a rain sensor to the sprinkler system.  I have a Rainbird RS-1 sensor.  The hardware version of the controller I have does not have a sensor connection so I will need to see what I can do to install A rain sensor.

Gutter Gadget

Had to work on the gutters and downspouts last weekend.  One of the downspouts that is next to the sprinkler valve box was leaking.  I ended up replacing a 30 foot section of downspouts.  Two of the ten foot sections had leaks in the lengthwise seam of the downspout.  Replaced those two pieces and then ended up replacing the connection from the roof downspout to the ground downspout.  Sealed all the connections and that took care of the leaks.

In the process of doing all this replacement/repairs I discovered that I need to clean the roof gutters.  I had some pvc pipe and connections left over from working on the sprinkler manifold project. I used those pieces to make a gutter sprayer/washer/cleaner.

Here is the tool already put together.

This end connects to the garden hose.  It consists of a garden hose to 3/4" adapter, a small piece of 3/4" pvc pipe, and a 3/4" to 1" adapter.

This is the water nozzle.  It is a 1" pvc cap with 8 holes drilled in it and angled to create a nozzle pattern that will hopefully allow for easy cleaning of the gutter.

This end is the part that will be partially in the gutter and the nozzle will direct the water/debris down the length of the gutter into a downspout.

I was thinking that it would be convenient if the Gutter Gadget could also be used to vacuume the gutters.  I would need a pvc fitting/adapter to fit the vacuume hose to the 1" pvc.  The attachment would be a screw on type.

Sprinkler Project

Couple of weeks ago the sprinkler manifold developed leaks

This is what it looked like after removing the sprinkler box, and removing some dirt.  I have already replaced the Tee fitting for the water line in as that was one of the leaks.

The red circle shows one of the leaks.  That leak was a major leak.  The Tee fitting was not properly glued, the water pressure pushed the pipe out.  Fortunately I found the water cutoff valve and turned it off before the Tee fitting completely failed.

The Tee joint failure is much easier to see.  Looks like a different type of glue was used.

Here is the second leak.  The leak is between the valve body and the adapter fitting.  The valve body was loose with no way to properly tighten the fitting since all the fittings were glued in.

After clearing away some of the dirt I could get a better idea of the manifold / plumbing layout.  I used the garden hose and a wet/dry vac to uncover things.  This method seemed to be the quickest way to remove the dirt.  

The manifold completely uncovered.  Looks like zone 2 was worked on but then capped.

 

At this Tee joint I found a major leak, so I removed the piece of tube since it wasn't glued properly and glued it with the correct type of glue.  That Tee fitting started leaking at the main inlet so I eventually turned off the water supply and completely removed the manifold.

Here is a drawing I made to figure out the layout of the sprinkler system.

This is a diagram of what I will be installing.  The manifold will be a hand built unit, not a prefab.  There will be unions for each of the zones and the water valve to make future manifold repairs easier.

This is just after removing the old manifold.

This is replacement manifold.  I was plotting and planning my next moves so I put the piece in place to get some ideas.

Here the replacement manifold is installed.  The zones are from left to right 1 thru 4.  On the incoming side of the manifold, zone 1 still has a small leak so I will tighten that fitting.  On the output side of the manifold, zones 1 and 3 do not leak.   Today I will check zone 2 for leaks.  If all goes well I will wire the manifold to the controller today.

Here is a pic of the sprinkler box installed.

The controller with the old wires still connected to the zones.  The controller was a kit that I purchased online from the opensprinkler website.

This is the wiring using Rainbird's color code for the zones.

This image shows the color code for the zone wiring that I will be using.

As of now, Zone 1 has a small leak on the output side of the manifold.  Zone 2 has a leak on the input side of the manifold.  Zones 1 - 3 have been tested for just a few minutes to check for leaks in the plumbing from the manifold to the zones and so for they look good.  So tomorrow I will work on those problems and then I will adjust the valve body solenoids of each zone to make sure they work properly with the controller.

The manifold has been adjusted about as much as I think I can adjust it.  I installed a sprinkler box over the manifold.  The cutouts on the sprinkler box line up good but there is extra space above the spinkler lines.  I ended up using silicone rtv to "glue" the pieces that were cut out, and make patches out of them to help keep the dirt out.  I wired all the zones to the controller and tested the connections.  All zone work, but I really don't like using silicone encapsulated wire nuts.  Its working for now but I think I will just get rid of those and solder the wires and then use the wire nuts more as covers/protection.

While testing the zones I discovered that zone 2 the back yard has a damaged sprinkler.  It will need to be replaced!  A couple of other sprinklers in zone 2 need to be either replaced or adjusted as their watering patterns don't look like they should.

This is what it looks like inside.  I used wire nuts to secure the connections.  But I will probably end up re-doing those with something better, maybe grease caps or the secure quick connectors that have grease in them.

Ended up having to replace a sprinkler in zone 2, it was a 42sa.  The sprinkler was damaged and whenever it would pop up, water came out of everywhere instead of just the nozzle.  I completely replaced the unit and the supply connection.  I removed the soil around the damaged sprinkler, then cut off the elbow and glued a replacement elbow, then installed a riser to get the sprinkler height lined up with the lawn.

After looking at the 42sa sprinkler it looks like I can just replace the internals of the sprinkler without having to dig it out of the ground.  The sprinkler has a screw on type top.  So it can be unscrewed and the damaged part can be removed and replaced.  I have another 42sa that needs replacing so I will try that type of replacement.

Replaced the 42sa sprinkler in zone 3.  The rotating mechanism was damaged and would not move.  Rather than dig up the entire unit I just uncovered enough to grip it and unscrew the top to remove the internals.  Installed new components and it worked like it should.

This is the type of grease fille caps that I used to waterproof the solenoid connections

Here is a pic of the interior of the valve box.  The manifold is a bit dirty.  It rained earlier in the week and this filled up completely with water!!!

The cause of this filling up with water was due to a number of leaks in the gutter downspouts near the valve box.  I ended up replacing all the downspouts and sealing the connections.

Here is a closer look at the grease caps used.  I added silicone grease to fill the remaining gaps in the caps to make sure the connections were better protected

This is the grease I used to fill the grease caps.  The grease that was already in the caps didn't seem like there was enough so used this stuff to top off the caps.

ATTINY85 RGB light upgrade Vers. 2 - Christmas wreath

In a previous post I put together an LED RGB circuit to replace the incandescent multicolor unit.  It worked pretty well but was not bright enough.

Here is the entire test circuit, but its only using 5 volts just to test the design.

This version of the circuit uses transistors to drive the leds.  Using the transistors allows the use of high power leds(brighter!).  The circuit works, so the next step is to actually use the high power RGB led and see how bright it will be.  The LED is a 4 pin Super Flux RGB led(R50RGB-F-0160).

This is the schematic for the project.

Here is the code for the ATTiny85:
 ==================================================
//ATtiny85 RGB Color Fader
//
// change 100 to a lower value for quicker color cycling

const int redPin = 2;
const int grnPin = 1;
const int bluPin = 0;
const int sensor = 3;

void setup()
{
  pinMode(redPin, OUTPUT);   
  pinMode(grnPin, OUTPUT);   
  pinMode(bluPin, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(sensor, INPUT);
}

void loop() {
  if (analogRead(sensor) <= 200)
  {
    redtoyellow();
    yellowtogreen();
    greentocyan();
    cyantoblue();
    bluetomagenta();
    magentatored();
  }
  else if (analogRead(sensor) >= 201)
  {
    digitalWrite(redPin, LOW);
    digitalWrite(grnPin, LOW);
    digitalWrite(bluPin, LOW);
  }
}

void redtoyellow()
{
  digitalWrite(redPin, HIGH);
  digitalWrite(bluPin, LOW);

  // fade up green
  for(byte i=1; i<100; i++) {
    byte on  = i;
    byte off = 100-on;
    for( byte a=0; a<100; a++ ) {
      digitalWrite(grnPin, HIGH);
      delayMicroseconds(on);
      digitalWrite(grnPin, LOW);
      delayMicroseconds(off);
    }
  }
}

void yellowtogreen()
{
  digitalWrite(grnPin, HIGH);
  digitalWrite(bluPin, LOW);

  // fade down red
  for(byte i=1; i<100; i++) {
    byte on  = 100-i;
    byte off = i;
    for( byte a=0; a<100; a++ ) {
      digitalWrite(redPin, HIGH);
      delayMicroseconds(on);
      digitalWrite(redPin, LOW);
      delayMicroseconds(off);
    }
  }
}

void greentocyan()
{
  digitalWrite(grnPin, HIGH);
  digitalWrite(redPin, LOW);

  // fade up blue
  for(byte i=1; i<100; i++) {
    byte on  = i;
    byte off = 100-on;
    for( byte a=0; a<100; a++ ) {
      digitalWrite(bluPin, HIGH);
      delayMicroseconds(on);
      digitalWrite(bluPin, LOW);
      delayMicroseconds(off);
    }
  }
}

void cyantoblue()
{
  digitalWrite(bluPin, HIGH);
  digitalWrite(redPin, LOW);

  // fade down green
  for(byte i=1; i<100; i++) {
    byte on  = 100-i;
    byte off = i;
    for( byte a=0; a<100; a++ ) {
      digitalWrite(grnPin, HIGH);
      delayMicroseconds(on);
      digitalWrite(grnPin, LOW);
      delayMicroseconds(off);
    }
  }
}


void bluetomagenta()
{
  digitalWrite(bluPin, HIGH);
  digitalWrite(grnPin, LOW);

  // fade up red
  for(byte i=1; i<100; i++) {
    byte on  = i;
    byte off = 100-on;
    for( byte a=0; a<100; a++ ) {
      digitalWrite(redPin, HIGH);
      delayMicroseconds(on);
      digitalWrite(redPin, LOW);
      delayMicroseconds(off);
    }
  }
}

void magentatored()
{
  digitalWrite(redPin, HIGH);
  digitalWrite(grnPin, LOW);

  // fade down blue
  for(byte i=1; i<100; i++) {
    byte on  = 100-i;
    byte off = i;
    for( byte a=0; a<100; a++ ) {
      digitalWrite(bluPin, HIGH);
      delayMicroseconds(on);
      digitalWrite(bluPin, LOW);
      delayMicroseconds(off);
    }
  }
}


===============================================

ATTINY85 RGB light upgrade Vers. 1 - Christmas wreath

During the holidays a christmas wreath decoration that has flickering lights failed.  I opened it up and found that the light bulb was blown and the motor that controls the multi colored light wheel was no longer working either.

Light and color wheel with motor

 
So I thought that I replace the faulty hardware with the attiny85 and an rgb led.  Well it worked, it just wasn't bright enough.

 

Even though the leds were mounted on a board just above the fiber optic bundle, the light was still not bright enough.  There were only three leds, 1 red, 1 blue and 1 green.



The wreath uses fiber optic strands bundled together to display the colors from the lighting.

 

I have a working circuit and a breadboarded circuit installed that works but it is too dim.  So I am working on putting more leds in the circuit to see how much more light that will provide.  Started using a DipTrace to create schematics and pcbs.

Here is the schematic used for the project, this is a Diptrace screenshot.

  The learning curve is much easier than EagleCad.  So I think I will focus on using Diptrace and but use EagleCad as needed.