Newbie look for major help

[Andy932]

No im not a complete idiot i can build things i just want abit of help. I want to know how i can give u guys a system design that i create and for i guys to tell if its going to work or not but how do u give u guys a system layout of what. Im not the best at spelling and all i want is abit of help im sick of being in a shitty lil town and every time i go looking for help i get shut down. Fuck im not doing this to make money its a fucking hobbie so i shouldnt have to put up with dicks that want to suck every last cent out of u. And as im not working i dont have alot to spend on getting sumone to do it for me and frankly id rather do it myself anyway. All i need is a lil help. Sorry im frustrated atm. There r so many ppls out there doing it and iv got to be stuck in n outback town without any electronics groups close by

[IanB]

What you are trying to do is really hard. I'm pretty capable when it comes to engineering and technology but I would hesitate to take on such a project. There are loads of things I would have to research and read up on and experiment with before I would have a clue how to do it.

I'm sorry, but difficult problems don't have easy answers.

[Andy932]

The major part im having problems with is programming the controllers. I have no one willing to guide me on how or wat to program these things in and books r not helping becuse u can program these dam things in about a million diff ways. I have basicly learnt every simple  sample thing in almost every programming langue. But im now stuck on where to go from there becuse u just cant put many diff example together and they just work. I need sumone to explain how it all fits together.

[miceuz]

Are you aware of this Arduino PID library?

https://github.com/br3ttb/Arduino-PID-Library

There is a great in detail explanation how it works: http://brettbeauregard.com/blog/2011/04/improving-the-beginners-pid-introduction/

[miceuz]

On the subjects of home AC units and temperature control, maybe someone could clue me in on a detail?
So I don't get it. How does PID control apply to home AC units?

I've implemented a PID controller for clay firing furnace that has a relay on/off input only. I chose my control signal to be the time the relay is kept on. Something like 100% output signal corresponds to 10 seconds of keeping AC output on. You can do the same for home heating control, just take 100% to be, say 5 minutes.

Another possible solution is to implement phase shift power control similar to light dimmers.

[Andy932]

Im thinking of programming the UNO in pure c. Or is there sumthing easier to program it with. Id rather try learn c as it can be used with other micro controllers . The other problems im having is yes iv designed the hardware but now will the software let me do wat i want with the hardware. Wat program's can i use to do a schematic or block diagram for you guys to see.

[IanB]

I've implemented a PID controller for clay firing furnace that has a relay on/off input only. I chose my control signal to be the time the relay is kept on. Something like 100% output signal corresponds to 10 seconds of keeping AC output on.

Yes, with an electric furnace you can do the PWM thing as you say. You can make 100% correspond to having the relay on continuously, 0% the relay off continuously, and 50% having the relay on for 5 seconds, off for 5 seconds, with all variations in between. As long as you don't wear out the relay contacts...

With home heating and air conditioning it's more difficult. For instance once you switch the furnace or AC compressor on, you must allow it to run for a reasonable time before switching it off again. So that limits the shortest on time of your PWM. And once you switch it off, you ought to let it remain off for a certain time before switching it on again. Rapid cycling is bad. It's best if you have a system specifically designed for variable control rather than on/off control.

[Andy932]

The pid system i want to build needs to have a cooling off and warming up setting for the compressor so that the compressor does not turn off and on to fast and it also needs to have a restart delay for the compressor in the event of a quick black out the compressor wont restart untill its cooled

[Psi]

Have you chosen a AC unit to use yet?
If it doesn't have all the fancy refrigerant valves and other controls it will be much easier.

[Andy932]

Yer i have and its a basic wall box with a electronic control panel that easy to hack. Now all i want to do is replace the control system with one of my own that i can interface with

[Psi]

I mean, is it a simple on/off heating/cooling one?


If so then you have no problem. Just start wiring up the micro to the control box until you can turn each function on/off from the micro and read the temp sensors

[Andy932]

U must have missed one of the posts its not as easy as just on and off it needs to also have sum time delays so its not turning the compressor on and off to quick. Compressors hate being switched on under a half or even full load

[M0BSW]

I know nothing about this stuff  I don't even know what pid is, anyway . I want to learn how to program PIC, the way I'm doing that is to copy a program and then alter it and see what happens, my sister law designs and makes programs for nestle, and has given me a few basic programs, to alter and play with, I'm getting there many brick walls, what I'm saying is get on with it, long as you  copy the program, not change the original , what's the worst that can happen, , you'll just have to start over.

[Andy932]

Iv tryed changing a pre built program but nothing works to start with. How can i use stuff that dont work in the first place. If i found sumthing that work i could easly change it to do want i want. If anyone has a pid programed in c for UNO then let me know.

[Psi]

U must have missed one of the posts its not as easy as just on and off it needs to also have sum time delays so its not turning the compressor on and off to quick. Compressors hate being switched on under a half or even full load

na, I saw that mentioned.  Time delays is easy, just add a counter and check it before changing state.
So the compressor is always on for Xmin or longer and always off for Xmin or longer.

[M0BSW]

Cricky wish I could help, I'm just learning a pic program for a frequency counter I've built, Im lucky my sister in law will debug it and show me where I went wrong later today.

[Shock]

Ok going to make this pretty simple. I'm a hardware man and not a software guy and I'm looking for someone to help on programming a micro controller. I live in the middle of know where and have hit a million dead ends looking for someone that will help/ teach me to program. And don't say get books because they all leave me more confused then ever if i get stuck because i got no one to help explain it. Its starting to drive me mental because i have a few projects id love to do but can not do them without micro controllers. Any help would be great and even better if we can pm about it. I have skype. Thanks to anyone that maybe able to help I've done that but im looking to control more advanced things I already have done basic ardunio stuff but I'm stuck on how to setup a pid controller with the ardunio UNO although the arduino is a good start, the newbiehack tutorials are in C, this will be of more use to you down the track than the arduino approach I've already blinked a led and combined examples im just want help in geting a pid up and running then modify it. I get the basics of a pid controller i just need a push in the right direction on getting the dam thing to do wat i want . O and ps like i said in the begging i want sumone to teach me not just give me examples and leave me to work it out myself. Which i cant do as iv try and gone mental over it. Iv program the ardunio in c aswell just for more info for u guys I'm wanting to hack a smart airconditioning unit to be also controlled by a UNO and controlled by a PC over Ethernet, while still allowing the AC to operate independently if required of the unit. i want it to have a network interface so i can link it to a pc and control it but also still be able to manually control it as a normal ac unit aswell. If u think it can be done without a pod then let me know. The part im stuck at is wat i can and cant do with the softwhere so i can finish off the hardware side. Most of the modern wall box units use a microcontroler with a pid wich control relays there pretty easy hack but i need help in programming a controller for my needs Wat do u program in and wat controllers r u using Well wats the best way for me to give u guys a design layout. And i cant spell so yer. I need to make up a design layout and the. For sumone to tell me if it can be done No im not a complete idiot i can build things i just want abit of help. I want to know how i can give u guys a system design that i create and for i guys to tell if its going to work or not but how do u give u guys a system layout of what. Im not the best at spelling and all i want is abit of help im sick of being in a shitty lil town and every time i go looking for help i get shut down. Fuck im not doing this to make money its a fucking hobbie so i shouldnt have to put up with dicks that want to suck every last cent out of u. And as im not working i dont have alot to spend on getting sumone to do it for me and frankly id rather do it myself anyway. All i need is a lil help. Sorry im frustrated atm. There r so many ppls out there doing it and iv got to be stuck in n outback town without any electronics groups close by The major part im having problems with is programming the controllers. I have no one willing to guide me on how or wat to program these things in and books r not helping becuse u can program these dam things in about a million diff ways. I have basicly learnt every simple  sample thing in almost every programming langue. But im now stuck on where to go from there becuse u just cant put many diff example together and they just work. I need sumone to explain how it all fits together. I'm thinking of programming the UNO in pure c, or is there something easier to program it with? Id rather try learn c as it can be used with other micro controllers . The other problems im having is yes iv designed the hardware but now will the software let me do wat i want with the hardware. What program's can i use to do a schematic or block diagram for you guys to see. The pid system i want to build needs to have a cooling off and warming up setting for the compressor so that the compressor does not turn off and on to fast and it also needs to have a restart delay for the compressor in the event of a quick black out the compressor wont restart untill its cooled Yer i have and its a basic wall box with a electronic control panel that easy to hack. Now all i want to do is replace the control system with one of my own that i can interface with U must have missed one of the posts its not as easy as just on and off it needs to also have sum time delays so its not turning the compressor on and off to quick. Compressors hate being switched on under a half or even full load Iv tryed changing a pre built program but nothing works to start with. How can i use stuff that dont work in the first place. If i found sumthing that work i could easly change it to do want i want. If anyone has a pid programed in c before on a UNO, then please let me know a good place to start.

To make a schematic/flow/block diagram you can simply use any editor such as MSpaint.  But check this out http://www.asciiflow.com/#Draw
Click on export once you made one.  To format it correctly in the forum wrap these BBcodes before and after the diagram [code] and [/code] and you will get:

Code: [Select]

+-----------------------+         +-----------------------+        +-----------------------+
|                       |         |                       |        |                       |
|   drawing an ascii    +--------->  flow diagram is an   +-------->   addictive way of    |
|                       |         |                       |        |                       |
+----------^------------+         +-----------------------+        +------------+----------+
           |                                                                    |
           +--------------------------------------------------------------------+


[Andy932]

Thanks but i think i will just draw a block layout and a schematic of a controller iv pre built but havnt been able to program yet.

[MrAureliusR]

Man I'm really confused. You have your hardware all set up already? Like you've got everything wired up, it's just your MCU that's not programmed? I don't understand how you're stuck -- you know exactly what you want it to do, and I'm sorry but there will definitely be some reading involved -- I don't understand how a simple Google search won't answer your questions. If you want to have this up and running without any reading of books, then throw the whole thing in the garbage because nobody on here got anywhere without reading LOTS and lots of books. And watching thousands of hours of videos, to boot. You can't learn it all (or even a little bit) without lots of reading. If you find a book on programming an Arduino or whatever you're using in C, and read the entire book from front to back (assuming you've picked a halfway decent one) then you should know exactly what you need to do, and if the book hasn't shown you how to do it you will at least know exactly where to look to figure out how to do it.

I'm just really having a hard time understanding what your problem is.