ghostman11
Well-Known Member
i thought i would start a thread where i could post stuff related to my project in one place as several forum members have been kind enough to assist me, i will document and post code and pictures as the project progresses. I hope by doing this others may find the info of use.
first of all some background to what i need to achieve and different phases and goals i am aiming for. I run a rare breed poultry and waterfoul farm, we also farm quail, gease, both common and rare breed pheasent and game birds on top of this we also breed rare birds of prey for wild release under a goverment scheme.
now how we do this at the moment is with many non standard incubators in several out buildings.We are going to house everything in another building now so its all together, the incubators will hold between 50 and 1500 eggs each depending on what we are using them for. our problem is there isnt a comercial product that can cope with the diversity of use we need and to have one custom designed and built is silly money. so i am building the incubators and controll systems myself with some great help from others on here.
Phase one.
phase one goal is to build a straight forward thermostat using a pic that displays temp to a lcd, nothing fancy and pre set in code. this needs to be completed in 2 weeks and is for a proof of concept meeting i have booked.
heating will be by on/off heating element that is same as what you will find in a toaster and is rated 240v 200w, to start with there will probaly be only one in each incubator
phase 2 will be two add an adjustable LCD menu system so that the tempreture and hystasis can be set to any given value. this needs to be complete mid feb. at the end of feb i will need to start using theese as i will be hatching for the game season and i will need bigger capacity than i have at present, so i will need a basic working system while i continue to develop it. i should point out all the testing will be done on a test incubator i have ready to set up wich will have artificial eggs in it, the reason for artificial eggs will be apparent later
Phase3
in phase 3 i need to add more sensors in the smaller units this will be 4 DS18s20's and the larger units will use 6-8 sensors, this is because each egg tray layer needs to be sampled, also in stage 3 i will add forced air, what we use at present and i wish to continue to use is a bank of 3-4 12v fans in each egg layer, exactly like the ones you find in a pc, theese are on when the sensor for that layer is below the set point and switch off when that layer reaches temp, at the mo each layer is has all fans on that layer on or off at the same time, what i want to do is pulse them on and off in diff sequences per layer. phase 3 has yet to be time scale set as each time frame is set at each new meeting. also from phase 3 on the project is likely to change and evolve at it progresses
i will post details of further phases later, please feel free to coment etc. i will post code and pics as i progress
further posts regarding the overall goal and phases i will edit and post in this first post
first of all some background to what i need to achieve and different phases and goals i am aiming for. I run a rare breed poultry and waterfoul farm, we also farm quail, gease, both common and rare breed pheasent and game birds on top of this we also breed rare birds of prey for wild release under a goverment scheme.
now how we do this at the moment is with many non standard incubators in several out buildings.We are going to house everything in another building now so its all together, the incubators will hold between 50 and 1500 eggs each depending on what we are using them for. our problem is there isnt a comercial product that can cope with the diversity of use we need and to have one custom designed and built is silly money. so i am building the incubators and controll systems myself with some great help from others on here.
Phase one.
phase one goal is to build a straight forward thermostat using a pic that displays temp to a lcd, nothing fancy and pre set in code. this needs to be completed in 2 weeks and is for a proof of concept meeting i have booked.
heating will be by on/off heating element that is same as what you will find in a toaster and is rated 240v 200w, to start with there will probaly be only one in each incubator
phase 2 will be two add an adjustable LCD menu system so that the tempreture and hystasis can be set to any given value. this needs to be complete mid feb. at the end of feb i will need to start using theese as i will be hatching for the game season and i will need bigger capacity than i have at present, so i will need a basic working system while i continue to develop it. i should point out all the testing will be done on a test incubator i have ready to set up wich will have artificial eggs in it, the reason for artificial eggs will be apparent later
Phase3
in phase 3 i need to add more sensors in the smaller units this will be 4 DS18s20's and the larger units will use 6-8 sensors, this is because each egg tray layer needs to be sampled, also in stage 3 i will add forced air, what we use at present and i wish to continue to use is a bank of 3-4 12v fans in each egg layer, exactly like the ones you find in a pc, theese are on when the sensor for that layer is below the set point and switch off when that layer reaches temp, at the mo each layer is has all fans on that layer on or off at the same time, what i want to do is pulse them on and off in diff sequences per layer. phase 3 has yet to be time scale set as each time frame is set at each new meeting. also from phase 3 on the project is likely to change and evolve at it progresses
i will post details of further phases later, please feel free to coment etc. i will post code and pics as i progress
further posts regarding the overall goal and phases i will edit and post in this first post
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