My multimeter had it’s batteries die. Probably because I don’t give it enough love and attention. It’s like a delicate rose. Made of abs, but delicate…
Right. I got batteries, put them in, state testing continuity. It logs like everything was good, but it was late and I was tired. I think more testing is in order. I’ll poke around some more, maybe try hooking everything up again, but with a voltage divider.
Cat cardboard bed
As a sidenote, I did this for Reese with some waste cardboard:
It worked fairly well, lots of Elmer’s glue, a couple screws, and some jute rope. She appears to like it, but as always, improvement is iterative.
First, I want to get the cardboard to a more consistent size. While variation is okay vertically, horizontal variation is a hassle when mounting. This might be my next die cutter project. Milling cardboard isn’t hard, but my workmanship left something to be desired.
Next, the final binding is pretty janky. (I just had to add janky to my phone’s dictionary.) I pre glued five rough cut pieces of cardboard together at a time then did a terrible final trim.to finish, I used more cardboard to make a wrap a couple layers thick of long strips of cardboard. These strips were glued and held in place with sewing pins. This was finished with the aforementioned screws acting as anchors for the jute to be wrapped around and tightened up. Next time, if I die cut the cardboard, with anchor holes going through ask the layers. This way I could bring it all together with the mess. I think a solid wood outer would be preferable as well.
Luckily for me the Wif liked it so much, I’ll probably get the chance to do it again.
Continuity
Maybe I should check for continuity first, before I get all it will never work. If I’m missing the connection or shorting pins, that could be the problem as well. I’m thinking this as:
1. I was rocking right about 46 out of 1023, except when physical action occurred
2. I assume that going over the 1v max should have given a measurement in the 1023 range, or if something burnt out, there should have been no variation
3. At 80 Fahrenheit, the voltage should have been 750mv (ish) which is below the 1v max
Right. That’s what I’ll check tonight. I think I need to dial back on the it will never work, and add more I’m doing this.
Closer
Headers on Thing. Check.
Connected through wifi and post data to Sparkfun for test. Check.
Hookup TMP36. Check.
Find out the Thing caps at 1v for the only analog pin. Check…
Tomorrow. Get data going in local via node.js.
Hookup (BME280?) And post data.
Profit.
Wiring
So I got home last night, and copied and pasted directly. Nope. Still crap output. Do I have the power going wrong? Switches Vin and Ground. Burned my fingers. Stitched them back. No change on crap output. Yanked all the jumpers and started fresh.
So that’s where I had gone wrong. It turns out that given three wires I still managed to hook them up wrong.
So. Step one. Start using multiple colors of wire. Jumpers to soldered in place. I need to do this.
Two. If in doubt, check the wires. Now, I just need to solder on headers to one of the Things, so I can start getting my remote temperature logging on.
Temperature
So I’ve been trying to decide if the reading I was getting with the (BME280?) was right. The temperature stays a consistent near 80f next to my computer, which while it seemed plausible, it was a little too content for my taste.
To get independent verification, I found that I had a short stack of TMP36s, looked up a data sheet and… ugggg. The reading is staying consistent. Somewhere my math is shit though. Right before I went to bed, I did look up the tutorial from Adafruit, but just looking at their math, I was doing roughly the same thing and getting crap results. I think it’ll be copy and paste from their examples tonight.
Cooling
So I finished reading my book on brewing beer. This gave me a better idea of the of flavors I got and why (as well as now I can tell the flavors when I drink professional beer). The important thing is, at least next to my computer, it looks like I’m pushing about eighty degrees continuously. Admittedly, these numbers might be of, so I’m going to try a few other tests to make sure everything is working to spec.
Unfortunately, eighty degrees yields tannins and esters that just aren’t great in beer, so I need to chill things. I’m thinking either a mini fridge and hack the shit out of it, or… make cooling jacket driven by a peltier element. I need to run some numbers though.
On other notes, I still need to design beer boxes. Making these based on a 12×18 sheet of paper isn’t easy do far. I might give that a try again tonight.
Bottle Boxes
So baseline dimensions, this being based on the bottle I grabbed from the box:
With cap – 9″ tall, 2.375″ diameter
I have stock that’s 12×18, I’ll probably want a minimum lip of 1″
Right. Tomorrow night then.
Some progress
Had a whole stack of cardboard. I sliced it down, roughly faced it, and glued five pieces together at a time. Last night I roughly cut each “board” down to the same length. Tonight I’ll build a box around it, and possibly start dremmeling in some contour.
Once the kitteh’s scratcher is done, it’ll finally be terrorarium time. I now have a glass cutter, so I should be able to get right on it. I need to start slow though, as I really don’t want a lot of broken glass running around the house. I don’t think that’s very conducive to a happy marriage…
Right
I want to vent. Just deleted three long paragraphs.