Sunday, June 13, 2010

Making monsters

This morning I had the kids draw monsters for me. Then we cut them out of fabric an while they're "napping" I sewed them up.
My 3.5 yo son drew a big slug. He wanted his monster to be like Roz from Monsters Inc.
My 5 yo daughter drew something simple.

Here are some pictures of the outcome.

Saturday, June 12, 2010

The Kegerator

I'm starting something mildly ambitious for my first real Arduino project. I'll be making a temperature controller for a chest freezer. The net effect will be to be able to switch the freezer on and off based on a "Set temp."

The controller will consist of the following:
  • A temp probe
  • An LCD to show the current and set temperatures
  • Up and Down buttons to set the temp
  • A massive 5vdc/400ma driven 240V/30A relay
  • An Arduino boot-loaded AVR ATMega328
Eventually, I intend to add a lid switch to detect an open lid, an alarm to tell you when the temp is X degrees too high and another temp sensor in the tower to switch on a fan to keep the lines cool when the tower gets too warm.

Pictures and code can be found here:
http://kegeratorcontroller.blogspot.com/