Ever wonder how long PICAXE projects can last?

papaof2

Senior Member
I built a PICAXE-based fan controller for an A/V cabinet in September 2006 to keep the then-new 26" LCD TV cool. I had the project on one of my websites and it was featured by Hacked Gadgets in 2007
I have had to replace the fan (and the original A/V cabinet, as the current TV is 50") but almost 14 years later the simple PICAXE project on a piece of perfboard is still cooling things (primarily the cable TV DVR) in an A/V cabinet. Does anyone track the longevity of PICAXE projects?
 

lbenson

Senior Member
papaof2--your water detection circuit from along about 2007 (I think for a daughter's house) was one of my earliest picaxe inspirations. Now that my 11-year-lasting 3-AA blinker has run down I no longer have any really aged (in PICAXE years) active projects--a bunch of temperature sensors from 6-8 years ago.

My rivercam pan and tilt 08M from 2009 is still working, though I have disabled public access to the pan and tilt part (because people were leaving the camera pointing to the mildewed corner of the window the camera is mounted in).


I have to adjust the pan and tilt after a power outage. That picaxe is dead-bug wired to fit into a router case. If it were accessible I might re-program it to remember where it had been pointed, but if it ain't (too badly) broke, don't fix it.
 

geezer88

Senior Member
Back in 2011 I build an accelerometer for my home built aircraft. I don't have the plane anymore, but I still have the accelerometer and it still works. It uses an 18M and a two line LCD to implement a digital and analog reading. Calibration is done use good old natural gravity. A single push button controls it. I must confess I've forgotten how to access the various functions with the single button.
tom
 

papaof2

Senior Member
It does help to write up the "how to" somewhere with your projects ;-) After more than 850 months on this planet, I've learned that having good comments in software source code and findable notes about "how things work" are both very useful ;-)
 

Buzby

Senior Member
A more interesting question is "How long has an uncompleted project been languishing on your to-do list ?"

Mine is the Life machine.


I was building a case, but cracked the perspex front panel. Never got round to fixing it.

Cheers,

Buzby
 

bpowell

Senior Member
I've got 2 PICAXE talking to each other via 433 MHZ radio for about 9 years now....a 20x2 in the pump-house, monitoring temperatures and well pump status, and a 08M in the house, connected to an LCD and LEDs that receives the message and displays temperatures, pump status, etc...if I recall, I used 254 of the 255 available bytes on that receiver program!
 

tiscando

Senior Member
I have a 20x2, 28x1, 18m2 and 2x 14m2's on stripboard circuits running a central heating thermostat and 3 bar rainwater pump controller 24/7 for 7 years - no faults at all. I also have raspberry Pis running 24/7 for a few years, but I had to reinstall the OS on all of them once a year to keep them running. I've been using PICAXEs for 12 years, and all chip failures are my fault (overvoltage / short circuits / ESD) :)
 

amdunn

New Member
My first 08M project has been operating the crossing lights and gates on my model train layout since 2001, and my second surviving 08M project that detects when the track switches have been routed towards the removable swing bridge and the bridge has been opened has been preventing me running trains off the open edge where the bridge should be since 2005. They've since been joined by an assortment of 28X / 14M2 / 18M2+ boards doing a variety of other things and a series of model train signalling modules that I'm actively developing to this day.
 

myst

New Member
Running 24/7. I have a 08M and a 18B20 temp sensor attached to the shower hot water supply pipe (in the water heater cupboard) running a bathroom extractor fan since 2002. Its now in it second home.
Monitors the water temperature until it drops to certain temperature (then assumes the shower has stopped) then running the fan for 20 minutes.
 

inglewoodpete

Senior Member
Running 24/7. I have a 08M and a 18B20 temp sensor attached to the shower hot water supply pipe (in the water heater cupboard) running a bathroom extractor fan since 2002. Its now in it second home.
Monitors the water temperature until it drops to certain temperature (then assumes the shower has stopped) then running the fan for 20 minutes.
I must use this principle for a future project for my daughter's bathroom. If the hot water pipe remains hot for more than xx minutes, an alarm will sound and not stop until the pipe cools down.:rolleyes:
 

Captain Haddock

Senior Member
I built a circuit in 2012 (may have been earlier)following someone from here's pattern (Matherp I think it was) that used an 08m2 to read from a 4 channel i2c op-amp connected to thermocouples, take a reading from an 18b20 for cold junction value and lookup the conversion table from an i2c eprom and display temperatures on an i2c glcd display, originally I used it to monitor water pipe temps but since 2015 it has been on a boat monitoring raw water pump and stern gland temps, never missed a beat other than when the thermocouple connector was under water from a split water tank, considering sea going boats with big old engines are a pretty rough environment for electronics I recon it's pretty good going.
All credit goes to original circuit/program designer as I wouldn't have know where to start myself.
 
Top