PROJECT PURPOSE
I work for a small company. (under 10 workers).
We often are contracted to install flashing pedestrian crossings, called wombat, koala or school xings. That's always on,
daytime on, or on before and after school / lunchtime using timeclocks. There are also short term temporary crossings for
public events. Existing methods involve deep burying of conduits accross roads, crossing piped infrastucture such as gas,
water, electrical, fiber optics etc. These road xing are risky and time consuming. I'm examining other options. I'm
initially focusing on school xings. Existing systems run on 240 VAC or 42 VAC. I'm designing a 12 VDC system powered by a
very large gell battery at each pole, charged via solar panel or mains. (I'm experienced with using solar charging through
installing remote people and veihcle counters in National Parks from deserts to snow mountains). Communication between
poles would be via a radio link. I'm not a 'company man'. I'm interested in time paid knowlege expansion for self for my
out of work projects, smart house and other things. Unfortunatly I'm seriously chalenged with programing.
PROJECT TO DATE
I'm developing on 'universal' boards I've designed. One with a 20X2 chip, another with 40X2, and another with 8 mosphets for
switching, with on board LEDS and screw connecters. Boards work well. Blanks made in China. I'll post pics of boards soon.
I aim to ultimately make purpose built boards containing everything on board except the radio modules. The setup will be a
Master / Slave setup, one pole being the master. Currently I have two boards talking via a 2.4 GHz NRF24L01 radio link
flashing their lanterns in sink.
NEXT STAGE
I have bought Sparkfun DeadOn Ds3234 real time clock modules for date, day and time of day switching of crossings, chosen
for their accuracy, PCI bus, and all on chip design. (including Crystal). I've had trouble finding posts on these modules.
Any help here would be appreciated. I am about to attempt programming to use these with data sheets and posts I've seen.
Expect to see posts as I encounter enevitable problems.
My thoughts are also with storage of dates for activations. Thinking of Using SD cards with a 'times' chart loaded from a
computer for ease of change. Have thought of sparkfun OpenLog modules. I've vague memories of hearing that it's possible
to use them to retrieve data, and not just log. Does anyone know, or have an alternative SD card module to suggest, or are
SD cards 'too hard'.
I'm hoping this project to be of interest to people with benificial elements for the community, so as to stimulate
discussion. What do you think??
I work for a small company. (under 10 workers).
We often are contracted to install flashing pedestrian crossings, called wombat, koala or school xings. That's always on,
daytime on, or on before and after school / lunchtime using timeclocks. There are also short term temporary crossings for
public events. Existing methods involve deep burying of conduits accross roads, crossing piped infrastucture such as gas,
water, electrical, fiber optics etc. These road xing are risky and time consuming. I'm examining other options. I'm
initially focusing on school xings. Existing systems run on 240 VAC or 42 VAC. I'm designing a 12 VDC system powered by a
very large gell battery at each pole, charged via solar panel or mains. (I'm experienced with using solar charging through
installing remote people and veihcle counters in National Parks from deserts to snow mountains). Communication between
poles would be via a radio link. I'm not a 'company man'. I'm interested in time paid knowlege expansion for self for my
out of work projects, smart house and other things. Unfortunatly I'm seriously chalenged with programing.
PROJECT TO DATE
I'm developing on 'universal' boards I've designed. One with a 20X2 chip, another with 40X2, and another with 8 mosphets for
switching, with on board LEDS and screw connecters. Boards work well. Blanks made in China. I'll post pics of boards soon.
I aim to ultimately make purpose built boards containing everything on board except the radio modules. The setup will be a
Master / Slave setup, one pole being the master. Currently I have two boards talking via a 2.4 GHz NRF24L01 radio link
flashing their lanterns in sink.
NEXT STAGE
I have bought Sparkfun DeadOn Ds3234 real time clock modules for date, day and time of day switching of crossings, chosen
for their accuracy, PCI bus, and all on chip design. (including Crystal). I've had trouble finding posts on these modules.
Any help here would be appreciated. I am about to attempt programming to use these with data sheets and posts I've seen.
Expect to see posts as I encounter enevitable problems.
My thoughts are also with storage of dates for activations. Thinking of Using SD cards with a 'times' chart loaded from a
computer for ease of change. Have thought of sparkfun OpenLog modules. I've vague memories of hearing that it's possible
to use them to retrieve data, and not just log. Does anyone know, or have an alternative SD card module to suggest, or are
SD cards 'too hard'.
I'm hoping this project to be of interest to people with benificial elements for the community, so as to stimulate
discussion. What do you think??