Title: SplashBase - Network Controlled Relays, PWM + Add Ons
Post by: SolderSplashLabs on October 23, 2011, 01:51:21 pm
Post by: SolderSplashLabs on October 23, 2011, 01:51:21 pm
Hi,
This is a work in progress ...
My friend Rob needs a light controller for his garden and I wanted to get in to some home automation so we decided to make something for ourselves. With a view to possibly selling the boards later as a development kit.
Instead of having to find a remote control to turn his lights on/off he wanted to be able to use his Android phone. To get this to work we have designed a PCB using a TI Cortex M3, it has a built in ethernet MAC/PHY which means you can get it connected to Ethernet cheaply with few external components. The board has 4 relays, to switch 4 banks of lights on/off and 3 PWM outputs. These are used to control the colour of RGB lights he has around his decking. They also control Ikea Dioders pretty well too!
PCB layout was done with Eagle, whilst laying it out we found a tool called eagleup, which takes the eagle files and imports it into sketchup. Being able to see the board before we ordered the PCBs was great!
Progress so far :
- Board designed, Manufactured by Seeed, Built by us
- Embedded software 90% done, based off of TI examples/stellarisware and using the lwip TCP/ip stack. Grabs an IP from a DHCP server then listens for UDP commands
- PC Client app written in C# finds the SplashLight on the network then lets you control it's relays and provides colour selection for the PWM output.
- Android App about 75% complete - same as the PC app, locates and controls the SplashLight
- iPhone app 20% complete - Controls splashlights relays, leaving this until the rest is complete.
Once the android app is complete were going to put together a video to show it off, then decide if we want to make more of them.
We have given it a name, SplashLight,
[attachment=0]
I've set up a blog for it, can't link to it until I have a few more posts ...
Any feedback, feature suggestions or questions you guys have is welcomed!
Carl.
This is a work in progress ...
My friend Rob needs a light controller for his garden and I wanted to get in to some home automation so we decided to make something for ourselves. With a view to possibly selling the boards later as a development kit.
Instead of having to find a remote control to turn his lights on/off he wanted to be able to use his Android phone. To get this to work we have designed a PCB using a TI Cortex M3, it has a built in ethernet MAC/PHY which means you can get it connected to Ethernet cheaply with few external components. The board has 4 relays, to switch 4 banks of lights on/off and 3 PWM outputs. These are used to control the colour of RGB lights he has around his decking. They also control Ikea Dioders pretty well too!
PCB layout was done with Eagle, whilst laying it out we found a tool called eagleup, which takes the eagle files and imports it into sketchup. Being able to see the board before we ordered the PCBs was great!
Progress so far :
- Board designed, Manufactured by Seeed, Built by us
- Embedded software 90% done, based off of TI examples/stellarisware and using the lwip TCP/ip stack. Grabs an IP from a DHCP server then listens for UDP commands
- PC Client app written in C# finds the SplashLight on the network then lets you control it's relays and provides colour selection for the PWM output.
- Android App about 75% complete - same as the PC app, locates and controls the SplashLight
- iPhone app 20% complete - Controls splashlights relays, leaving this until the rest is complete.
Once the android app is complete were going to put together a video to show it off, then decide if we want to make more of them.
We have given it a name, SplashLight,
[attachment=0]
I've set up a blog for it, can't link to it until I have a few more posts ...
Any feedback, feature suggestions or questions you guys have is welcomed!
Carl.
Title: Re: Network Controlled Relays & 3 channel PWM
Post by: SolderSplashLabs on November 02, 2012, 09:34:42 pm
Post by: SolderSplashLabs on November 02, 2012, 09:34:42 pm
Wow I forgot how long ago we started on this! Many things happened that meant we couldn't work on the project as much as we wanted. But a few months ago we decided to make it more than a hobby and have set up a company with the aim of selling this and future boards.
The SplashLight board has now been split in two to create a separate base board, now called SplashBase, that breaks out all of the ARM cortex M3's GPIO to 2 expansion headers. The Relays now live on a separate board that stacks on top of the SplashBase. Were going to call these add-ons, Solderbridges. Our equivalent to an arduino shield.
All together it looks like this :
The concept is still the same enabling control of your home devices from your smartphone. Each of the relays can be given a name that then appears on the smartphone, the TCP/ip stack uses DHCP and UPNP to make locating it on the network very easy.
Were currently working on making it more of a programmable logic controller so that non programmers can set it up to perform actions when events occur. For instance, if a button is pressed close a relay. Or if the air temperature is above 30deg increase the PWM duty. Which can be set-up on the phone and saved by the SplashBase. This is working now and I'm currently adding more events/testing before I start adding it to the applications. Eventually we want to promote this feature as a way of getting kids interested in programming by showing them it's all just logic!
Looking forward we have plenty of ideas for more SolderBridges, we have just about finished the design for a multichannel 0-10v output. Again allowing control of many 0-10v controlled lighting dimmers over a network. As well as basic ones with buttons and LEDs
Our goal is to be at next years UK maker faire, I've never been, with a project to show it off. Until then we going to try and sell a few on kickstarter as it's just launched in the UK.
The SplashLight board has now been split in two to create a separate base board, now called SplashBase, that breaks out all of the ARM cortex M3's GPIO to 2 expansion headers. The Relays now live on a separate board that stacks on top of the SplashBase. Were going to call these add-ons, Solderbridges. Our equivalent to an arduino shield.
All together it looks like this :
The concept is still the same enabling control of your home devices from your smartphone. Each of the relays can be given a name that then appears on the smartphone, the TCP/ip stack uses DHCP and UPNP to make locating it on the network very easy.
Were currently working on making it more of a programmable logic controller so that non programmers can set it up to perform actions when events occur. For instance, if a button is pressed close a relay. Or if the air temperature is above 30deg increase the PWM duty. Which can be set-up on the phone and saved by the SplashBase. This is working now and I'm currently adding more events/testing before I start adding it to the applications. Eventually we want to promote this feature as a way of getting kids interested in programming by showing them it's all just logic!
Looking forward we have plenty of ideas for more SolderBridges, we have just about finished the design for a multichannel 0-10v output. Again allowing control of many 0-10v controlled lighting dimmers over a network. As well as basic ones with buttons and LEDs
Our goal is to be at next years UK maker faire, I've never been, with a project to show it off. Until then we going to try and sell a few on kickstarter as it's just launched in the UK.
Title: Re: Network Controlled Relays & 3 channel PWM
Post by: SolderSplashLabs on November 23, 2012, 01:15:19 am
Post by: SolderSplashLabs on November 23, 2012, 01:15:19 am
Tomorrow we should receive prototype PCBs for our newly designed SolderBridges. One of the simpler ones is this 32 Channel IO expander. This uses two PCA9555D from NXP, which are 16bit I2C controlled GPIO Ports. Heres how it should look :
We have allowed for up to 4 of these per stack with the I2C address of each set with jumpers. A fairly simple Add on but hopefully useful!
We have allowed for up to 4 of these per stack with the I2C address of each set with jumpers. A fairly simple Add on but hopefully useful!
Title: Re: SplashBase - Network Controlled Relays, PWM + Add Ons
Post by: SolderSplashLabs on November 23, 2012, 01:27:49 am
Post by: SolderSplashLabs on November 23, 2012, 01:27:49 am
Another is a 6 channel 0-10v Analogue output with 6 protected inputs. This one is primary aimed at network enabling control of external lighting dimmers. But has many applications.
Running the board is a Cortex M0 on an SPI bus, or you can use it standalone via USB.
Product page is here : http://www.soldersplash.co.uk/products/ ... derbridge/ (http://www.soldersplash.co.uk/products/0-10v-analogue-output-solderbridge/)
Running the board is a Cortex M0 on an SPI bus, or you can use it standalone via USB.
Product page is here : http://www.soldersplash.co.uk/products/ ... derbridge/ (http://www.soldersplash.co.uk/products/0-10v-analogue-output-solderbridge/)