Showing off the beginnings of my first real-world onion based project. It's a monitor for a mobile sheet metal cutting machine which logs GPS location, vibration/shock, weight of steel, run time, and lengths cut. It also takes a photo of the machine operators via webcam which is sent along with all the sensor data to my webserver for the client to access real time from his head office. Interesting challenge and a steep learning curve! 
It's been a while since the last update but I wanted to show off the cute 3D printed case I designed for my device...
And here's a sneaky cell phone image of one out in the wild looking after monster of a machine...
I've managed to sell the entire first batch of boards - quite happy about that! I'm now busy working on a second generation that adds a few more nifty features as well as correcting a few quirks in the original design. Despite initial concerns and a lot of grey hair, the omega is turning out to be a reliable little device. Thanks again to the community for all the tips and assistance given! Onioneers rock!
6 Complete boards ready for installation in their new homes... thank you Onion for plenty grey hair and much more pride!
I was recently asked if I could add a barcode scanner to one of my IoT machine projects to help capture batch numbers while a manufacturing process runs. I found this awesome little scanner at my local supplier for just under $12.00 and was surprised at the simplcity of the interface and how quickly it all came together in an afternoon. The addition was so quick and painless I thought I would share my experiences with the community!
http://www.chinayoko.com/index.php?m=Product&a=show&id=134&l=en
A simple 3D printed mounting to house the scanner, buzzer and successful scan LED...
A couple of discrete components to level shift and drive the scan control...
And some simple serial port python code...
Now having tons of fun scanning everything within reach to test the prototype!
After 7 months of R & D it's time to put the project into production. Boards arrived today and i am happier than a pig in...
The arduino dock really simplified the design for me and I now have a really awesome little programmable unit with a counter input, 2 analog/4-20ma inputs, 4 digital inputs, 2 fet outputs, RTC, RS485 port and an OLED for good measure.
The smaller piggyback board is ESP12 powered and has 4-20ma input, 2 digital inputs, one output, load cell amplifier, RTC and OLED
I have christened the board "IoT ONE" - hope you onioneers approve!
The prototype that survived it's live test run inside the belly of the machine...
Next step - PCB layout...
From personal experience on my IoT project with the arduino dock 2 and I2C - leave A4 and A5 open circuit on the dock - weird yes but if you add any I/O to them the I2C stops dead in it's tracks. Once you get it working pay attention to the I2C buffer in the arduino - clear it often as it fills up quick and starts responding 0xff to any and every query.
Articles like this one helped me a lot: https://onion.io/2bt-digging-into-i2cget-and-i2cset/
@michael-bourque thanks for that! I left the device alone for a couple of weeks and then updated to b183 - it is now stable and connecting to wifi on it's own like it should. I am not going to use it on my production devices yet though - still need to put it through it's paces but I think all will be ok going forward!
@brolly759 The SMD version was released about 2 weeks after I had designed my boards! :))
Heres the last part of the system I haven't documented: 4 port Pi Zero hub & bareboard 720p cameras. The arduino dock powers all 3 cameras without issue
@Douglas-Kryder It's an adjustable LM2596 power supply module DC/DC BUCK 3A which I purchase from a local supplier for a lot cheaper than the raw LM2596 chip would cost on it's own.
Here's a clearer photo...
@austin-Sandford not entirely. I was able to get it to read and write to RTC but not the eeprom or get temperature. I changed line 25 from i2c-1
ds3231 = SDL_DS3231.SDL_DS3231(1, 0x68)
to i2c-0
ds3231 = SDL_DS3231.SDL_DS3231(0, 0x68)
I use 2 methods:
from result of both I could tell if I needed to call wifimanager to restart. Since b17* it's been stable enough to reconnect itself so I no longer use this and I cache data until I am able to connect again using urllib2.
Taking it to the next level:
This is my travelling demo unit I am working on. I added a Pi driven touch screen to the mix to allow for operator interaction with mysql in the onion via the onion AP, access control granted via a nifty little serial fingerprint scanner (can run on either pi or onion), barcode scanner and a little "closed loop machine demo" which contains 2 servo's and a microswitch that I still need to complete. It's come a long way since the veroboard prototype days!
@James-Seigel I am based in South Africa and buy a lot of the new arrival chips and modules to play with from this company:
https://www.robotics.org.za/YK-E1007
I am not sure if Micro Robotics could ship internationally but sure they can help you locate a local supplier. I ordered one from banggood.com in china but it hasn't been delivered yet after 3 months of waiting
I was recently asked if I could add a barcode scanner to one of my IoT machine projects to help capture batch numbers while a manufacturing process runs. I found this awesome little scanner at my local supplier for just under $12.00 and was surprised at the simplcity of the interface and how quickly it all came together in an afternoon. The addition was so quick and painless I thought I would share my experiences with the community!
http://www.chinayoko.com/index.php?m=Product&a=show&id=134&l=en
A simple 3D printed mounting to house the scanner, buzzer and successful scan LED...
A couple of discrete components to level shift and drive the scan control...
And some simple serial port python code...
Now having tons of fun scanning everything within reach to test the prototype!
From personal experience on my IoT project with the arduino dock 2 and I2C - leave A4 and A5 open circuit on the dock - weird yes but if you add any I/O to them the I2C stops dead in it's tracks. Once you get it working pay attention to the I2C buffer in the arduino - clear it often as it fills up quick and starts responding 0xff to any and every query.
Articles like this one helped me a lot: https://onion.io/2bt-digging-into-i2cget-and-i2cset/
Before going through the hassle of a factory reset and starting again there is another quick and simple way to get your wifi working:
https://docs.onion.io/omega2-docs/first-time-setup-command-line.html
Running the console after that is quite a bit faster
It's been a while since the last update but I wanted to show off the cute 3D printed case I designed for my device...
And here's a sneaky cell phone image of one out in the wild looking after monster of a machine...
I've managed to sell the entire first batch of boards - quite happy about that! I'm now busy working on a second generation that adds a few more nifty features as well as correcting a few quirks in the original design. Despite initial concerns and a lot of grey hair, the omega is turning out to be a reliable little device. Thanks again to the community for all the tips and assistance given! Onioneers rock!