Is a Raspberry Pi correct for this project?

Thread Starter

frazelle09

Joined Jun 17, 2014
2
We are building an electronic parabolic solar hot water heater. We hope to be able to sell it one of these days so we'd like to be able to have some sort of temperature tracking to give to the client.

We were thinking of using a Raspi and a digital wire temp sensor and make the recordings on the smart card in the Raspi. Since we are also using a sun seeker circuit to locate the position of the sun and to drive the motor, we thought "Why not try and combine the two, leaving just the LEDs for detection?".

Here is a link to more info on our project, with photos, etc.

http://www.appropedia.org/Parabolic_Solar_Hot_Water_Heater

We were hoping to be able to drive by the client's plant like once a month and d/l the file from the Raspi, take it home, put it up on the web and send the client an email w/the link. This drive-by is sort of necessary bec. here in Mexico we never know if the computer will be on all the time, whether the secretary will come in in the morning, etc., etc. i suppose we could invest in some sort of telephone setup where the phone would call home once a month, but we'd have to set up some sort of yearly maintaince with the client and include these costs, too. Since i'm not very electronically oriented, i'd rather take it a litle bit at a time.

Anyway, any ideas would be helpful and if you need any more info, let us know.

Have a great afternoon! :)
 

mcgyvr

Joined Oct 15, 2009
5,394
well... a "professional" product wouldn't use a raspi just because of the cost alone.

Any couple dollar max. micro should be able to meet your requirements and slap it on its own PCB with any other necessary circuits/components. But nothing wrong with developing the prototype with it I guess.. Personally a PI is a huge overkill for the task.
And I sure wouldn't want to have to spend gas money/time doing simple reporting that could be done by the client if needed through wifi or any other wireless or wired signal.
 

MaxHeadRoom

Joined Jul 18, 2013
28,617
With ref to the wiring and connections, personally I would make it look a little more professional for the final product, get rid of the wire nuts, install a terminal strip etc.
Ensure proper grounding, if mains fed equipment.
Max.
 

Thread Starter

frazelle09

Joined Jun 17, 2014
2
mcgyvr and MaxHeadRoom, thank you for your great comments!

Boy, did i miss that one - proper grounding - duh. Gotta figure that one out. Well, this is more of a prototype, but we still need a ground.

The wire nuts will be replaced as well. Thanks for your reminder.

Gee, you guys are fast.

i'm afraid i'm at a loss as to what a "max. micro" is, much less what components i'd need for a PCB. Maybe something we'd have to farm out, perhaps.

i can somewhat envision an SD card, a clock (so it can read the temp every x minutes), a wireless chip/card, IO for a digital temp wire, a circuit for the the signals from the 2 LEDs and output for the 1 amp motor...

i know what you mean about the gas for simple reporting. Maybe we can set up a system in his/her office which would receive our report and save it and whenever his wifi came up it would connect and send him and us the report.

Wow, again thanks a bunch guys and have a wonderful evening! :)
 

mcgyvr

Joined Oct 15, 2009
5,394
i'm afraid i'm at a loss as to what a "max. micro" is, much less what components i'd need for a PCB. Maybe something we'd have to farm out, perhaps.
Sorry.. that was a bit confusing..
I meant any microcontroller that costs a couple dollars maximum.
 
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