The Paint Flow Control Project and the Satellite Comm Project, July 2, 2017

Here I am with my wife Heide's painting in the background

Paint Flow Control Project: 
No order has been forthcoming from the Chinese painting facility for additional controllers but I did get the go-ahead to build three controllers from Thomas Nguyen of VividInc (VividInc). Thomas will use them at Vivid for in-house systems, painting projects for their customers. Vivid provides various industrial coating for many customers in their Santa Clara, CA facility.

Vivid will purchase the expensive parts including the paint flow meter equipment, the pumps and the I/P transducers for controlling the pumps. The flow meter consists of the flow sensor, a spur gear positive displacement sensor and the AW Lake MX9000 flow display unit (MX9000) which we have employed in the systems delivered to the Chinese facility. The I/P transducer is an Omega IP 610 (Omega IP610) that we can control with the Beaglebone Black microcomputer and my Analog board as in previous control systems. I am purchasing the Beaglebone Black micros (BBB), the LCD's (4D Systems LCD), the bare Real-Time-Clock and Analog boards from OSH Park (OSH Park) and the components for the the boards. To get a highly stable clock module, I am using the DS3231 from AdaFruit (DS3231) on my Real-Time-Clock board. OSH Park has provided other boards for me and their boards have always been first-class and reasonably priced. In addition, OSH Park software is compatible with my Kicad (Kicad) designs, making the ordering simple. My Analog board uses the PWM output from the Beaglebone Black board, low-pass filtering the PWM signal and converting to a 0-20mA signal to drive the I/P converter.

The Python code with my Fuzzy Logic control algorithm has worked perfectly in the Chinese facility. No modifications have been required or seemed useful. So I am simply duplicating the code for these new systems.

I ordered the various parts, mostly from Digikey (Digikey), Mouser (Mouser) and MCM Electronics (MCM Electronics) and have begun assembling them into the enclosure. I redesigned the enclosure, actually an L-Bracket, and ordered three from Protocase (Protocase). Protocase promptly manufactured and delivered them perfectly according to my design. I made a slight mistake on the hole positions for the LCD's but was able to elongate the holes a little to make the LCD's fit satisfactorily. Here are photos of a partly assembled unit, lacking the AW MX9000 flow meter display and the Omega IP610 converter that haven't yet arrived.

Front view of partially assembled controller unit.

Rear view of partially assembled controller unit.

I plan to get Noemi Fortes to assemble the controller units including loading the Analog and Real-Time-Clock printed circuit boards. Noemi is an old colleague from my days at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and always does perfect work.

So far I have assembled the Real-Time-Clock boards and loaded the software on the BBB boards, All seems well so far and hopefully the LCD's and MX9000's will arrive soon. Then I will get the parts to Noemi to assemble the three systems.

Update on Satellite Communication Project for the LLNL Smart Sampler Systems:
I finished developing the code for the Smart Samplers (Smart Sampler) in mid-March. Steve Hunter of LLNL found and repaired a couple of errors in my code, installed the code in one of the SS's and was able to get it working over the satellite system. I reported on this in my last post and so will not repeat the description. The LLNL Project Leader, Charles Carrigan, was happy that the system worked so well but wanted to add several signals, some controls and some monitoring. Steve provided me an updated list of signals and I added code to implement the additions, providing new code to Steve by the end of March. Also Mike Saltsman (Mike Saltsman) of Purestream Technology provided a new web browser code. At first the updated systems seemed to work just fine but some glitches have shown up since then and Steve is trying to work them out. Steve thinks the problems are timing related with the satellite modem. Hopefully he will be able to work out the problems with Mike's help.

That's all for now.
John