User talk:Adrian

9-11-16

Sensor Developments, V.48 Sensor Board, Bluetooth, Bee Counter

I have been involved with a number of emergent monitoring technologies of late; Paul (with some contributions) has designed a prototype V.48 sensor interface circuit board including Bluetooth low energy. It is a combination Pi sensor board with four channel load cell A/D and familiar connectors and a breakaway Bluetoooth communications & processor module that, once programmed may be broken off and deployed in a number of sensor configurations. The V.48 development board has a lot of potential, it even has provisions a I2S precision digital microphone.

I have been tinkering with optical bee counter sensors for awhile, I believe we have a circuit that will work while not consuming too much battery power. The intent is to use an array of IR gap sensors to discern the direction and number of bees leaving and entering the hive with reasonable precision (+/-5%). A single gate prototype has been made now I need to the assistance from a PCB designer to lay out the components. I have a design and have selected components.

A Cautionary Note; As we install sensors in close proximity to bees it's anticipated that there will be some impact, not purely physical but electrical and optical. The degree of behavioral impact is not quantifiable at this point. There is ongoing research that may one day provide greater insight. It is my educated projection that the impacts are small given the very low voltages, currents and emissions we are dealing with. In designing we should consider reasonable efforts to shield the bees from contact from emissions, it's not practical to shield bees from all potentials.

On another note, I am excited to learn of David Hawa's plastic scale frame, I think it holds great promise if it can be produced cost effectively.

I hope we can employ a better means to communicate our work and support others. I have established a Google mail forum but it's not rolled out, I'd like to test it before committing, you can reach me at NapaOgden at Gmail dot com. Assistance in this and others areas is always welcome.

And finally a big Thank You, Paul for the circuit work, David for the scale frame, all unspecified efforts and Ryan for the Hive Control GUI [1].

Adrian

VB Code Development

Paul here: Awesome! Beautiful frame. It looks like the sides bolt together but I assume there is some welding?

Are you using the code from the Visual Basic 6.0 link on the Phidget website? In the archive there is PhidgetBridgeExamples that I think might produce Bridge-full.exe?

From the code it looks like some sliders where you can set the gain, offset, etc? I assume you have that working?

I guess I need to get access to a Window machine. Hmm - but I don't have the phidget board ... If I have a Windows box, can I remotely access your machine with the phidet? Like remote desktop? Sorry, I haven't done any windows development in about 12 years.

Can you please describe exactly what you want VB to do and maybe post part of what you have done?