Introduction: CigarSaver
Hello, my name is Thibault D'Haese and i am a student at Howest Kortrijk. I'm currently in my first year of Multimedia and Communication Technology.
At the end of the year we had to make an IoT-project. For this project I came up with the idea to make a humidor that sends all its measured data to a website. For my device i chose an obvious name, CigarSaver.
Below you can read all the necessary steps that I've had to go through in order to bring the project to a succesfull outcome.
Step 1: Components and Materials
For my project I used a lot of different components to be able to bring everything to a good end. The components that i used are listed below. The total cost for this project was around €233.
Components:
- Raspberry Pi 4 model B
- Raspberry Pi power supply
- Raspberry Pi T-cobbler
- 32GB micro SD card
- Breadboard
- Temperature Sensor ~ DS18B20
- Humidity Sensor ~ DHT11
- Magnetic door switch
- 5K Resistors
- LCD 16x2
- Stepper motor ~ 28BYJ-48
- ULN2003 Driver
- Active buzzer
- Female to Female jumper wires
- Male to Male jumper wires
- Female to Male jumper wires
Materials:
- Wood
- Plexiglass
- Door handle
Tools:
- Industrial wood saw
- Electric saw
- Electric screwdriver
- Soldering Iron
- Drill
In the excel file below you can see the complete price list of all my materials.
Step 2: Database
After i figured out every component, I started to create a entity relationship diagram.
With my database you are able to see:
- The current value if the door is open or not
- When the door has been opened
- History of the temperature and the current temperature
- History of the humidity percentage and the current humidity percentage
I hosted my Database on my RPi using MariaDB.
Step 3: Creating Fritzing Scheme
After everything was figured out, it was time to put together my hardware. First i did this virtually with the computer so i could not do anything wrong which could cause a short circuit.
For creating this scheme i used the program fritzing.
Step 4: Assembling the Hardware
Once my fritzing scheme was finished and I was satisfied with it, I started putting together my hardware. I started with my temperature and humidity sensor. I did that because the sensors looked the easiest to me. The door sensor was the last thing i did of the sensors because it still had to be delivered.
After the sensors were done, I did my LCD. This wasn't that hard anymore because I have switched and encoded it already in the past.
The last step was to connect my actuators. The first actuator I connected was my buzzer. Once I succeeded I switched to the last actuator, namely, my stepper motor
You can find my code on github.
Step 5: Design Mobile First Website
In order to be able to display all the data measured by my sensors i decided to make a design in Adobe XD which I will later convert to an actual website. Through the website you can also control the humidity percentage of the humidor.
Step 6: Building the Case
Then it was time to make my enclosure. For my materials I went to the Brico and bought wood an plexiglass. I made the outside of my box from wood that i had cut by a carpenter. On the inside I put my plexiglass so you can easily see the electronic components if something went wrong.
My code can be found on github right here.