bruster999

Hi. Very nice project. I made a version of the project similar to yours and using your screw file but used an ESP8266 controller and Node-Red to trigger the motor. The code just needed to be able to recieve MQTT messages and turn on/off a relay.When I tried running some alternate dog food (actually it was Cheerios) they just got stuck. Any suggestions? Is there a rule of thumb between the size of the food and the size of the screw auger? Thanks again.B

Very nice!How did you get the plywood to bend like that without soaking or any other softening? Was the wood dry when you clamped it?Thanks.

I don't have a crock pot but I do have a pressure cooker. Think that will work just as well? It has various temp settings including Low.

Very nice design and I love that you did it in TinkerCAD. I use it all the time!Where did you get your coils or did you make them?Bruster

I struggled with that as well. I tried 3D printing an adapter but it didn't hold air very well and I didn't know a garden hose adapter would work so I substituted the 2l bottle with a length of PVC pipe instead. That way you can use PVC for the entire project. See my pics above.

I would caution against using very high pressures as well. You really don't need high pressure as much as air volume. My project (above) uses only 30 lbs of pressure and sends a 3" rubber ball at least 50'. I built mine for my dog though and he just loves to chase that ball! LOL

Thanks! This was a great Instructable, nicely laid out and clearly worded with lots of informative pics. Well done!I was looking for some way to do this a few weeks ago for a water level monitoring device but couldn't find one that didn't require a paid account somewhere so I built one using a raspberry pi. It worked but all I really needed was an ESP8266 so it was overkill. I'll use this next time I need to email from ESP (have you tried it on the ESP32 yet?).

I agree. You need more lumens. I read somewhere that you need about 10,000 lumens/sq ft. Personally I use 8 T5 HO florescent tubes in mine (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00UMZIP5A/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 ) and things grow like mad. They are not expensive, don't give off much heat and energy efficient also.

Thanks so much for this great instructible. I have used your knowledge to create several ESP8266/mqtt based control nodes around my house based off one PiZero. One of the nodes is a motorized blinds control. The command to turn a light on is "Alexa, turn _____ lights on/off" but that's not intuitive for controlling blinds. For the blinds control I have to say "Alexa, turn _____ blinds on/off". Not very natural sounding. Is there a way to change/add control wording so that I can give the command "Alexa, open/close _____ blinds".Thanks again.

That worked perfectly. Thanks for uploading the code! The only change I had to make was adding an auth= parameter to the requests.get command. I must not have security set up right to allow this from a script.

Probably using an absolute path would do the same as changing dirs but whatever works right? LOL. I'm glad you got it working. :-)

Hi Great tutorial. I'm trying to build this but there seems to be an indentation issue with the code in controller.py and since it's Python that detail is very critical. For example, line 33 is an "if" statement so the following lines must be indented but is the "while" statement on line 43 also under the same indentation or does it move back to the same level as the "if"?I can probably guess the indentation needed but would you be able to update the git code by any chance?Thanks again. Great instructable.

Edit ~/echo/echo-master/example-minimal.pyChange the text in quotes: TRIGGERS = {"device": 52000}to whatever you want. I used the following and it worked great TRIGGERS = {"living room lights": 52000}

I had the same problem and ended up putting the startup script in /etc/rc.local but I had to put a short sleep in before launching it for some reason. It would not launch without the sleep:sleep 5/home/pi/scripts/launch_example-minimal.py &

Dear author. This is a nice instructable. It's well documented and lots of photos but part of the IBLE culture is to "instruct" and teach by responding to your readers. If you aren't going to bother responding, especially when users request code, why bother with the IBLE in the first place?

I have mine working and even running a servo. No problems driving the RC522.

Outstanding table and outstanding Instructable!!

Hi,I built a similar hydroponics system with an HC-SR04 to measure the fluid level of the tank that housed the plant roots. It worked great other the level seemed to rise and fall with varying temperature. Even at a constant temp, them measurements were sometimes +/- 1 of the actual level. I tried using an averaging algorithm to even out the numbers but still saw these non-linear values. Anyone have any experience with getting stable and accurate fluid level readings?

Not sure if this is causing your error but notice the double quotes. The first quotes lean to the left, the latter quotes lean to the right. These are "smart quotes" and the IDE doesn't like them. Retype the double quotes and try again. If that fails then provide your entire source code so we can see the whole thing and try it locally.

I believe this is due to the quotation marks not being standard. Try just retyping the double-quotes. Worked for me.

Do you have the correct board selected?

Nice job. :-)

If it is going right when you press left then the motors are reversed. Why only one wheel turns is confusing so I wonder if you have a defective motor driver. I would put Serial.prinln() statements in the code and watch through the serial port what is being receive at the ESP8266.

Nice project. I put it together in about an hour. Has anyone figured out how to get this working in more of a joystick mode where it's easier to steer? This fwd/rev/left/right method is a bit cumbersome to manuver with.

Nice project. I put the basics (no sensors) together in about an hour. Has anyone figured out how to get this working in more of a joystick mode where it's easier to steer? This fwd/rev/left/right method is a bit cumbersome to maneuver with.