Endurance is my hobby

Half-ironman, Belgrade 2014

Whole my life I am in a sport. When I was kid I trained karate. In elemental school I trained basketball. At high school sport was my second hobby. The first hobby was drumming. I was drummer in rock and heavy metal bends. During studding I was training long distance running in sport club Hermes. My coach was Bojan Maric. 

When I finished study and back to my hometown Zrenjanin I was continuing with running. Three years ago I tried triathlon. Triathlon is the most interesting hobby for me, but the most complex. In sport I like systematic, discipline and consistent training. This is very hard in triathlon in my case. I don’t have enough time. 

Now I am in sport’s “stand by”. I train a little just for fitness maintain. Last month I fell from a bike. I can’t extend my right arm. Last few years injuries have become problem. I have had problems with my hips and numb right foot during cycling. Now I also have problems with time. I am a fresh father and must do additional job. 

Because of many years in endurance sports I never give up. My best sport days will come. I am planning come back in systematic training. Is this will be running or triathlon depends of life resources. Until come back I am thinking about some adventures. I plan to ride bike from the Zrenjanin to the Brus, hometown of my wife Milica. There is the route about 280km. I plan to use some shortcuts which are go troughs very interesting countryside. I tried it once by a car. This would be one day adventure, from the sunrise to the sunset. If someone wants to join me on this please contact me.

Some of my personal bests:

5km - 16:55

10km - 35:29

half-marathon - 1:17:29

marathon - 2:52

half-ironman - 4:59

ironman – Hope one nice I will finish it. 

Thermography

I use thermal camera very often at my job at the Petroleum Industry of Serbia. I use Fluke Ti55. This is excellent camera. Usually I have made thermal pictures of transformer stations, distribution boards, electric motors and pumps.

How thermal camera works?

Our eyes work by seeing contrast between objects that are illuminated by either the sun or another form of light. This is in the electromagnetic visible spectrum. In terms of frequency, this corresponds to a band in the vicinity of 430 – 770 THz.
Thermal cameras work is by “seeing” heat energy from objects. All matter with a temperature greater than absolute zero emits thermal radiation. Most of the thermal radiation emitted by objects near room temperature is infrared (300 GHz – 430 THz). Thermal camera creates images from infrared thermal radiation. 

Emissivity

Emissivity is a term describing the efficiency with which a material radiates infrared energy. Real-world objects have emissivity values between 0 and 1.00. An emissivity of 0.90 implies that the material is 90% efficient at radiating energy. An emissivity of 0.40 implies that the material radiates only 40% of that which it is capable of radiating.

More about emissivity can be finds here: http://www.optotherm.com/emiss-table.htm

More about thermography will be in future posts.

Pellet burner contoller

Pellet burner controller is the most challenging project that I have worked on. This is the detail describe of it.

Some explanations before I start: 

• Pellet fuels are heating fuels made from compressed biomass.
• Pellet burner is burner which use pellet for fuel.
• Pellet burner controller is an electronic used for manipulating pellet burners.

Pellet burner controller hardware description

On the next two pictures, picture 1 and 2 are represented the front and back of a pellet burner controller.

Picture 1. Front of pellet burner controller

 

Picture 2. Back of pellet burner controller

Parts of pellet burner controller from pictures 1 and 2:

1. Easy TFT Board is 262K RGB colors display with touch panel, ideal for human-to-burner interface.
2. Ethernet MCU card with LM3S9B95 microcontroller, which has a relatively important rolein the whole system.
3. Digital input for photocell and thermostat, and analog input for NTC resistor. NTC resistor is reserved for measuring temperature.
4. 230V AC input and AC output for burner’s fan, igniter and cleaner. The burner’s fan’s use is to insert air into the burner. The power of insertion must be precisely controlled and this is a serious real time purpose for the microcontroller. The burner’s fan is an AC one phase electromotor and it’s work is controlled by a triac. The microcontroller detects every time when a power sine wave goes through zero. When it comes through zero, the microcontroller starts the timer. When the timer stops counting down, the microcontroller sends an impulse to triac. The triac will give at that point a sufficient voltage to the burner’s fan. This is the way how the microcontroller hashes power sine wave, and controls the burner’s fan power. The zero cross interface circuit is my design. Every example of the circuit that I’ve found on the internet, at some point and some way didn’t worked properly. Between the microcontroller and triac is the optotriac. The igniter and cleaner also uses a triac. In those cases, there is used an optotriac with zero cross. The interface between the microcontroller, igniter and cleaner acts like a solid state relay. 
5. 12V or 24V DC input and output for two feeders. Two feeders are a DC electromotor. The interface between the microcontroller and feeders are mosfet transistors and optocouplers. In that PCB region are place for solder interface for DC cleaner. This is a full bridge interface for the DC electromotor which can go forward and backward.
6. 3.3V voltage regulator.
7. The Ethernet Connector Board’s use is to connect the pellet burner controller and the PC. The pellet burner controller is working like a small web server. This is the most practical and effective way to connect the controller and the PC, no matter which operating system does the PC possess. Why should the user always have to go down to the basement for turning the pellet burner on and off? Now the user can control the burner directly from his PC, which eliminates the need for a person to actually be physically present by the burner, and excludes the act of directly interfering with the device. This function is now still under development. 
8. USB connector for 5V power and update microcontroller software with help of USB bootloader.
9. MikroBUS socket for GSM click. The user have an option to control the pellet burner with a simple SMS messages. This function is also still under development.
10. Real time clock with battery.
11. Connector for mikroProg for ARM.
12. Input for temperature sensor DS18S20 and thermocouple. The DS18S20 can be used for measuring water temperature in the system or to measure the room temperature. The thermocouple’s use is to measure smoke temperature. The thermocouple interface is MAX31855K.

Pellet burner controller interface description

On the picture 3 are two options of the main display. The bought options have MENI button in upper left corner. The ‘Time and Date’ info is in the upper right corner. In the green area of the display is shown the burner’s work phase.The ‘T DIMA’ shows temperature of the output smoke. The ‘T AMBIJENTA’ info shows the system water temperature. The red button in the lower right corner is for turning the device on and off. On the left side of picture 3 is a display for an automatic workfucntion. There are two buttons for setting the goal system water temperature. On the right side of picture 3, the display for manual work is visible. There are five buttons available from P1 to P5 for adjusting the burner power. In this case P1 is the lowest power and P5 is the highest power. One note: interface is on Serbian.

Picture 3. Main display, left is automatic work, right manual work

Overall, the pellet burner controller has many functions. Since this document is a short and dense version of the whole concept and idea, additional details, finesses and further elaborations will not be shared on this occasion. Generally all the functions, modes and options will be described in the full version of the included user’s manual. For an additional info, there is something interesting that I would like to mention also; 

• The Chrono-thermostat’s use is for programming the device when it’s automatic mode turns on/off or set to some certain power level. The Chrono-thermostat display is shown on the picture 4. An example from picture 4: the pellet burner will turn on every Monday at 1:30 AM manual work P1.

 

Picture 4. Chrono-thermostat display

• The pellet burner controller has 42 parameters for adjusting operation. The parameters must be adjusted by a servicer, and regular user interference should be totally avoided and excluded in this scenario. For this reason, there is a password protection implemented. After a successfully and correct password entry, the servicer can adjust parameters as needed. Some of the parameter has a test function. The display for password and parameter adjustments is shown on picture 5.

 

Picture 5. Left is display for password, right is display for adjust parameters.

• There are basic functions like adjust time/date and display calibration. The functions for language, adjust GSM and IP address are still under development. On picture 6 
• are shown the ‘main menu’ and the ‘settings menu’.

 

Picture 6. On left side is main menu, on right side is settings menu.

 

Pellet burner controller first version

The first version of the pellet burner controller is working in a pellet factory for more than two years now. It’s embedded in a steel box case. The first version is much more simpler than the latest version. It has PIC microcontroller and 16x2 LCD display. On picture 7 and 8 is the first version of the pellet burner controller.

 

Picture 7. Front side of first version of pellet burner controller

 

Picture 8. Back side of first version of pellet burner controller

ECG click tested

I almost finish ECG  (electrocardiography) click for the “MikroElektronika” company.

More about the “MikeoElektronika” click boards you can find on www.microe.com/click/.

Thanks for the “MikroElektronika” company because they give me chance to show my possibility. 

The first test was success and the ECG click works fine. 

On pictures below are screens shots from ECG click testing. 

On the first picture is EasyMx PRO v7 for Stellaris ARM development board. The add-on board in the upper right corner is ECG click that I designed.

Intelligent system for monitoring electrical power consumption

It was my Master’s Thesis and the first complex project that I have worked on. 
I presented it at the international conference “Eurobrand” in Kladovo in June 2011.

The first part of the system is power analyzer PM500, it is preview at the picture below.

PM500 measures 3-phase currents and voltages and calculates powers (S, P and Q), power factor, THD, maximum demand currents and powers and energy.

Intelligent system for monitoring electrical power consumption has the software for PC. With this software PM500 can be connect to PC. PM500 has RS485 connection port and for connection with PC we need RS485 to USB converter or RS485 to RS232 converter. Software for PC can read all data from PM500, draws it in real time and saves it in file. On pictures below there are screens shots from the software for PC.

Software for PC created in the Lab Windows CVI. 

Intelligent system for monitoring electrical power consumption has embedded system which can be connect to PM500. The embedded system reads data from PM500 and save it in a file at SD card. This file can be read and preview at PC in the previous described software for PC. 

The embedded system has the possibility of adding GSM module which informs users via SMS messages about electrical power consumption. 

Hardware for the embedded system used PICPLC16 v6 from “Mikroelektronika” company. It is preview on the picture below.

If you need more information about intelligent system for monitoring electrical power consumption please contact me.