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Flow Control for a beer filling Systems using BS2 — Parallax Forums

Flow Control for a beer filling Systems using BS2

waynelwaynel Posts: 2
edited 2013-02-13 22:47 in BASIC Stamp
Hello All

I have been making beer for many years. If anyone has made beer you soon realise that bottling is an absolute pain.
I have built a 4 bottle filling system using 4 x Omron timers and 4 valves with a diaphragm pump. However, I am struggling getting accurate filling levels.
So I have upgraded buying four hall effect flow meters using them with the solenoid valve and a "counter relay"

I have a BS2 with LCD display and would love to use this but I am struggling to see how the COUNT function will operate on four flow meters, output and switch off each valve when it get to a predetermined point. I have seen a thread for a water flow meter but this seems to poll until it reaches the level. I need to be able to check flow rate and make a decision on if to switch an output, independently for all four flow inputs.

Can anyone shine any light on to this topic?

Kind Regards
Wayne

Comments

  • Mike GreenMike Green Posts: 23,101
    edited 2013-02-13 07:03
    You can't do it with a single Stamp without external hardware like the PWMpal which is no longer available. All of the Stamps are "single threaded" microcontrollers. They do only one thing at a time and you want to monitor 4 flow meters. Even with external hardware, the Stamp is going to have to check one count at a time and make a decision for each valve sequentially. Fortunately, 4 decisions and the valve control can be done fast enough to appear to be simultaneous, but the counting cannot since that takes significant time to do.

    This would be easy to do with either multiple microprocessors, one for each flow meter and valve, or something like the Propeller which has multiple processors internally and each with its own independent counters.
  • ercoerco Posts: 20,257
    edited 2013-02-13 15:55
    How fast are the signals you are counting? If slow, a BS2 might be up to tne job, but per Mike, you can't use the count command.

    What a fine and noble project: beer! Happy to help if the signal rate is low enough. But I might need a product sample... :)
  • garyggaryg Posts: 420
    edited 2013-02-13 22:47
    Hi
    While I don't want to discourage your path of flow control for your beer filling application,
    I would like to suggest that you might want to consider a different type of sensor.
    Way back in time, I designed a system that weighed adhesive and filled a bucket.
    The bucket would gravity feed adhesive to the adhesive applicator.

    If your beer bottles are of a consistent weight, you may be able to weigh the amount of beer going into your bottles.

    Since it's been many years since I did my adhesive application, I'm not exactly remembering the details, but
    I had extreme accuracy when filling my adhesive pots.

    You may want do do some research involving the Parallax Flexiforce Sensor Kit.

    AND

    Another thing to consider is cutting off the bottom of a bottle and setting the bottle up to pump until the bottle is overflowing.
    The overflowing bottle could trigger a drain valve that would put exactly the contents of the bottle into the bottle that you are attempting to fill.


    That's my 2 cents worth.
    I hope that your project ends up working well.
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