October 2014 - esologic

Ten days ago I finished installing the third ever instance of the PiPlanter in a lab in the physics department at my college! I went with the the rack mounted design as I did this past summer, and am going to be growing Basil, Cilantro and Parsley as opposed to tomatoes. Here are some photos of the new setup:

There are a few major changes that come with this new instance. The first and foremost being the addition of LED grow lights. I’ll post a new version of the code with LED routines included when I think it’s polished enough. The second difference is that a tray of soil is being used as the growth medium for the plants as opposed to pots of soil. This will more than likely be the configuration I use moving forward. The final difference is the actual type of plants being grown. I’m moving away from tomatoes because there will be nothing to pollinate the flowers in the winter as well as the fact that I cook a lot and it will be neat to have spices that I can use on a day to day basis.

The first 10 days of growth has gone well. Here’s a video of them growing so far:

Thanks for reading!

Hey! This post was written a long time ago, but I'm leaving it up on the off-chance it may help someone. Proceed with caution. It may not be a good idea to blindly integrate this code or work into your project, but instead use it as a starting point.

The CANSPI board is a nice integration of the MCP2515 CAN Bus Controller and the MCP2551 CAN Bus Transceiver. To interface with these boards I’m using an Arduino Nano and the Seeed Studio CAN Bus Shield Library.

Here are some photos of the configuration, including the switch position on the CANSPI being used:

The wiring diagram goes as follows:

Arduino / CANSPI

D13 - SCK  (P4)
D12 - MISO (P5)
D11 - MOSI (P6)

D10 - CS
D02 - INT
VCC - RST

5v  - VCC
GND - GND

Arduino / CANSPI

D13 - SCK (P4)

D12 - MISO (P5)

D11 - MOSI (P6)

D10 - CS

D02 - INT

VCC - RST

5v - VCC

GND - GND

There are two parts of Arduino code, the sender and the receiver. The following code sends a sample piece of CAN data. Attach a potentiometer to A0, and twist it to see the differences in data in the receive code:

//Send CAN data

#include <mcp_can.h>
#include <SPI.h>

MCP_CAN CAN(10);                                      // Set CS to pin 10

void setup()
{
    Serial.begin(115200);

START_INIT:

    if(CAN_OK == CAN.begin(CAN_500KBPS))                   // init can bus : baudrate = 500k
    {
        Serial.println("CAN BUS Shield init ok!");
    }
    else
    {
        Serial.println("CAN BUS Shield init fail");
        Serial.println("Init CAN BUS Shield again");
        delay(100);
        goto START_INIT;
    }
}

void loop() {
    // send data:  id = 0x00, standrad flame, data len = 8, stmp: data buf

    unsigned char stmp[8] = {map(analogRead(0),0,1024,0,255), 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7};

    CAN.sendMsgBuf(0x00, 0, 8, stmp);
    delay(100);                       // send data per 100ms
}

//Send CAN data

#include <mcp_can.h>

#include <SPI.h>

MCP_CAN CAN(10); // Set CS to pin 10

void setup()

{

Serial.begin(115200);

START_INIT:

if(CAN_OK == CAN.begin(CAN_500KBPS)) // init can bus : baudrate = 500k

{

Serial.println("CAN BUS Shield init ok!");

}

else

{

Serial.println("CAN BUS Shield init fail");

Serial.println("Init CAN BUS Shield again");

delay(100);

goto START_INIT;

}

void loop() {

// send data: id = 0x00, standrad flame, data len = 8, stmp: data buf

unsigned char stmp[8] = {map(analogRead(0),0,1024,0,255), 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7};

CAN.sendMsgBuf(0x00, 0, 8, stmp);

delay(100); // send data per 100ms

}

The following prints all CAN data received to the serial monitor:

//Receive CAN data

#include <SPI.h>
#include "mcp_can.h"

unsigned char Flag_Recv = 0;
unsigned char len = 0;
unsigned char buf[8];
char str[20];

MCP_CAN CAN(10);                                            // Set CS to pin 10

void setup()
{
    Serial.begin(115200);

START_INIT:

    if(CAN_OK == CAN.begin(CAN_500KBPS))                   // init can bus : baudrate = 500k
    {
        Serial.println("CAN BUS Shield init ok!");
    }
    else
    {
        Serial.println("CAN BUS Shield init fail");
        Serial.println("Init CAN BUS Shield again");
        delay(100);
        goto START_INIT;
    }
}

void loop()
{
    if(CAN_MSGAVAIL == CAN.checkReceive())            // check if data coming
    {
        CAN.readMsgBuf(&len, buf);    // read data,  len: data length, buf: data buf

        Serial.print("ID: ");

        Serial.print(CAN.getCanId());

       Serial.print(" / ");

        for(int i = 0; i<len; i++)    // print the data
        {
            Serial.print(buf[i]);
            Serial.print(",");
        }
        Serial.println();
    }
}

//Receive CAN data

#include <SPI.h>

#include "mcp_can.h"

unsigned char Flag_Recv = 0;

unsigned char len = 0;

unsigned char buf[8];

char str[20];

MCP_CAN CAN(10); // Set CS to pin 10

void setup()

{

Serial.begin(115200);

START_INIT:

if(CAN_OK == CAN.begin(CAN_500KBPS)) // init can bus : baudrate = 500k

{

Serial.println("CAN BUS Shield init ok!");

}

else

{

Serial.println("CAN BUS Shield init fail");

Serial.println("Init CAN BUS Shield again");

delay(100);

goto START_INIT;

}

void loop()

{

if(CAN_MSGAVAIL == CAN.checkReceive()) // check if data coming

{

CAN.readMsgBuf(&len, buf); // read data, len: data length, buf: data buf

Serial.print("ID: ");

Serial.print(CAN.getCanId());

Serial.print(" / ");

for(int i = 0; i<len; i++) // print the data

{

Serial.print(buf[i]);

Serial.print(",");

}

Serial.println();

}

Twist the potentiometer and see the change in data to see that it’s all working:

Thanks for reading!

esologic

Month: October 2014

PiPlanter 2 | Installing a 3rd Instance of the PiPlanter

PiPlanter 2 | Interfacing a Mikroelektronika CANSPI and an Arduino